Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2015-07-28 Parks & Recreation Summary MinutesAPPROVED 1 2 3 4 MINUTES 5 PARKS & RECREATION COMMISSION 6 REGULAR MEETING 7 July 28, 2015 8 CITY HALL 9 250 Hamilton Avenue 10 Palo Alto, California 11 12 Commissioners Present: Stacey Ashlund, Deirdre Crommie, Jennifer Hetterly, Abbie 13 Knopper, Ed Lauing, Pat Markevitch, Keith Reckdahl 14 Commissioners Absent: Stacey Ashlund, Keith Reckdahl 15 Others Present: Eric Filseth, Council Liaison 16 Staff Present: John Aiken, Daren Anderson, Catherine Bourquin, Rob de Geus, Peter 17 Jensen 18 I. ROLL CALL CONDUCTED BY: Catherine Bourquin 19 20 II. AGENDA CHANGES, REQUESTS, and DELETIONS: 21 22 Rob de Geus: I emailed the Commission earlier today about the time's not accurate on 23 here. Both the Avenidas project and Junior Museum project could last up to an hour. 24 They're big projects. Staff and the consultants have done a lot of work, so I don't want to 25 limit them to 30 minutes. 26 27 III. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS: 28 29 Vice Chair Markevitch: I have one speaker, Gabriel Lewis. You have 3 minutes. 30 31 Gabriel Lewis: My name's Gabriel Lewis. I'm an intern at the Sierra Club and at the 32 Audubon Society. I'm working with Shani Kleinhaus, who a lot of you might know. I 33 have a degree in economics, and I was raised in Palo Alto, and I'm working at a stats 34 institute at Stanford while I apply to a Ph.D. That's where I'm coming from. I'm here to 35 comment on Palo Alto's trees, specifically on how we choose which ones to plant and 36 how we care for them. Shani had me look at Palo Alto's Urban Forest Master Plan which 37 is still being written, as I understand it. Looking at the current draft, a few things worried 38 Approved Minutes 1 APPROVED her and worried me both as an economist and as an environmentally conscious citizen. 39 The first thing that worried me was just a number, 46,888. That's the number of dollars 40 that Palo Alto's trees supposedly are costing the City because of a reduction of air quality 41 according to a report from the Davey Resource Company in 2010. Supposedly this is 42 because trees are emitting what are called volatile organic compounds which react in the 43 atmosphere to create ozone, which is considered a pollutant when near the ground. If this 44 sounds familiar, it's because it's one of the things that Ronald Reagan talked about in the 45 '80s to say that trees cause pollution. As an economist, I was astonished that they could 46 report this number without a hint of uncertainty down to $8. Few real world analyses are 47 that certain. As an ecologically minded person, I was also bothered that they used this 48 number to justify not planting oak trees and some other trees as well. The problem there 49 is that oaks are keystone species in California. In California they create entire 50 ecosystems that sustain birds, squirrels, butterflies, bees and a lot of other important 51 creatures. I thought it would be bad enough to miss the forest for all the trees, worse to 52 miss the trees for all the VOCs. I looked into the scientific literature behind these claims, 53 and I wrote a white paper on it, which I can present to any of you if you're interested. I'd 54 like to summarize it briefly. First, what are volatile organic compounds? They're 55 nothing scary. The smell of pine, mint, eucalyptus, those are all VOC emissions from 56 trees or plants. These can create ozone when they react with human-made pollutants, 57 oxides of nitrogen in the atmosphere. The estimates of the amount of detriment that 58 comes from this process, they have to be created through these very complex 59 mathematically models. I looked into these models, and it turns out that the 60 measurements upon which they are predicated and the models themselves contain a huge 61 amount of uncertainty. I can't emphasize that enough. Stephen Hawking has called those 62 kinds of models the great unsolved problems of science. There's still more uncertainty in 63 whether these VOCs are actually causing harm once they've been emitted. I found that 64 there's considerable reason to believe that these effects on ozone are completely 65 overstated and likely to be negligible in Palo Alto. These trees are pretty likely to be 66 reducing ozone regardless of whether they're oaks. The point is I talked to Palo Alto's 67 forester yesterday. He also seemed to agree that these VOCs should not be part of the 68 consideration for which trees we plant, which ones do we water. In general, the benefits 69 to human beings and the ecological values far outweigh these VOCs. There's a similar 70 point to be made for carbon sequestration. I didn't do a formal analysis of that, but most 71 trees are sequestering about the same amount of carbon. I was also bothered by the fact 72 that the amount of carbon sequestered seemed to be an important factor in the analysis 73 when in reality the relative difference between an oak and (inaudible) carbon 74 sequestration is minimal and shouldn't be considered. Again, it's these ecological values 75 which I don't think I should have to summarize here that are more important. I'd like to 76 thank you all for your time. 77 78 Approved Minutes 2 APPROVED IV. BUSINESS: 79 80 1. Approval of Draft Minutes from the Special Meeting of June 23, 2015. 81 82 Approval of the draft June 23, 2015 Minutes was moved by Commissioner Lauing and 83 seconded by Commissioner Hetterly. Passed 4-0 84 85 2. Avenidas Capital Project Study Session. 86 87 Rob de Geus: Are you going to start this off, James? 88 89 James Winstead: (inaudible) get ready. 90 91 Mr. de Geus: Just to introduce a little bit here. This is James Winstead, and we also have 92 Lisa Hendrickson in the audience somewhere. They're going to provide a presentation on 93 the Avenidas project, the exciting campaign that they're undergoing. The City, of course, 94 has a long history and partnership with Avenidas. Most of you know Lisa; she was the 95 Executive Director for a long time at Avenidas and now is leading the campaign to help 96 rebuild the City building. With that, I'll pass it to James. 97 98 Mr. Winstead: Specifically, what we're here to present is the interface on the park side 99 with Cogswell Park and how the improvements relate there. Let me step back and orient 100 you guys around the project. The proposal is to renovate the existing building and add an 101 addition on. It consists of three pieces. There's the historic fire station from 1927 which 102 faces on Bryant Street. That's probably what you think of most as you drive by. There's 103 a cottage building in the back, referred to as the garden shed building, that was built in 104 the '50s. This portion of the building was added on in the 1970s when Avenidas took 105 occupation of the building. The proposed improvements to the building are to renovate 106 the fire station portion, but leaving it intact as a historic structure; keeping the garden 107 shed building outside, but repurposing it as a community activity space; and an addition 108 over this portion of the building that was the 1970s improvements. Site improvements. 109 Around the site, improving and refreshing the landscape, plantings, etc. There's a 110 courtyard that has existing trees, and then improvement of the courtyard for the use of the 111 people there. About here on the building, at the third floor, there's an outdoor terrace 112 with views over Downtown and the Stanford campus. To specifically address the 113 improvements happening along the park side of the project, we're proposing that we 114 would be replacing up to approximately the work line of the existing curb block here, not 115 anticipating to disturb that at all. All of the existing park beyond would remain intact, no 116 impact at all. Planting up to the back of the walk here. We're proposing to add bicycle 117 parking on the street for ten bicycles. As you come down the building face here, there's a 118 service entry into the kitchen component of the cafeteria. We're proposing to add 119 evergreen hedge screening and probably a structured fence to obscure views to recycling 120 Approved Minutes 3 APPROVED bins and such that are stored out there. As you work your way down here, outside the 121 cafeteria which is being remodeled as part of the building renovation, we're proposing to 122 expand the paving here. We have (inaudible) comparing the existing condition to the 123 proposed condition to create more of an outdoor space to connect the activities inside the 124 Avenidas Center to the park, provide some more outdoor seating there. Specifically the 125 improvements would be keeping most of the sidewalk intact, replacing the paving with 126 probably interlocking pavers, holding up the grade underneath this existing tree with a 127 low retaining wall. It's only going to be about 12 or 18 inches high; the grade difference 128 is not that extreme. We'll be keeping the existing lights as part of the planting 129 improvements around there. Putting in some evergreen hedge screening between the 130 parking lot and the seating area, so you're not sitting there looking at license plates. A 131 short presentation, but that's really it. The implications on the park we feel are pretty 132 minor. As I said, we're working pretty much just up to this walk line, and everything 133 outside there is to be as it is. 134 135 Commissioner Hetterly: Can you show us on the diagram where is the park boundary? 136 Where's the property line? 137 138 Mr. Winstead: I believe it's a shared property. It's all City property. 139 140 Kevin Jones: There's no defined property line between the Avenidas (crosstalk) park. 141 142 Commissioner Hetterly: The park is dedicated parkland. Is the building on the dedicated 143 parkland? The whole building isn't. 144 145 Lisa Hendrickson: Immediately adjacent to, it buts up against the park. 146 147 Mr. Jones: The land under the building is not zoned park. 148 149 Ms. Hendrickson: It's not zoned park. 150 151 Commissioner Hetterly: The park goes all the way up to the building? Thank you. 152 153 Vice Chair Markevitch: Thank you for that brief presentation. We'll start with 154 Commissioner questions. I'm going to do something interesting on this, because Jennifer 155 said she had a number of them, but I bet if we let her go first, she'll probably ask a lot of 156 questions that we all have. Take it away, Jennifer. I'm sorry. I know there's a lot of 157 questions on the building design and parking and all that. If you have questions 158 regarding that, that's okay. Keep them brief. Our purview is the park itself and the effect 159 it would have on it. If you do have questions about the design or traffic, that's fine, just 160 keep them brief. 161 162 Approved Minutes 4 APPROVED Commissioner Hetterly: That was my big question. It's really exciting that Avenidas is 163 looking at expanding facilities. You guys provide an invaluable service to the 164 community. Obviously we all know that demand for that is increasing over time. It's 165 very sensible to plan ahead to meet that future need. I'm happy about that. I do have 166 some concerns about the proposal. I'm afraid they do touch on some of the things that 167 Chair Markevitch asked me not to talk too much about. I'll be brief. Presumably the 168 Architectural Review Board and the Historic Resources Board is going to get into the 169 nitty gritty of the design. I wanted to give my sense as a layperson, my perspective of the 170 design of the new building. It seems to me completely incompatible with the existing 171 historic building. I'd rather not see that new building design even right next to the old 172 building, let alone integrated as much as it is. As far as the direct impact on the plaza and 173 the park, I'm a little concerned about that huge wall that you see on page 8. That's a 174 general view where you're sitting in the plaza, and you look over and what you see is a 175 giant blank wall with no visual appeal to allow you to enjoy it very much. I think maybe 176 an earlier plan had a lot more glass. That wall is maybe to replace the glass. I'm not sure 177 what the history of that is. I'm a little concerned about that wall. I'd like to have 178 something more visually appealing for the park users. Building aesthetics, though they're 179 not our purview on this Commission, they define our community landscape for decades. 180 They really matter to not only the experience of the people who are inside the building, 181 but the experience of the people outside the building. A community center like Avenidas 182 represents the heart of our community. I'm hopeful that you'll avoid the temptation to 183 build for expedience, getting as much as you can in a simple way and instead invest in the 184 design that enriches the community from inside and outside the doors. That's my 185 aesthetic comment. Talking about the outdoor seating area. I was concerned about the 186 parkland interactions. I certainly didn't realize that the whole building was on parkland. 187 188 Mr. de Geus: I don't think it is. 189 190 Ms. Hendrickson: It's not. 191 192 Commissioner Hetterly: That's what you just told me. That's good. I wondered why you 193 need a PIO, but it sounds like you do because the parkland goes all the way up against the 194 building is why you might need a PIO to make improvements. 195 196 Mr. de Geus: It might need. It's when there's significant construction or something 197 happening on parkland. I don't know if this qualifies in that sense. Out of an abundance 198 of caution, we're looking into that with our attorneys. Are those necessary for the Park 199 Improvement Ordinance? 200 201 Commissioner Hetterly: What about as a park use? I'm not sure that a dining patio 202 qualifies as a park use. Would we have to undedicate that part of the parkland to allow it 203 for a specialized use like that? That's something I'd like to know some more about. 204 Approved Minutes 5 APPROVED 205 Mr. de Geus: Our initial review is that we thought it would be a suitable use of the park 206 in that small portion. It's somewhat recreation focused with the community room right 207 there. We'll be checking that with our attorneys. 208 209 Commissioner Hetterly: It's exclusive to the users of the community center. 210 211 Mr. de Geus: I don't believe it is exclusive. Is that right? 212 213 Ms. Hendrickson: No, it would not be exclusive. It would be available to anybody. 214 There are already tables and chairs in the park. 215 216 Commissioner Hetterly: In that section? 217 218 Ms. Hendrickson: No, not right there. 219 220 Commissioner Hetterly: Yeah, in the plaza. 221 222 Ms. Hendrickson: Right, right. 223 224 Commissioner Hetterly: I'm reluctant to jump on board to a plan that has potential to co-225 opt public access. I want to make sure that it doesn't do that in your visioning and 226 implementation. As far as feedback on the drop-off and loading areas in the parking lot, I 227 didn't see much detail in here about that. It would allow me to weigh in. I am concerned 228 about parking. The lack of new parking is potentially disastrous. With the bigger 229 facility, you're likely to have more staff over time and you certainly hope to have more 230 users. Without accommodating additional parking, that is a significant challenge that will 231 impact park users as well as have a rollover effect on the surrounding neighborhood in 232 terms of parking. That's a really important issue to consider. 233 234 Ms. Hendrickson: May I address that? 235 236 Mr. de Geus: Of course. 237 238 Ms. Hendrickson: If I may on the parking. Obviously we've been thinking about it since 239 the moment we decided we wanted to pursue this. Our leasehold interest is limited to the 240 building, so it's bound by the alley, the Bryant Street sidewalk, the park and the parking 241 lot. We have no control over that rear parking lot. We have no authority to do anything 242 there. We have no land on which to build parking. We have nothing available to us that 243 would make it possible for us to build new parking spaces. 244 245 Approved Minutes 6 APPROVED Commissioner Hetterly: Did you consider any underground parking? That's certainly 246 something that you could do within the building. 247 248 Ms. Hendrickson: It's a very small footprint for underground parking, particularly when 249 you take into ... 250 251 Commissioner Hetterly: Because of the existing building. 252 253 Ms. Hendrickson: Yes, because of the existing building. I doubt that we could build that 254 many underground spaces. I'm sure it would be cost prohibitive, not to mention what it 255 might to do the historic building. It's a very tight space back there. If you've been back 256 there, that patio, we probably only have 20 feet from the back of the building to the 257 parking lot, maybe 30, maybe not. It's very tight. 258 259 Commissioner Hetterly: The parking lot is tight also for its current use. Did you 260 consider other locations, where you could have better facilities to accommodate your 261 users? 262 263 Ms. Hendrickson: We have considered everything. We have considered south Palo Alto, 264 the 101 frontage area. We've considered buying. We've considered renting. We've 265 considered everything. We keep coming back to this location because it's so well suited 266 and so accessible to our constituents, the seniors. People can walk. People can ride their 267 bikes, and do. There's public transportation and there's a density of seniors in the 268 Downtown area that this center has always served. We have long-term interests in 269 securing space in south Palo Alto. In fact, for a while back, we worked to secure some 270 land on the Cubberley site when there was a lot of working being done on what might 271 happen at that site. We've not been able to turn up a better alternative than to build an 272 addition onto this building and to renovate this building. 273 274 Commissioner Hetterly: Have you done any analysis of how much you expect your 275 usership to increase over time? How many more users do you expect to come? I only 276 ask because I know the population is growing. I am concerned that you're going to 277 impair the ability of your users to use the facility (crosstalk). 278 279 Ms. Hendrickson: Because of the parking? 280 281 Commissioner Hetterly: Right. You won't get the uptake that we all would like you to 282 have because of the parking. 283 284 Ms. Hendrickson: In fact, we're seriously exploring ways in which we can expand our 285 own transportation services to help people get to the building, so they don't have to drive. 286 We've done a study and have learned that less than 60 percent of our folks drive their 287 Approved Minutes 7 APPROVED own cars. More than 40 percent get a ride, use public transportation or walk. About 3 288 percent ride their bikes. We think that's a pretty high percentage of folks who, at this 289 point in time, do not drive their cars to the center. We'll be doing everything we can to 290 increase that number over time through our own resources and otherwise. We can do 291 that, and we will be doing that for sure. 292 293 Commissioner Hetterly: The current parking accommodates that 60 percent who are 294 driving now? 295 296 Ms. Hendrickson: It does. 297 298 Vice Chair Markevitch: Ed and then Commissioner Crommie. 299 300 Commissioner Lauing: You were right. Her first five questions were my first five 301 questions. We didn't collaborate on that beforehand. I wanted to underscore the stat that 302 you put in the overview. There's no question that the "over 55s," or whatever that 303 reference is, is growing. It's undeniably growing; it's going to keep growing. This is a 304 phenomenal facility that obviously has to grow somehow, somewhere, to your point of 305 other locations to accommodate that. As we look at the Parks Master Plan, this is an 306 undeniable statistic. A lot of them are not undeniable; they're a little fuzzy. This one's 307 happening. Getting ahead of this is really important for the City. You're obviously doing 308 that within constraints. Appreciate the answers to questions. When I looked at this, I 309 started with the impacts on the park. If truly that patio is open to everyone, then that 310 answers that question. The elevation as it faces the park does impact our jurisdiction. I 311 would also encourage some review of that. To me, it looks like another big office 312 building sticking up, not unlike SurveyMonkey against the train station or the grocery 313 store against the Alma. I encourage some help there. With respect to the modern design, 314 which I find completely dissonant, I'll refrain from comments on that. I wanted to ask if 315 there was some reasoning for that, psychological reason for the folks that are using it. Is 316 there some intention there of keeping it modern for folks that are not quite as modern or 317 something like that? 318 319 Ms. Hendrickson: We would beg to differ. We think it would be very valuable to 320 Avenidas if this community center had a fresh and modern entryway, albeit a rear 321 entryway. There is value to having two faces, if you will, of this community center. The 322 old, the 1927 one, the Bryant Street face, and then a very fresh and modern rear-looking 323 face. We worry a lot about making sure that we remain relevant, especially as boomers 324 age into the cohort that we want to support. 325 326 Commissioner Lauing: That's exactly my question. Is there some intentionality there? 327 328 Approved Minutes 8 APPROVED Ms. Hendrickson: This design will be that much more appealing, in addition to making it 329 possible to build a wing with the kinds of amenities that we need to be able to offer the 330 community. 331 332 Commissioner Lauing: I don't think I can add anymore. 333 334 Commissioner Hetterly: I have one more question. Can I tag it on? 335 336 Vice Chair Markevitch: Yeah. 337 338 Commissioner Hetterly: My only other question was about lighting, the impact of 339 lighting coming off of that wall of windows. Do you expect that light to reach off the 340 property beyond the parking lot? It seems to be right on the parking lot side of the back 341 of that building, by the dining, the glass ... 342 343 Ms. Hendrickson: Are you referring to facing the parking lot or facing the park? 344 345 Commissioner Hetterly: I'm talking about this wall of windows and the impact on the 346 park, but also the surrounding community. Lighting is a big issue for many people. How 347 do you expect to handle the impact of the light that comes out of there after dark? 348 349 Ms. Hendrickson: We are going to have mechanical shades that can be dropped down; 350 although, they're primarily to control the sunlight and not the artificial light. At the 351 moment, this center is not widely used in the evening, where you would have it brightly 352 lit. We expect over time we will use it more in the evenings, of course. We haven't 353 worked out a lot of the details. 354 355 Mr. Jones: There will be no interior spillage of light outside the building footprint. Your 356 perception in looking across the street and seeing a building that is lit will occur, but 357 there's no light source ... 358 359 Commissioner Hetterly: But it's not going to spill out. 360 361 Mr. Jones: ... interior that'll be spilling outside (crosstalk) ... 362 363 Commissioner Hetterly: That was my question. 364 365 Mr. Jones: ... exterior walkways or parking lots. 366 367 Ms. Hendrickson: That's Kevin Jones, our architect. 368 369 Vice Chair Markevitch: Commissioner Crommie. 370 Approved Minutes 9 APPROVED 371 Commissioner Crommie: Hi there. Thank you for your presentation. I have all the same 372 concerns as the other two Commissioners who have spoken. They're obvious concerns. I 373 appreciate how you did your elevations in this packet. Thank you so much, because you 374 made it transparent to understand what we're looking at. We don't always get those kinds 375 of presentations. I want to thank you for that. I do worry about that. We're in such a 376 development phase in the City. I have a big development that went on down my street on 377 Monroe, the redevelopment of the Palo Alto Bowling Alley. Now I have to come home 378 to a big wall face. That's just a couple of blocks from where I live. They really do 379 encroach upon you. It's everywhere. It's where you live, and then it starts to be where 380 you go to relax. I don't know quite what to do. If there could be some kind of terracing 381 with plants, so it's not just a wall, even if it's artificial balconies, something that looks a 382 little more European with something that's visually appealing. This is not visually 383 appealing in any way I can see. I find these buildings that are full of glass and then you 384 end up covering them all, because it's so bright. I don't understand the theories behind 385 building it that way. Because of that dissonance that both Commissioners prior to me 386 pointed out between the old architecture and the new, if you're going to go so far as to 387 bring something new and modern, it has to be hugely useful. Can you explain to me why 388 you need all those big panels of windows, especially if you're thinking of covering them 389 up? 390 391 Ms. Hendrickson: It will only be to protect against the late afternoon sun in the summer 392 time. That space is largely circulation space, not classrooms. There is a lobby, and it is 393 an atrium. We wanted to give our participants an indoor/outdoor experience, so they 394 could be in the atrium, making their way from one place to another, but have clear views 395 of both the courtyard and the outside. We thought that would be attractive. It also 396 exposes more of the rear façade of the historic building, which we felt was an advantage 397 so you can not only see part of the rear façade, because it won't be covered at all, but 398 other parts of the rear façade will be visible from inside the building and through the 399 building through the glass. 400 401 Commissioner Crommie: Do you have a view of that you could pop up on the screen? 402 403 Ms. Hendrickson: I don't know if it's in there, to tell you the truth. Much of that rear 404 façade will be visible, not only from outside the building but also inside the building. 405 406 Commissioner Crommie: The tiled roof? 407 408 Ms. Hendrickson: The rear of the building, the wall of that building with its windows. 409 410 Approved Minutes 10 APPROVED Commissioner Crommie: The users of that facility still feel cutoff to nature. From 411 visually looking at this, it feels like, you are right next to a park. I wish there was some 412 way to integrate that experience of open space. Maybe you're getting there by ... 413 414 Ms. Hendrickson: I hope you noted that on the park side, the wing is entirely exposed to 415 the park. It's going to afford beautiful views of the park for those people that are in those 416 rooms. 417 418 Commissioner Crommie: Is this the best picture of that? 419 420 Ms. Hendrickson: That's not the best picture. I'm sorry, let me find this one for you. 421 422 Vice Chair Markevitch: Are you speaking about the top story where the windows are 423 overlooking the park? 424 425 Ms. Hendrickson: All three stories will overlook the park. The top story we're imagining 426 as a fitness room. The dining room is on the lower level on the third floor, as it is now. 427 428 Mr. Jones: If you refer to A5.1 sheet, look at the northwest elevation. This is the park 429 face of the building. The existing building, the proposed new addition has three levels at 430 that point which basically stack up on top of each other. The first level being the dining 431 area, which is located on the first floor in this area which is the motivation for (crosstalk) 432 out to a patio in this area which would directly allow for the users as well as the public to 433 come and have some outdoor seating opportunities directly off of the dining area. The 434 second level above that also orients to the park. The whole room looks out that way into 435 this pretty nice, beautiful grove of redwoods that are there. That's anticipated as being a 436 wellness center. The very top of the third floor with the same orientation as the fitness 437 center. Visually there's a pretty strong connection to the park that we've been trying to 438 explore in our work to date on this. There are a couple other graphics that give you a feel 439 of that in here as well. 440 441 Ms. Hendrickson: That was an idea that was first raised by the ARB when we took a 442 different design to them last October. They expressed the interest in having space that 443 interacted with the park. 444 445 Mr. Jones: If you would go to sheet A2.2. The image on the right says La Comida 446 dining room, that is the proposed conceptual view of the dining hall, which is on the 447 ground floor. The window area you see is the area where we're talking about visually 448 looking out here, connected to the patio. Our desire is to have some access to this from 449 that dining hall. That whole wall, that glass wall which we've heard comments on, is 450 oriented to help create these strong views out into the park and take advantage of that 451 position. If you go up to the sheet, on the bottom of it, the fitness room is the view of that 452 Approved Minutes 11 APPROVED same area on the third level with the room having its primary orientation also into the 453 trees and into the park. 454 455 Commissioner Crommie: Thank you for that. I'm starting to get in the groove with what 456 you guys are driven by. That integration does seem important. The trees block the view 457 all the way into the plaza, as far as I understand. The users of the building will see 458 mostly the trees? 459 460 Ms. Hendrickson: Yes, that's correct. 461 462 Commissioner Crommie: What's your impression of this comment we are giving on the 463 wall? I'm only looking at it from this picture here. Is that a fair representation of what 464 someone sitting in the plaza wills see? 465 466 Mr. Jones: That's a fair representation. There's been a lot of evolution on this. We're at a 467 very preliminary stage. We've been to the Historic Review Board on a preliminary basis. 468 We're going to the ARB on a preliminary basis. We had worked on this for quite a while 469 with a lot of different ideas. The main concept of this was trying to create a fairly open 470 and airy building design. That was the relationship to the glass. That had a lot of 471 resonance with Avenidas particularly in light of the comments that Lisa made to you 472 about this notion of the future and how we were trying to do a design that spoke to the 473 future of Avenidas as well as trying to fit within the Secretary of the Interior's Standards 474 about how one adds a new building to a historic building, having a clear differentiation 475 between the two. Granted there are a lot of levels about that. That's part of what we're 476 doing over the next couple of months, figuring out from a ARB, HRB and community 477 base where do we want to be with this. The concept behind that was based around this 478 idea of this open element. The wall that everyone is referring to was proposed as a very 479 rich, textured limestone wall. It may not come across in the imagery of this. We've 480 heard a lot of different comments about that. Clearly we're continuing to study it. At this 481 stage, all I can say is that it's a work in process. We've appreciated comments that we've 482 heard from various different views. We'll be continuing to study. 483 484 Commissioner Crommie: Are you getting comments from the residents who are using 485 the facility? 486 487 Mr. Jones: We had a large meeting about a month ago where we invited the community 488 to hear about the project that we're doing. We had a very good turnout. There were 489 about 50 people that showed up that evening. Overall the people who had comments 490 were very favorable. We're encouraged, but every comment is an important comment for 491 us to evaluate. We will continue to do so. 492 493 Approved Minutes 12 APPROVED Commissioner Crommie: Can you have input sessions during the day when you're saying 494 most of the seniors are there, rather than the evening? 495 496 Mr. Jones: We've done a couple of things. This project has been in evolution over a two-497 year period to date. One of the activities that Avenidas and Lisa had taken on was to 498 survey the participants about the quality of the facility that was there and what some of 499 the deficiencies were and what some of the expectations would be for the new building. 500 We've done a very elaborate polling. Lisa can share the results of that with you. It was 501 broadly based. There are a lot of people who are critical of an old stodgy building that 502 needed some improvement in terms of the interior. There are people who love the 503 existing historic building, which we do too. There were viewpoints of trying to see how 504 we could provide the services and amenities that other community centers in the area, 505 senior service providers, have that Palo Alto doesn't. 506 507 Commissioner Crommie: You got initial input which guided you in some ways. Have 508 you shared these pictures with everyone and gotten ... 509 510 Ms. Hendrickson: Yes. 511 512 Mr. Jones: Yes. 513 514 Ms. Hendrickson: These pictures line the office out of which I work. The door's always 515 open, and it's open to a public lobby. The folks that come into our building are not shy. 516 We've been talking about it and showing it to people. 517 518 Commissioner Crommie: Thank you for that. I wanted to comment on the parking. I do 519 feel like it does connect to our purview. We oversee access to recreation within the City. 520 We are limiting access to this building. You spoke about people walking from that 521 surrounding neighborhood, but we know we have a lot of people who are aging in all 522 parts of the City. The people who are going to be cut off by not having parking are the 523 people who are still driving and want to come from other parts of the City where they 524 don't have that opportunity to walk. You're going to increase your resources for 525 residents, and then they're going to be stymied as far as getting there. I don't know what 526 to do about that. As I was thinking about it, it occurred to me, as Commissioner Hetterly 527 said, did you consider another site where you could do parking. I don't know if there's a 528 precedence within the City of getting to expand a building when you can't do anything 529 about parking. I saw in the report that you said you might do some equivalent things. 530 531 Ms. Hendrickson: What we will do is pay a fee to the Parking Assessment District, an in-532 lieu fee. In lieu of building parking spaces, we can pay a fee, and that is provided for 533 developers who can't build parking as is the case for us. 534 535 Approved Minutes 13 APPROVED Commissioner Crommie: That fee, whoever gets that, doesn't help the residents who 536 need to get to the facility. 537 538 Ms. Hendrickson: Over time the Parking Assessment District will use the money that's 539 accumulated as these fees are paid to build more parking garages. That's the mechanics. 540 We feel fortunate that, because of the kind of operation we have, we do operate 541 transportation services. We run shuttles around town, and we have a very busy door-to-542 door transportation program. You can call us and ask for a ride tomorrow. A volunteer 543 will drive his or her car and pick you up at the door, take you wherever you want to go, 544 carry your groceries and hold your arm, whatever you need to make that a good trip for 545 you. That program has been growing very rapidly. Maybe that's what we expand. 546 Maybe we operate more shuttles. We know that we want to make sure that people can 547 get to the building. If that means that we have to build capacity in our own transportation 548 services, we'll do that. 549 550 Vice Chair Markevitch: Commissioner Knopper, do you have any questions? 551 552 Commissioner Knopper: All the questions have been exhausted. Just a personal 553 comment. I love the building. I love glass facing nature, because it brings it indoors so 554 you can experience it. Making the building relevant for the boomers moving forward, so 555 they want to come into a new, clean, lovely facility is great. Plus your services are 556 marvelous. 557 558 Vice Chair Markevitch: I have a few. I think I crossed the line this year on being able to 559 use the services there. I live in Downtown North, and I see time and time again how the 560 in-lieu parking fee has impacted the surrounding neighborhoods. People who are putting 561 up buildings pay the money, and then the traffic is still parking in the neighborhoods. I 562 know it's only a trial, but in September they're starting a parking permit program in the 563 surrounding neighborhoods, which might impact your ability. The shuttle expansion is a 564 good idea. That's one thing. Early in the presentation, I heard the phrase "fence and 565 hedges." Was that with respect to the outdoor seating area? Could someone elaborate on 566 that? 567 568 Mr. Winstead: The outdoor seating area we're talking about is here outside. There'll be 569 low plantings on the edge directly between the patio and the parking, like the bumpers of 570 the cars. The rest of this will be low, like ornamental grasses, regular-type planting. The 571 photograph doesn't quite show it, but further down the building this way, right here is a 572 service entry. If you walked down there today, there's a blue recycling bin. The 573 proposed hedges would basically wrap that corner so you could maintain those services 574 that are already out there, but you're not seeing that as you walk by. It'd be maybe chest 575 high, like a 4 or 5-foot fence, and then evergreen hedges around that concisely in that 576 area. 577 Approved Minutes 14 APPROVED 578 Vice Chair Markevitch: We just spent a chunk of money to redo that park. Part of that 579 was removing the hedges and making them smaller, so there was visibility for the police 580 so they could see what was going on. There was some pretty unsavory things going on in 581 that park. I am concerned that by putting up fencing like that and more hedges, it's going 582 to start over again. I don't want to see anyone harmed from Avenidas at night. That 583 would be a horrible thing. For me, it's important to keep in mind why we did what we 584 did. 585 586 Ms. Hendrickson: Point well taken. We are delighted with the new landscaping that was 587 done. It has improved the park enormously for those of us who work in that building and 588 our participants who come and visit us there. Yes, we're delighted with that. We don't 589 want to do anything to turn back the clock. 590 591 Vice Chair Markevitch: Regarding the large wall that faces the parking lot and you can 592 see it from the park, that's sandstone or ... 593 594 Mr. Jones: It's proposed as limestone, a textured limestone pattern was the original 595 conception. We've heard a variety of comments, so we'll see what it is in its next 596 iteration. 597 598 Vice Chair Markevitch: My comment on that would be go look at Union Bank at the 599 corner of Waverley and University and consider putting plantings on it. Let it go straight 600 up with greenery. They clean it up a couple of times a year. There's birds nesting in it. 601 It's pretty cool to watch. That would be my comment. Commissioner Crommie has one 602 more. 603 604 Commissioner Crommie: This is especially relevant because we have our consultant 605 heading up our Parks and Recreation Master Plan. My father-in-law is about 82. He 606 volunteers at Avenidas, and he rides his bike there from Barron Park. He is getting ready 607 to convert his bicycle use to a tricycle. He owns one, an adult tricycle. He's very active 608 in Second Community, so he leads bike rides for older people around the City. Is there 609 any way to make a parking place for tricycles? 610 611 Ms. Hendrickson: Yes. The bike parking that's in the front will accommodate tricycles. 612 613 Commissioner Crommie: A few of them? They're big. Encourage that. Sometimes 614 when there is space, people start to use that opportunity. 615 616 Ms. Hendrickson: We not only would like to see people ride their tricycles over, we're 617 thinking of a way to make them available for people to try out and demo so as to 618 encourage their use. 619 Approved Minutes 15 APPROVED 620 Commissioner Crommie: Wonderful. I love that idea of that education. You're 621 providing a new opportunity with the parking area. 622 623 Vice Chair Markevitch: Commissioner Hetterly. 624 625 Commissioner Hetterly: I had one more comment about the two glass walls. We hear a 626 lot on this Commission about bird hazards created by big glass walls. With all those tall 627 trees very close to the building, that may mitigate that, but I encourage you to check in 628 with the bird experts. Shani Kleinhaus would be ... 629 630 Mr. Jones: We've gotten some of that discussion about glazing products that help prevent 631 bird strikes. 632 633 Vice Chair Markevitch: Thank you. Thank you for keeping it under an hour. 634 635 3. Junior Museum and Zoo Capital Project Update. 636 637 Rob de Geus: A couple of introductions here. We have people that are going to help us. 638 We have Brent McClure and Sarah Vaccaro from Cody Anderson and Wasney 639 Architects. We have John Aiken back here. He is the Director of the Junior Museum and 640 Zoo. He does a fantastic job. While I mention that, the staff of the Junior Museum and 641 Zoo are amazing. That's what makes the Junior Museum and Zoo as special as it is. It's 642 all about the building today, but it's really the staff and John's work that makes it special. 643 We also have some Board Members. I don't know all their names, but I do know Bern 644 Beecham. We have Rhyena Halpern, who is an Assistant Director in Community 645 Services and oversees the arts and sciences division which includes the Junior Museum 646 and Zoo. We'll go now to Brent. He's going to walk through a presentation. They've 647 done some pretty hard thinking about the comments the Commission made last time it 648 was here. We look forward to hearing your comments on their work. 649 650 Brent McClure: Thanks, Rob. Thanks, Commissioners, for having us back. Since the 651 last time we met with you in February, there's a lot of comments and a lot of complexity 652 and a lot going on with this project. We wanted to put together a thorough analysis on 653 the project for you today. Just for starters, we see this project as a piece in the larger 654 context of the Rinconada plan. In the plan that's been before you, you've got the Museum 655 and Zoo over here off the corner, off of Middlefield Road. We're encouraged and excited 656 about all of the experiences that we'll see when this entire project becomes realized at 657 some time in the future. Pulling the park beyond the boundary, all the way out into 658 Middlefield, so that Middlefield pulls you in front of the Museum and Zoo and then all 659 the way into the park. We've been working carefully to integrate the design of the 660 Museum and Zoo so that it's very sensitive to the needs of the park and the park patron. 661 Approved Minutes 16 APPROVED The Museum and Zoo is a jewel of Palo Alto. A lot of people that live outside Palo Alto 662 take advantage of the facility. The central mission is serving children and education 663 about science and engaging their sense of learning and excitement and curiosity. 664 Moreover, they're currently serving upwards of 150,000 patrons over the course of a year. 665 There's 1,000 children that come for summer school programs at this point. They've got 666 over 15,700 kids that take advantage of educational programs both within the Museum 667 and Zoo itself, and then within the surrounding environs. There's the museum. You go 668 into the Zoo. There's such a robust education program where they take science kits and 669 put together science programs and bring them into the various elementary schools and 670 middle schools within the community. It already serves a rich and broad need. The 671 facilities are grossly undersized to support their present activities. For example, because 672 of the size of the space, we're looking to address overcrowding within the space. As you 673 come in the front door, for example, you've got stroller parking that spills halfway into 674 the museum space and sometimes out the front door. There's not enough space to 675 accommodate the current need. We're looking to address those kinds of things, to 676 address safety, circulation and also ADA problems. Restrooms are undersized. We've 677 got leaky roofs. This building is in need of not only a complete redo but right-sizing and 678 expansion of the facility. As we look at the teachers and the faculty within the complex, 679 that space, that shot on the left, is where you've got five or six faculty members that share 680 this tiny postage-stamp office space. They don't have the space necessary to support the 681 programs they have. Classrooms are undersized as well. One of the foundational pieces 682 of the project is that the Zoo and the Museum are seeking accreditation. Currently both 683 the Museum and Zoo are not accredited facilities. Accreditation is very important, 684 because it will open a lot of doors and opportunities for the Zoo to seek recognition 685 within the zoo community, the museum community, to achieve things like future grant 686 programs. It will allow them to bring in traveling exhibits and other animals. If you've 687 got an animal that is in another zoo and if you're an accredited facility, then you can get 688 some reciprocity. It will give them this opportunity to expand those programs. Part of 689 the reason they're not able to get accreditation is their storage and support facilities for 690 the Museum collection is what you see here. We don't have the proper ability to store 691 collections. Lastly the back of house space for the Zoo. What you see here is the Zoo 692 Director's office, which currently serves not just the Zoo Director's space, but it's the 693 feeding room, animal care room. It's a one stop shop within this tiny office space to 694 address all of the needs for the animals and the Zoo. In addition to those programmatic 695 goals, there's a bunch of sight constraints. We probably touched on these briefly with 696 you when we met in February. We're in a challenging corner of a larger parcel. It's a 697 single property that encompasses Rinconada Park, Lucie Stern Theatre, the Girl Scout 698 Building and the Junior Museum and Zoo. There's the park boundary, which we'll talk 699 about in a minute as to what that includes and what that touches. The first set of 700 constraints are what we call boundaries that we're trying to design the facility around and 701 build around. You can see the edge of Rinconada Park. There's also a utility corridor, 702 which is the blue stripe that runs through there. We've got storm drain, water, sewer lines 703 Approved Minutes 17 APPROVED that run through there. Right now, those go underneath the Zoo. That becomes a 704 constraint as to where we can place buildings within the project; we're going to build 705 around that utility corridor. We also have setback issues, which are the blue and red lines 706 at the front. We're adjusting the side setback between Walter Hays Elementary School 707 and the Zoo, because the existing Museum is sitting off the setback line and on the 708 property line. Parking is a huge issue, as everybody knows. Currently, the parking lot at 709 this site is circuitous, a little tortured in some ways. The lanes are narrow. The 710 wayfinding is difficulty as to how you weave through the space. There's two driveway 711 access points, one off of Kellogg and one in front. With kids coming and going and kids 712 coming out of Walter Hays, it becomes a challenge. What we've tried to do with our 713 project is to not only look at expanding and rightsizing the Museum and Zoo, but also 714 finding ways to economize the parking lot and increase space. What we've done in the 715 previous design that we showed in February was to increase the parking by 20 spaces 716 within the lot. Other constraints. The landscape, trees. There's a rich tapestry of oaks, 717 redwoods. There's some exciting signature trees that we're trying to design the project 718 around. The green tree that's next to the words "Existing Junior Museum and Zoo" is a 719 dawn redwood tree. It's a tree that dates back to the Jurassic era, not this one specimen of 720 course. It's an important redwood on the site. There's a nicely shaped pecan tree that is 721 also in front of the existing Zoo. The blue represents the stand of oaks and where they 722 occur. There's a really good one around the Girl Scout Building. Then the redwood trees 723 that we're looking to uphold. There's cedar trees that line and front Middlefield Road that 724 are pretty sizeable as well. Other programmatic constraints. One is our frontage of 725 Middlefield. We're looking to respect that and not create a huge amount of frontage 726 along that edge, because we want to be sensitive to the residential neighborhood. Also in 727 the upper left of this photograph, you can see what the existing park entrance looks like 728 between the Girl Scout Building, the parking and the trees. It's not a gracious entrance, 729 and part of our design is to look at how do we create this connective tissue that runs from 730 the park to the Zoo and Museum and then back again. I've touched on some of these 731 points, looking at how we integrate with the Junior Museum and Zoo. There's drop-off, 732 improving the parking, creating this plaza space, creating some interactivity and how the 733 interactions would work between the exterior face of the Zoo within the park so that park 734 patrons can see and touch and experience what is going on within the Zoo. Also out at 735 Middlefield Road, there's going to be some public transportation. There's a bus stop 736 that's going to be implemented so that people coming on public transit can access all the 737 facilities on the site. The design that we showed last time at the PRC, I'll go through 738 briefly. What it does is what we have shown here. The parking lot is reconfigured. We 739 have the pathway that runs along Lucie Stern and connects to the Girl Scout Building and 740 then feeds into the park. We've got the pathways that link up there. A park arrival plaza 741 space that's to the northwest of the Zoo exterior. The building is split into two sections. 742 There's this U-shaped building at the bottom; that's the Museum and education center. 743 The round piece in the middle is the open air Zoo. That segmented, pie-shaped building 744 that's in the back is the Zoo support building. Lastly down at the bottom, between that 745 Approved Minutes 18 APPROVED and Walter Hays, is the Zoo back of house zone. The Zoo is going to be enclosed in a 746 netting that mimics a spider web in design, a play off the animal and anthropomorphic 747 nature of the facility. In doing so, we're going to have what's called "loose in the Zoo." 748 John is going to take it upon himself to have child friendly animals such as birds. It's 749 going to be a rich forested canopy within the Zoo. You're going to be able to see animals 750 and activities happening within the Zoo. The Zoo support building in the back will 751 support the animal care needs. Here's the footprint as to how that design in February 752 compared. The blue line represents the footprint shown in the Master Plan. The red line 753 shows where we were with the existing Museum and Zoo. Here's how the program 754 breaks down within the spaces. The mustard color would be the Museum and exhibit 755 zone. That's where you enter into the facility. If you hang a right, you're go into the core 756 facilities of the building. There's an education wing that fronts the street. As you go 757 through the Museum and into the Zoo, the space has pathways that link up and down, 758 with the "loose in the Zoo" concept trying to support interactive experiences. The Zoo 759 support facility is in the back. As I mentioned before, the education center is going to 760 serve over 15,000 kids, and it's going to provide some future expansion. We've been 761 sensitive to the neighborhood, so the second story is set back from the street. There's a 762 little bit of Museum and exhibit space up above. Staff office space, where they currently 763 have virtually none, will exist in that zone over there. At the Zoo exhibit building, there's 764 a little bit of exhibit space up top for butterflies. There's going to be a bat exhibit as well. 765 Plan-wise, you can see how the spaces orient. What we've done in the Zoo that we don't 766 have today is we're trying to create height and depth to give kids a variety of experiences 767 in the space. There's a pathway that runs up and loops around clockwise. The pathway 768 that loops around counter-clockwise comes down. The one to the left is up, and the one 769 that comes down is below. That creates a cave-like experience. At the lower portion, 770 you can look up into the meerkat exhibits or into the turtle exhibit. It takes you to the 771 second-story platform on the backside. Here's an earlier sketch concept that starts to 772 illustrate how that experience and the feel might occur within the Museum. Here's a shot 773 of the rendering, looking overhead from the street. This is an early design concept. 774 We've gone to ARB once for a study session. We're still in the development stage. In 775 essence, you've got the main entrance there. This is the pecan tree and then the Zoo as it 776 wraps around into the park. Then a view looking from the park onto the Zoo. The 777 segmented building on the left, the design concept with that is we're looking to try to be 778 as sensitive as we can with the park with that back building, by depressing it 779 approximately 4 1/2 to 5 feet within the landscape so that it sits lower. That cave 780 experience is at that lower grade as it relates to the inside of the building, but then have it 781 stepped down and then segmented so that the facades and the pieces are small. We're 782 going to look at integrating a green roof on the lower section. The butterfly exhibit will 783 be glassed in, so that you'll be able to see that experience from the park. That's the 784 program and the constraints from what we had shown in February with some additional 785 information to get everybody to the same spot. What we heard at the February meeting 786 was there's a loss of turf, sounds like a great program, but we need you to study 787 Approved Minutes 19 APPROVED alternatives, ways to move the building out of the park, ways to go onto Middlefield, 788 ways to go towards the parking area, and the implications of that. We looked at three 789 alternatives that I'd like to walk you through. The first one is reducing the footprint. Can 790 you somehow nip and tuck and tighten the belt and still make everything work? We went 791 back to the drawing board and we looked at that. Here's the site plan that shows that. 792 We're going to call it Alternate 1. The red line represents what we had shown last time. 793 We found some ways on this layering of exhibits to make them even more efficient. 794 With the pathways' ADA needs and what not, we were able to find some space to tighten 795 that up. Also tighten up the Zoo support building in the back, leaving the remaining 796 pieces at the front more or less unchanged. What does this mean as it relates to the park 797 boundary? We were able to reduce this by about 2,000 square feet of footprint that's in 798 the park boundary right now. In the meanwhile, all of the other constraints that we were 799 looking at more or less remain the same. The trees that we were looking to preserve on 800 the front hold true. The utility corridor that we have to build around is shown there. The 801 frontage along the street as shown down below is the same as we had before. The park 802 entry plaza still has that graceful entrance piece. As we connect parkland into the 803 facility, the connections towards Middlefield and Lucie Stern are still present. We 804 looked at a second, more aggressive scheme, which is here. That was to look at moving 805 the Zoo support building out of the parkland and putting it closer towards the park 806 entrance. You start to see that we reduce the impacts on the parkland more significantly. 807 This creates some additional challenges. By moving this building out to the front, we're 808 going to impact another redwood and we're going to impact the pecan tree at the front. 809 Being able to connect the Zoo support building to the museum and education center, we 810 weren't able to do that because of the utility corridor. The other piece, as we go to here, 811 is looking at how significantly adding more building at that location will neck down that 812 entrance piece that we're trying to accomplish by connecting Rinconada Park into the 813 greater environs around it. It reduces that throat between the Girl Scout Building and our 814 facility by upwards of 75 percent. By doing so, we're having to now push out the edge of 815 the curb and the parking area. From the design we had before, where we were adding the 816 20 spaces, we now lose close to 16 of those; we're almost at a wash, +/- four spaces. 817 There's concerns too about as you're coming into the Museum you have to go around the 818 Zoo support building to get into the space. The last piece I want to touch on with this 819 concept is this sets up some challenges that would be very difficult for the Zoo to operate 820 in. If you look to the right of where it says "Zoo Exterior," there's the Zoo support. The 821 Zoo support space is where animals are taken out of exhibit and put either in cages or 822 enclosures to get rest, to be away from kids. A lot of times it's very important to have 823 that relationship transition from that back of house Zoo support zone to directly connect 824 with the Zoo support building. If you're taking an animal that might be sick or have some 825 issues, you go from the Zoo to the Zoo back of house area and then into the Zoo support 826 building. In this design concept, we're unable to do that, because we're having them on 827 opposite sides of the Zoo. The third idea that we wanted to explore that proved to also be 828 quite challenging was thinking outside the box, to fundamentally rethink the project and 829 Approved Minutes 20 APPROVED move the facility towards Middlefield Road. You can see these boundaries and how they 830 impact parkland. We believe we're going to impact even more trees. The dawn redwood 831 would be gone. The frontage will significantly increase upwards of 140 feet in this 832 residential neighborhood. In our meeting with the ARB, they raised concerns that we 833 need to be sensitive to the residential character of the neighborhood and with that scale. 834 If we were to move the program in this direction, it would drive two-story construction, 835 because of the square footages that we need, even closer to the street, as opposed to how 836 we have them set back from the street. We'd lose the opportunity to have the restroom 837 building that we had shown in February contiguous with the buildings. Now it becomes a 838 floater that would have to exist somewhere else. Here the parking becomes even more 839 challenged. We would lose at least 12 spaces. You can see the orange-dotted line where 840 the old curb was. We're scrunching and pulling this parking back even further. The bus 841 drop-off that's at the front, the building is now starting to block that off from where that's 842 planned to be located. Programmatically, this becomes a difficult, if not impossible, 843 configuration of space for the operation of the Zoo. Before you had those two functions 844 on either side of the Zoo, now you've got them together, but they're a really long, skinny 845 space. If we're going to take an animal out of exhibit, how many of these cages do you 846 move through to get through this narrow space? It becomes a difficult, if not impossible, 847 configuration. We looked at these three alternatives. We tried other ones that didn't 848 make the cut to bring forward as part of this discussion today. Here's the summary of 849 what those three were as far as their impacts. The last couple of pieces. We heard at the 850 last meeting concerns about parking and congestion. The different examples show what 851 we're able to accomplish. Those 120 parking spaces is part of the Rinconada Master 852 Plan, so it's linked with that and part of the CEQA study that's ongoing right now. The 853 public restroom, we're absolutely onboard with putting a public restroom, as far as within 854 the building, on the Zoo support building if that's going to be located adjacent to the park, 855 to then directly serve park patrons. The last one we heard was bringing back some 856 information and talk about, regardless of the design direction, how does the exterior face 857 of the Zoo work with the park. Here's bigger photos of the view from the entrance, the 858 top photo would be of the Girl Scout Building on the left. Looking today at the Zoo from 859 the park. We're looking to create a story wall, if you will, that surrounds the Zoo, and 860 have this wall become highly interactive, a place for learning, a place for telling stories 861 about science and education, environmental aspects of the park. You can see the Girl 862 Scout Building on the left. You start to see how that wall opens up. On the right, you 863 can start to see fully mature trees that would be brought into the Zoo. You'd have this 864 forested canopy within the Zoo with the netting that comes over. You'd have the 865 redwood tree that's in the front. Some of the experiences that we're looking to integrate 866 within the wall would be view portals, one piece that we're looking to explore. People 867 within the park can have one or two locations to look into the Zoo to see what's going on 868 and to build that level of interactivity. The wall that's envisioned would be a 869 terracotta/sandstone colored concrete that would have some thickness and heft. It would 870 have the ability to do such as this. I was looking and talking about how the animals can 871 Approved Minutes 21 APPROVED all be on display as you look from the park. Lastly, possibly integrating either fossils or 872 different types of reliefs within the wall to tell stories about science, possibly astronomy. 873 The sky's the limit. It's something we're still working on that's in development. We're 874 open to discussion on what this could be. As you view it from the park, we tried to take a 875 shot. It's somewhat in perspective. We ghosted in on the right what might be the future 876 playground structure area. You start to see the Zoo support building as it steps down and 877 is lowered within the landscape. Possibly benches built into the wall with views into the 878 Zoo. At that level, we can look into that cave experience. There could be two different 879 view windows of different types of experiences. Looking at having a green wall on one 880 side that integrates with the green roof, so that we're trying to get as much foliage and 881 landscape as this building erodes into the park. Looking upwards to be able to see into 882 the butterfly exhibit. You probably aren't going to be able to see the butterflies, but to 883 have that connection from the park. We're trying to make it closed off, yet open and 884 transparent and integrated with the park as much as possible. The restroom doors you 885 can see down below. Thank you so much for your time. I know it was lengthy, but 886 there's a lot of information we're trying to present and cover to have you understand the 887 project. Thank you very much. 888 889 Vice Chair Markevitch: I have two speaker cards, that I am going to do before we get to 890 the Commissioners' comments and questions. The first person is Jane Rytina. 891 892 Jane Rytina: The first point I'd like to make is I'm a Rinconada neighbor who enters the 893 park from the JMZ entrance, and the parent of two children. Rinconada is our local park 894 and, at one time, I used to go there once or twice a week, to the JMZ and then have lunch 895 at the park or vice versa. From the point of Palo Alto residents, we don't see the JMZ and 896 Rinconada Park as separate. You associate the JMZ as part of the park. Most families 897 who visit the JMZ will probably end up in the park or go to the park first. The fact that 898 this project will improve that very dangerous parking lot and that entrance to the park, 899 which I don't think is represented anywhere else in Rinconada Park. That's the worst 900 place to get into the park, because there's very little walking space from the parking lot. 901 That parking lot is so dangerous. Hard to park and hard to see if you're a resident 902 walking in. For someone to come along and improve the facility and improve all the 903 entrances and that parking lot and add value to the park through a thoughtful design, it's 904 absolutely worth giving up a sliver of the park to improve that. From my point of view 905 and my neighbor's point of view, we don't see it as giving up park space necessarily. We 906 see it as reorganizing the park of which the JMZ is going to be a part, to make a safer 907 entrance and parking lot. That's my first point. My second point is I'm a Board Member 908 of the Friends of the JMZ but also a Palo Alto resident. That is an appreciation of the 909 incredible role the JMZ plays in Palo Alto. The JMZ fundamentally, 100 percent, 910 believes children should freely explore nature and science. That leads to that freedom 911 that leads to creativity and a love of the natural world. That happens at the JMZ, and not 912 only at the JMZ but at the programs they take out to the schools. There's very few places 913 Approved Minutes 22 APPROVED as a parent you can take your children where they're absolutely free to explore and be 914 safe. If you think about it, maybe a park does that. Maybe they're completely safe in a 915 park. I spent a lot of time wondering around my children going up those play structures, 916 but I never have to do that at the JMZ. They can run freely; I can see them; it's gentle; it's 917 quiet. They explore. You can see their minds developing. The teachers at the JMZ are 918 absolutely amazing, and they ensure science education and a love of nature. 919 920 Vice Chair Markevitch: Our next speaker is Bern Beecham. 921 922 Bern Beecham: Good evening, Bern Beecham, a longtime resident of Palo Alto. I'm also 923 on the Board for the Friends. As you know, both the JMZ and Lucie Stern were built in 924 the '30s and '40s. Rinconada Park was around the same time. We are mutually 925 landlocked. By the end of about '51, the last public infrastructure was built in Palo Alto. 926 The former City Hall now the Art Center and Mitchell Park were both done about 1950, 927 1951. Nothing was done for another 60 years. Then the citizens of Palo Alto said, 928 "We're ready to do this again." This building in 1970, but no other infrastructure was 929 either rebuilt or added to Palo Alto. Beginning about five or ten years ago, the citizens 930 began to say, "It's time for us to go and reinvest in what we have for ourselves and for our 931 children." The Friends of the Palo Alto Parks funded probably in 2005 rebuilding 932 Heritage Park. Much more recently Magical Bridge just got done. You just had 933 Avenidas here. It was an excellent public-private partnership that rebuilt the Art Center. 934 Beginning in 2007 a small group of south Palo Altans said, "We need a new library, 935 Mitchell Library." I don't know if you've been in there when the kids were there in the 936 afternoons; it was, in a way, great. They were all over the place; it was packed. It was 937 hot, miserable and the kids loved it, but way inadequate for Palo Alto. This group of Palo 938 Alto citizens got Palo Alto to support a bond measure by 72 percent and then raised an 939 additional $4 million to help outfit the libraries. We, the Friends of the Palo Alto Junior 940 Museum and Zoo, are in that process now. That gets us to here. We know that the 941 people love the JMZ. When we talked initially to City Manager Jim Keene, he said, 942 "Wait a minute. This is a jewel of Palo Alto. What are we talking about? Do we want to 943 take a risk?" It is a jewel along with the parks. The demand at Mitchell Park, if you've 944 gone in there, it's packed. You go there first thing Sunday morning when it opens, there 945 are people waiting to get in. The Downtown library, I've never seen in my history so 946 many people there as after we rebuilt it. The demand is here to use this when we do that. 947 Our issue at the JMZ is we're land bound. We are intimate neighbors with the parks. We 948 have something that we think is right for the community. In your discussion, I hope what 949 comes out is we've done everything we know how to do to minimize the impact on the 950 park. This is our best option on how to reinvest in this particular jewel for Palo Alto. 951 The Palo Altans want it. It's compatible with parks. I'm not making your decision for 952 you, but Zoos in many places are part of parklands. I hope you can find a way to support 953 what we're doing. Thank you so much. 954 955 Approved Minutes 23 APPROVED Vice Chair Markevitch: We'll move onto Commissioner comments and questions. 956 Which one of you would like to go first? Commissioner Knopper. 957 958 Commissioner Knopper: You said you're lowering the wall, the support wall. How high 959 is that wall? I'm vertically challenged, so every wall is high. I was wondering. 960 961 Mr. McClure: I'm going to ask my colleague, Sarah, to speak to the precise heights. 962 963 Sarah Vaccaro: On the far side closer to the Museum building, the wall is 8 feet high. 964 That is part of the Zoo accreditation requirements for enclosing the Zoo. You have to 965 have an 8-foot high wall to keep animals in and people out. As the ramp within the Zoo 966 ramps up, the wall has to ramp up. It's not going to be ramping up too high on the side, 967 because it's going to become the guardrail height for the ramp. On the far side, it will 968 probably be about 12 feet tall, which is a little taller than the existing fence. 969 970 Commissioner Lauing: Is this the far left you're talking about? This 12 feet. 971 972 Ms. Vaccaro: Yes. 973 974 Commissioner Knopper: How tall is the thing ... 975 976 Commissioner Lauing: That white space there ... 977 978 Mr. McClure: The wall continues up and connects to the edge of the building right here. 979 The height of the wall at this location will be 12 feet. 980 981 Ms. Vaccaro: The existing fence, John, is 8 feet tall? The wood fence. 982 983 John Aiken: Correct. 984 985 Ms. Vaccaro: As you can tell, it's a residential wood fence. Here we're trying to create 986 something that's much more interactive and rich and engaging. We're hoping that that 987 will mitigate concerns about the height. 988 989 Commissioner Knopper: The far left building, the Zoo support, which has the green wall 990 you're suggesting, is that back to 8 feet? 991 992 Ms. Vaccaro: The height of the lower mass of that Zoo support building is probably 993 going to be about 8-10 feet, probably closer to 10 feet when you build in roofs and floors 994 and so forth. The glass structures that sit on top of the lower base will probably be 15-18 995 feet in height. Again, they'll be very (inaudible). 996 997 Approved Minutes 24 APPROVED Mr. McClure: From the ground. 998 999 Ms. Vaccaro: From the ground. 1000 1001 Mr. McClure: Let me restate. 1002 1003 Commissioner Knopper: Yes, I lost you on that last one. 1004 1005 Mr. McClure: This building here, the floor level will be 4 feet below grade at this 1006 location. This height right here will be approximately 8-9 feet. This height in here will 1007 be approximately 8-9 feet, so that your total building height through here will be about 1008 16-17 feet. We're looking to squish this down as much as we possibly can. 1009 1010 Ms. Vaccaro: The second floor, again, is very glassy and open. It won't read as massive. 1011 1012 Vice Chair Markevitch: Is that the tot lot or the playground area? You're looking from 1013 Hopkins? 1014 1015 Ms. Vaccaro: Correct. 1016 1017 Mr. McClure: You're looking at Walter Hays with the white, box buildings in the 1018 background. 1019 1020 Commissioner Knopper: I like the idea about the living wall, that's great. It certainly is 1021 facing a wall. I also like the idea of the interactivity and the glass circles and the built-in 1022 benches. That was terrific. A great place to sit and watch either the park or the animals, 1023 whatever's going on. From a depth perspective, how deep is that? 1024 1025 Commissioner Lauing: The wall? 1026 1027 Commissioner Knopper: Yeah. If you're sitting in your circle, your egg, your glass egg. 1028 1029 Mr. McClure: At that location, we're looking at about 18 inches or so. It could almost be 1030 a seat. 1031 1032 Commissioner Knopper: That would be great. I like the idea of utilizing the wall. You 1033 mentioned that you guys are in discussion with regard to reliefs or something. Being able 1034 to utilize it for real science, not just a fossil, but information or something that would give 1035 a user, a child, somebody in the park a reason to go over to the wall, feel the wall, 1036 experience the wall. I like that idea of interactivity as well. In my opinion, Alternate 1 is 1037 the only one that should be under discussion. Again, my opinion. You guys listened to 1038 what we said in February. With the other footprints removing parking spots, parking is a 1039 Approved Minutes 25 APPROVED huge issue with Middlefield. You said that there would be a bus stop on the front edge, 1040 and the others would impede that. You're being conscientious of the footage on 1041 Middlefield, which was very well thought out. 1042 1043 Vice Chair Markevitch: Commissioner Hetterly, do you have any? 1044 1045 Commissioner Hetterly: I'm going to defer to Ed, since I stole his thunder the last time. 1046 You can circle around back to me. 1047 1048 Commissioner Crommie: I'm a huge fan of the Junior Museum. My kids were there all 1049 the time when they were young. They've used the science camp assistant program. It's 1050 my 15-year-old daughter's favorite place to go. She looks forward to it every year and 1051 works as many days as she can there. Huge supporter of it. I want to point out that 1052 you're putting a building in a park. That's what I have an issue with. Of course, it's 1053 nuanced. There's all these good reasons for doing it. It is an amazing program for our 1054 City, but you are putting a building in a park. You are doing that because you don't want 1055 to put a building on Middlefield Road. You're being very protective of Middlefield 1056 Road. I'm a little jealous, because I live in south Palo Alto, and no one's that protective 1057 of our roads. We have big buildings going up all over the place in south Palo Alto. You 1058 get to the north and it's like, "It's residential. Let's not put the building on the road." Our 1059 purview is the park, so I want to defend the park. Any chance we can get more building 1060 on Middlefield Road, we said that last time. You gave us two alternates that we can't 1061 discuss because they're not good enough. I can go into some detail about ways I would 1062 look at these alternates. First of all, I am happy you showed us some pictures with the 1063 existing footprint of the Junior Museum. That existing footprint shows the building 1064 pretty close to the pecan tree. What you've done in all your subsequent renditions is 1065 move that building away from the pecan tree and say we need to protect the pecan tree. 1066 In my understanding of these diagrams, the existing building is closer to it. If you go to 1067 one of your diagrams that has the blue line on it, the blue line in the existing is pretty far 1068 toward the Lucie Stern Center. You can point to what I'm showing everyone. Maybe 1069 you can answer this as a question. Right now, are any existing structures closer to the 1070 pecan tree? When I say the pecan tree, I mean that biggest circle. Is there anything 1071 closer to it now than in the proposals? 1072 1073 Mr. McClure: What's shown there and what's reflected in the diagram is the outer fence 1074 boundary. There's a Zoo support zone that's been built into the front. There's no building 1075 that forms that edge. That's the fence line of their outdoor space. 1076 1077 Commissioner Crommie: I do recall when that went up. In your new proposals, how 1078 come you're not making the building go out as far as the existing fence goes? 1079 1080 Approved Minutes 26 APPROVED Mr. McClure: If we build out towards that fence line, we're going to start to pinch upon 1081 the entrance plaza. Now, your pathway to get from the front of the Museum and Zoo, 1082 around into Rinconada Park, is going to be narrowed if not almost completely squelched 1083 off. We might even run the risk of losing a few extra parking spaces to have that 1084 tradeoff. A way to illustrate that is with the second alternate. If you can see where that 1085 dotted line is, this arrow here is pointing at the pecan tree center point. If we built the 1086 program out into here, you're not going to necessarily lose these parking spaces. You'd 1087 likely lose some of these, and then your pathway will become a sliver as you sneak 1088 around to get into the park. 1089 1090 Commissioner Crommie: I don't like that either. What we have now in the existing setup 1091 is a little parking lot behind the Zoo that is the buffer between the Zoo and the park. You 1092 show that in your picture when you show the congested entryway. You show it with all 1093 of the cars parked in it. You're showing that picture; it's full up with cars. In other 1094 pictures of your new plan, you never have any cars in that picture, so you show us a more 1095 spacious entryway, but you're also not putting any cars in it. If you can go back to the 1096 picture that shows your entryway, we can imagine it full of cars. Those have some 1097 parking spaces. It looks like it has two or three handicapped parking spaces. There will, 1098 at some point, be cars in there. Then the entryway aesthetically becomes the piece of that 1099 opening that's to the left of the car that's not shown there. Visually, aesthetically, when 1100 the cars were there, like you showed us in the existing picture, it looks more crowded. 1101 1102 Mr. McClure: The difference here is that the wall of the Zoo peels back at a much 1103 gentler angle. You can see how this pinches here. 1104 1105 Commissioner Crommie: Can you remind us what the dotted lines are? 1106 1107 Mr. McClure: This is that existing. The Museum and Zoo comes all the way back here. 1108 That wall peels back in this area. We're trying to establish this much more gracious park 1109 entrance plaza to connect the parking area, Middlefield into the park itself. 1110 1111 Commissioner Crommie: That's the part that I don't appreciate if it's taking up a lot of 1112 the park to do that. It's good to make us aware that that blue dotted line is a fence line. 1113 On the top of it is where that little parking lot would be, that you're taking away. By 1114 taking away that little parking lot, you are naturally opening up the entry way. There's 1115 too much space devoted to the plaza at the expense of putting the building in the park. 1116 You have to justify that to be able to do it. I'm not fully convinced yet that you can't put 1117 more building mass toward Middlefield. Is there any way you can in your drawing 1118 program change that building that you're showing us, the dark blue, and allow us to keep 1119 the dawn redwood tree and make more of the mass of the building jut up against the 1120 parking lot? Did you play around with that? 1121 1122 Approved Minutes 27 APPROVED Mr. McClure: We did. 1123 1124 Commissioner Crommie: Can you tell us about it? 1125 1126 Mr. McClure: I'll talk about that a little bit. We even talked about creating a courtyard 1127 building around the dawn redwood and the impacts of this. A good way to think about 1128 this is that we've looked at ways to nip and tuck the square footage as much as we 1129 possibly can. Nearly 55 percent of the square footage increases in this building are 1130 devoted to ADA and safety circulation issues alone. There's so little that they have right 1131 now as part of this rightsizing of the building. If we hold the square footage more or less 1132 as a constant, if we cut out a hole in the middle, there's square footage here that we now 1133 need to appropriate somewhere else. Programmatically this little sliver over here is not 1134 going to work very well to support the animals as they go back and forth. We would 1135 need more space over here to make this function. In doing so, we take more of this dark 1136 blue and keep moving it along the street and into the parking lot. This is the cedar zone, 1137 and the oak tree zone starts somewhere about right here. If we build out in this direction, 1138 we're going to lose even more parking. The design we had in February and the alternate 1139 ones have 120 parking stalls, which is 20 more than what is on this site today. The 1140 CEQA that's underway identified 47 parking stalls in total for the Rinconada Master Plan, 1141 half of which are on this site. We're already taking away ten parking stalls with this 1142 design option. If we do what you're proposing, we're going to lose more parking. We're 1143 trying really hard to balance all of the constraints. 1144 1145 Commissioner Crommie: You can't lose the parking; that's critical. Are you going to 1146 lose the parking if you put more of the weight on Middlefield Road? Can you show us an 1147 elevation? Some of this discussion is let's be very protective of what's on Middlefield. 1148 Can you show a picture of what that looks like? 1149 1150 Mrs. McClure: I don't have an elevation here today. If we're going to live along 1151 Middlefield Road and preserve all of the parking, we're getting a building that is this 1152 long, narrow, skinny building. We're contorting the shape of this building into something 1153 that is going to be yet again not suitable and functional for the programs that we're trying 1154 to support. 1155 1156 Commissioner Lauing: Can I ask a clarification question? Are you asking why 1157 Alternative 3 might or might not work? Is that what you're asking? 1158 1159 Commissioner Crommie: I'm digging for a better alternative. 1160 1161 Commissioner Lauing: I thought you said earlier that you didn't think that worked 1162 anyway. 1163 1164 Approved Minutes 28 APPROVED Commissioner Crommie: Alternative 3 is getting closer to what I wanted to see. I would 1165 like to try to save the dawn redwood. There's too much space. If you look at the blue 1166 line, that space between the blue line and the parking lot, I don't quite understand why 1167 you need that at all. There's a lot of that white space. If you go up, you can point to what 1168 I'm talking about in your picture. There's a lot of extra space off the parking lot right 1169 there. 1170 1171 Ms. Vaccaro: As it stands, this blue line is the existing footprint. The existing parking 1172 lot comes right up against this fence. These are the few spots that we saw right next to 1173 the dumpsters in front. Right now, you have to walk into the parking lot to get around the 1174 Zoo, if you're going from the JMZ to the park, which is an unsafe condition. What we're 1175 trying to do is create a safer connection between the JMZ and the park. That's why we're 1176 maintaining the 10-foot walkway to allow people to circulate safely from the JMZ to the 1177 park. As we've heard, that's a very common shared use. People come here to go to both 1178 of those. 1179 1180 Commissioner Crommie: This is the part I'm interested in right here. You're creating all 1181 this space in here. How do people get in here? Is there going to be a future walkway 1182 across the road? 1183 1184 Mr. McClure: In Alternate 3, we've not drawn one in yet, because you would lose those 1185 parking stalls to make that happen. I want to go back to a drawing at the beginning of 1186 this. Unfortunately this photograph cuts it off a little bit, but you can see the edge. 1187 There's a landscaped edge right here. There's a walkway that goes into the existing 1188 Museum entrance at this location. There's this island that sticks out. That parking lot 1189 that you were talking about juts all the way back into here. Towards Sarah's point, there 1190 really is no connection from this parking lot into the park that allows a pedestrian to come 1191 over and access the Zoo. You have to walk into the parking lot to come around to go into 1192 this location here. That zone that we were talking about is only creating about a 10-foot 1193 wide buffer of walkway with some surrounding plantings to be able to provide an access 1194 point for someone to walk from here safely, not cross the parking lot, enter the Museum 1195 and Zoo in the new design and also connect with the street. 1196 1197 Commissioner Crommie: Can you point with your finger where the current door is to get 1198 into the new design? 1199 1200 Mr. McClure: The new design or the existing? 1201 1202 Commissioner Crommie: The new design. If someone lives across the street from the 1203 Zoo, what's the pedestrian walking pathway to get into the Zoo from across the street, if 1204 you live across the street from it? 1205 1206 Approved Minutes 29 APPROVED Commissioner Knopper: There's two lights. I live in this neighborhood. There's 1207 Melville up (crosstalk) ... 1208 1209 Commissioner Crommie: I know Melville. 1210 1211 Commissioner Knopper: ... and then Embarcadero. 1212 1213 Commissioner Crommie: Is that the only way people can cross the street to get into this 1214 place? 1215 1216 Commissioner Knopper: Mm-hmm, without jaywalking. 1217 1218 Mr. McClure: Presently yes. 1219 1220 Commissioner Crommie: In the future, are you trying to change that? 1221 1222 Mr. McClure: We've not investigated that at this point. 1223 1224 Ms. Vaccaro: The Rinconada Park Master Plan has (crosstalk) ... 1225 1226 Commissioner Knopper: Crosswalks. 1227 1228 Ms. Vaccaro: ... next to Kellogg right there. 1229 1230 Vice Chair Markevitch: Yeah, right there. 1231 1232 Commissioner Crommie: The plan calls for a crosswalk at the existing entry point. I still 1233 don't know why someone's walking around the building, why you've left that 10-foot 1234 space by Middlefield. Who's walking over there? 1235 1236 Mr. McClure: Part of the Master Plan also has cutting in a bus stop for public transit at 1237 this location. You have kids from Walter Hays. You have people walking from different 1238 points of interest within the greater surroundings. What we're trying to do is create 1239 pedestrian access and safety, and also do it in such a way where it's visually clear. The 1240 problem with the site right now is the wayfinding is lost. You don't know where you're 1241 supposed to walk or where you're supposed to go. In doing this, you've got the public 1242 right-of-way on the sidewalk. If there's an access point here, you could then walk up 1243 under the trees into this entry plaza here and then around the pecan and into the park. 1244 You're separating pedestrians from cars as much as possible at all locations except for 1245 where you cross. 1246 1247 Approved Minutes 30 APPROVED Commissioner Crommie: My last question. Is this a complete teardown? I have two 1248 questions. Is it a complete teardown of the facility and a rebuild? Is that what we're 1249 looking at? 1250 1251 Mr. McClure: Yes. 1252 1253 Commissioner Crommie: This is again our purview, looking at programming for 1254 children in the City and making sure they have summer camps to go to. How are you 1255 going to phase this is in so that the operation continues for kids? How long do you think 1256 the project will take and how are you going to keep the operation going or are you not 1257 going to do that? 1258 1259 Mr. McClure: I believe we're looking at relocating ... 1260 1261 Mr. Aiken: John Aiken, Executive Director of the Junior Museum and Zoo. I'm working 1262 with the real estate department of the City of Palo Alto to find a suitable offsite facility 1263 that we can relocate the animals, our teaching staff and our collections, so that we can 1264 keep fully functional during the rebuild. We're estimating right now about a two-year 1265 construction. 1266 1267 Commissioner Crommie: What's your start date, what are you considering? 1268 1269 Mr. McClure: We're looking towards clearing the greater entitlement process, because 1270 we're coming to you, we're going to the ARB. We're not sure yet if it's the Planning 1271 Commission and/or City Council, possibly City Council. Looking to clear all those, I 1272 think, spring/summer of next year, and then design. We would be breaking ground at the 1273 earliest spring of 2017. 1274 1275 Vice Chair Markevitch: Commissioner Lauing. 1276 1277 Commissioner Lauing: A bunch of questions and then comments. First, could you 1278 review with us what the increase in total square footage is with your first plan that you 1279 presented compared to the existing site? 1280 1281 Mr. McClure: This plan takes the existing building from 8,069 square feet. The new 1282 building is 19,900 square feet, for an increase of 11,000 square feet. 6,500 square feet of 1283 that is for ADA improvements as far as restrooms, proper circulation, pathways and 1284 whatnot, also creating wider pathways within the facility to support the number of 1285 students that are there for a safer environment. That amounts to about 55 percent of that 1286 total increase. 1287 1288 Commissioner Lauing: 19,000 is the first one that you presented to us? 1289 Approved Minutes 31 APPROVED 1290 Mr. McClure: Yes. 1291 1292 Commissioner Lauing: You mentioned in your comments that the Zoo support building 1293 was used sometimes or all the time for animal transfer. I heard in the last presentation 1294 there was cage storage there and various things like that. 1295 1296 Mr. McClure: There's an animal program room that's in the middle. That's for activities 1297 with the animals. There's quarantine spaces, feeding rooms and an office space for the 1298 Director as well as the restrooms that would serve the park side. Right now that all 1299 occurs out of the one office. 1300 1301 Commissioner Lauing: In looking at this thing, did you price an underground basement 1302 level? 1303 1304 Mr. McClure: We looked at an underground condition at a preliminary level. The 1305 Friends and the City together felt it was going to be cost prohibitive to make that work. 1306 1307 Commissioner Lauing: Would there be the entire footprint available if you dug that 1308 thing? If so, what would that plate be? I guess it'd be about 4,000 square feet, maybe 1309 five. 1310 1311 Mr. McClure: You wouldn't be able to take advantage of putting half the program 1312 underground, because the things that you'd want to put down there would be service 1313 support and things that don't ... 1314 1315 Commissioner Lauing: Specimens. 1316 1317 Mr. McClure: ... necessarily need a lot of daylight like the storage space. It's this zone 1318 back in here, and this is the teacher prep area. You're going to want the teacher prep area 1319 near classrooms. Classrooms are going to want to have daylight. Your Museum space is 1320 going to want to have daylight. If we're going to get daylight into basement spaces, then 1321 we're creating ... 1322 1323 Commissioner Lauing: If it was storage of specimens, temperature controlled areas, the 1324 teacher goes down there and picks up her two birds to show the kids that day. 1325 1326 Mr. McClure: That square footage is only about 3,000 square feet or so of the entire 1327 facility. If you were to do something like that, you're not going to get the economies that 1328 you're looking for. 1329 1330 Commissioner Lauing: Did you ask the City to price underground parking there? 1331 Approved Minutes 32 APPROVED 1332 Mr. McClure: We looked at it as far as just being cost prohibitive. 1333 1334 Commissioner Lauing: I know you considered entirely different locations, and that was 1335 ruled out. What about partial storage of specimens that are only used once a year or 1336 something like that? 1337 1338 Vice Chair Markevitch: Offsite? 1339 1340 Commissioner Lauing: Yeah. 1341 1342 Mr. McClure: I may ask for some assistance with this question. There's the offsite 1343 storage and then the onsite storage. 1344 1345 Mr. Aiken: I'll try to answer it as succinctly as I can. The specimen collection is the 1346 smallest part of our overall collections. Mostly it's the stuff that the teachers take out to 1347 the schools. Some of those are consumable goods as well as consumable collections. For 1348 instance, birds' nests that are brought to us on a regular basis wear out over time and are 1349 replaced. Very valuable things are a small part of it and are under lock and key. Brent 1350 can probably point out where that piece of it is. It's a tiny part of the collection. It's this 1351 tiny room right here. This is overall storage space for the collections. Under the new 1352 plan, the idea is that the teachers are going to help curate and manage this, because we 1353 have essentially teaching collections. We're going to jettison the things that don't meet 1354 our mission and send them to appropriate facilities and then focus our collection and 1355 grow our collection over time, so that we have the right things to teach with. 1356 1357 Commissioner Lauing: In the last meeting we heard about cages. It seemed like a lot of 1358 that stuff didn't have to be this close at all times. If you put it in temperature-controlled 1359 storage and moved it in a temperature-controlled truck, that would be a way to do it a 1360 little bit more cheaply if slightly less convenient. I understand the issue of trying to make 1361 a beautiful entry. Anything would be better than what we have now in any part of that 1362 park. That's also my home park, so I've been there for decades. There is such a massive 1363 plaza area there. It's almost the entire perimeter of the right-hand side and the lower side, 1364 from a non-architect point of view. I've done a few house remodels. It seems like there's 1365 a big percentage of stuff that's going to be dedicated to pavers and walk-ins and 1366 presentations. People want to get in to see the animals or they want to get to the swing 1367 set. To me, that looks like another tradeoff that may not be as valid as taking more turf 1368 from the park. You've got a massive parking problem, always had a massive parking 1369 problem. You've got 150,000 people; you're going to open it up to the park and 1370 encourage more visitors to come in. More people are going to come. We've got a 1371 problem here. I don't know how the City addresses that, but it's going to be massive. It's 1372 just sitting there as a big problem waiting to happen. You did say in your opening 1373 Approved Minutes 33 APPROVED memo—who did this come from? The Friends—that the Museum and Zoo are a valued 1374 amenity. Everybody on the Commission would take a nanosecond to agree with that. It's 1375 unique to the City. We want it improved. The next comment that it's now an integral 1376 aspect of the visitor experience at Rinconada isn't yet true, because more people are going 1377 to the park and can't even see it over there. I took my kids there for years, and I didn't 1378 know what was behind the wall. Some opening up there, integration with the Zoo, is 1379 going to improve that problem to get there. The assumption that the Zoo and the park are 1380 one is incorrect for most people that are going there right now. It might get more that 1381 way as we go forward. The bridge from "it's one now, so we should put a big building in 1382 the park" is shaky logic. While I appreciate that you gave us some options compared to 1383 the first presentation, two of those options I don't think you had to give us. As you just 1384 said in the tradeoff, "If we do this, then I've got to take down more trees or I'm going to 1385 take out more parking." In all of these situations, something has to be sacred cows. At 1386 this point, parking is one of them, sadly. We're parks people; we think that trees are 1387 pretty close to sacred as well. You taking down those massive trees that are out there and 1388 the ancient ones and the unique ones, I don't think that's a natural, "If we can't move into 1389 the park here, then we have to take down more trees or do something else over here." We 1390 don't like a lot of dead trees coming out of this project. You're putting up this 19,000 1391 square foot structure, and the only proposal that you put forth that you favor that we 1392 would agree is the only one that's remotely valid is the one that still gives you a 90 1393 percent encroachment on the park compared to the first time. You're taking 10 percent 1394 off. That one might even cause some more dead trees along Middlefield; I'm not quite 1395 sure. The whole problem is that this thing doesn't fit in terms of what you really want to 1396 do there. The ideal that you want to do doesn't fit. You also mentioned that there were 1397 site constraints and that you're landlocked because of those constraints. The constraints 1398 are obvious, Middlefield Road and the school and so on. Our purview is to say that the 1399 park is somewhat of a constraint too. It's a hard constraint because we can't get any more 1400 parkland. In all three proposals you put two stories there to get some of the square 1401 footage and you went outbound with the building and tried to keep some trees, but you 1402 had to give up some others. You still have to consider some other options. Basically this 1403 means that you can't have everything. Whatever analogy you want to use, I was in 1404 software for a lot of years, and we'd have "This is the great product. Yeah, but we can't 1405 afford it. It's going to take eight years to build." We had what we called feature creep. 1406 "Here's four more great things we can put in there. Yeah, but the customers want the 1407 things that you can get in there in a year." Everything has that kind of constraint. That's 1408 a realistic constraint as opposed to feeling like the good place to move is into the park. 1409 Some of the things I asked questions about, basement storage could be looked at, offsite 1410 storage, reduced plaza area. Fundamentally we can't do everything in that location that's 1411 the ideal. We face that everywhere. I also know there's an argument that a children's zoo 1412 is a perfectly valid use of parkland because it has to do with fun and family and the 1413 animals are nature. I'm not going to argue against that. That doesn't meant that we have 1414 to endorse an incursion into the park with a building. If the animals are spilling out 1415 Approved Minutes 34 APPROVED occasionally, that would be one thing, but the building's going to be there forever. Parks 1416 are about open space and trees and not necessarily about big buildings. We can't endorse 1417 the use of limited park acreage just because something is fun and family-oriented. 1418 Zoning and other issues aside, if we had somebody come to the next Park Commission 1419 meeting and presented to us a fully funded program to put a Ferris wheel in that park or a 1420 roller coaster, we couldn't deny that that'd be really fun for families, but I don't think we 1421 would approve. Why wouldn't we approve it? Not because it wouldn't be fun, but 1422 because it would take up the exclusive land for that one thing and a lot of it. For the 1423 second thing, we're increasingly trying to plan as part of our Comprehensive Plan in 1424 going forward for that community space to be used by multiple people for multiple uses, 1425 and more people are coming into the parks all the time. We're having more demand on 1426 the park space. In this circumstance, you're saying, "Let's take up a little bit of this space 1427 for a building." Bottom line is this is a little bit like El Camino Park where there was too 1428 much stuff that we tried to squish into that park and had to back off, because we were 1429 giving up a lot of open space. That's the similarity here; we'd be giving up a lot more 1430 open space, albeit what looks like a great visual coming between the park and so on. I'd 1431 like to see you take a look at a few more options to scale this thing back, so it doesn't 1432 have to intrude that much. We could still have something that's phenomenal, even more 1433 phenomenal than all this stuff that you provide right now. 1434 1435 Mr. de Geus: That's great feedback. I wanted to comment on a couple of things. The 1436 design is not the Cadillac design that includes everything that the Junior Museum would 1437 want to have. It's the necessity of what they need to become an accredited Museum and 1438 Zoo. If you think about the Zoo itself—you can help me with this, John—the number of 1439 increased animal exhibits in the Zoo is four only. If they wanted to do more significantly, 1440 it would be even bigger than this. It's about getting to that accreditation. That's an 1441 important point. If we're going to have a Zoo, we ought to do it responsibly. 1442 Accreditation allows us to do that. I wanted to comment about a building in the park. I 1443 see it differently. This is not just a building. It's not an office building or just a place for 1444 fun. I think about it as an intensive interpretive center, like we have in our open space 1445 preserves. It's not bringing nature into parks, but in some ways it is. It's teaching 1446 thousands of children and families about conservation and nature. These kids leave the 1447 Junior Museum and Zoo and the experience they have there is caring deeply about parks 1448 and open space. There's value in that. For me, that's why the tradeoff is acceptable, 1449 because of the value of the program and purpose of the building, which is different than 1450 just any building. 1451 1452 Vice Chair Markevitch: Jennifer? 1453 1454 Commissioner Hetterly: I'll make a couple of comments. I largely agree with 1455 Commissioner Lauing. Alternatives 2 and 3 are non-starters in light of the two particular 1456 trees you're talking about and the loss of parking. Parking is hugely problematic. I won't 1457 Approved Minutes 35 APPROVED dwell on that. Replacing parkland is cost prohibitive for the City. We're not adding 1458 anymore parkland. The 7.7 acres counts, but in-town parkland is hard to come by and it's 1459 not just a matter of cost. We can't just pay more to add a park somewhere. I appreciate 1460 the accreditation comment. It’s important to get the accreditation, and that's an important 1461 goal for you all to be striving for. I appreciate that you took a hard look and tried to 1462 figure out how to reduce the footprint in the park. You came back with something that 1463 was thoughtful and showed some sacrifice on you all's part in terms of where you could 1464 make sacrifices. That said, the entrance plaza, as we said before, looks massive to me. I 1465 don't think it needs to be as big as it is. For example, in Footprint 3 it's significantly 1466 smaller. You could make it significantly smaller. You could work off of your original 1467 proposal, extend out to Middlefield similar to how you would in Option 3, leave your 1468 cutout for the redwood, make that your entry plaza so this area could be quite a bit 1469 shallower. You're not encroaching into any parking, so at least you hold onto those extra 1470 20 spaces, which was a thoughtful design as well in terms of solving the parking 1471 problem. You take advantage of that tree to give you your gathering space and create a 1472 welcoming entrance to your Museum. Maybe cut a corner by the pecan tree to add a little 1473 space there. It seems like this much space for the Zoo support building, you ought to be 1474 able to reconfigure it while still preserving your trees and your parking and still have a 1475 substantial entrance, if you keep that tree. 1476 1477 Mr. McClure: In thinking about this, I'm almost intrigued if there's a way to rotate the 1478 Zoo. You're talking about making a smaller plaza, taking the square footages and 1479 smushing them around. If the Zoo and the Zoo support building slide west on the page, 1480 then that's taking that 10 percent and maybe it becomes 15 or something. It's trying to 1481 find again the right size for that plaza. We should make it nice but efficient at the same 1482 time and try to find that balance. That's something that we can study. 1483 1484 Commissioner Lauing: That took out a lot of shade trees by the way back in the park that 1485 would have to be replaced and take a while to grow. 1486 1487 Commissioner Hetterly: I agree that this Zoo support building and the park entry plaza 1488 don't work, because you don't have a safe passage. That is important as we've heard from 1489 everybody who's spoken today. It doesn't have to be that big. I hope you all can spend a 1490 little more effort to try and figure out how you can move things around to keep what you 1491 need and preserve those trees. It's well worth sacrificing the Middlefield frontage in 1492 order to preserve the parkland. They're nowhere near even on the balance of value to the 1493 City. 1494 1495 Vice Chair Markevitch: Commissioner Knopper, do you have any comments? 1496 1497 Commissioner Knopper: Rob was very articulate. The example of putting a Ferris wheel 1498 in a park is very different than a JMZ. No disrespect. This is an educational program 1499 Approved Minutes 36 APPROVED that teaches science. Any time a human being can interact with live creatures that aren't 1500 human, mammals and reptiles, etc., provides an opportunity to create passion for this 1501 Earth that a lot of people unfortunately don't seem to have. After listening to all of the 1502 comments, I definitely can see that, to Jennifer's point a little earlier, increasing the 1503 frontage on Middlefield to save some of the corner. My only fear is you create a dead 1504 space in this back corner. What would that be used for? 1505 1506 Commissioner Hetterly: Can I ask a follow-up question? 1507 1508 Vice Chair Markevitch: Yeah. 1509 1510 Commissioner Hetterly: On the footprint in all of the various alternatives that's shown in 1511 this light blue, is that inclusive of all the netting and the posts for the netting or do they 1512 extend beyond that, so that the netting goes out like this? 1513 1514 Mr. McClure: We're suggesting to extend the posts outbound of that line. That line 1515 would represent the wall of the Zoo. If you go back to those diagrams, you'd have these 1516 posts that would come out, but the netting would be above. The idea is to be playful as 1517 we have our touch within the park. 1518 1519 Commissioner Hetterly: That does make the impact on the park even greater. It's 1520 balanced out somewhat by the interactivity of the wall. In terms of usable parkland, 1521 instead of the blue line being where the Zoo ends, the Zoo really ends 5, 10 feet further 1522 out, wherever the posts are going, where the net extends to. That becomes ... 1523 1524 Mr. McClure: You see it suggested on this drawing. This is the plan. It's ghosted in 1525 back here. We can play with the location of these columns. We can pull some of these 1526 columns in a little bit as a possibility. As you get further into the park boundaries here, 1527 this is the oak that's in front of the Girl Scout Building. As you get towards the back 1528 where the back of house building is, that dissolves. We don't have posts that are coming 1529 out along this edge. It's only along this walkway zone. 1530 1531 Commissioner Hetterly: If you were to move the back room support buildings elsewhere, 1532 it would go all the way around the circle. 1533 1534 Mr. McClure: Yes. 1535 1536 Commissioner Knopper: The public restroom is on this corner? 1537 1538 Mr. McClure: That's on Alternate 3. We didn't land the restroom per se on that line. 1539 Right now it would be over here, so that it would be front and center, looking out towards 1540 the park. 1541 Approved Minutes 37 APPROVED 1542 Vice Chair Markevitch: I have two comments. First, the pillars. For example, if 1543 somebody was playing Frisbee, that could interfere. It looks like the pillars are on the 1544 other side of the walkway and into the grassy area. Now we're chipping away at it. If 1545 you look at all of our parks and open space and if you include the 7.7 acres that we just 1546 dedicated, we're still not meeting the Comp Plan acreage per 1,000 residents. Every time 1547 something like this comes up, I thought of it tonight when they were talking about 1548 Avenidas, "We just want to put a couple of benches here." It's death by 1,000 cuts. Our 1549 parkland is getting chipped away. We need to draw a line in the sand as a Commission at 1550 some point and say stop it. We need more parkland to come up to what the Comp Plan 1551 wants us to have. It's very important that we think hard about these projects as they're 1552 coming up, because it's starting to change the character of the town, and I don't think for 1553 the good. Having said that, I'm a big fan of the Junior Museum. Whatever you can do to 1554 make it work for both parties would be most appreciated. Any other comments or 1555 questions? I don't think so, unless Rob has something. 1556 1557 Mr. de Geus: A final comment to thank the Friends of the Junior Museum and Zoo. 1558 They're an amazing group of people. They're stepping forward to raise all the money to 1559 build this program. It's remarkable. It says a lot about this community. We just talked 1560 about the same thing, people stepping forward and raising the money to make this 1561 community better. A huge thanks. 1562 1563 Commissioner Lauing: The least the City can do is put in underground parking for them. 1564 1565 Vice Chair Markevitch: That's about $65,000 a parking spot. That's a lot of money. 1566 1567 Commissioner Knopper: It's in a flood zone, so I don't even know if FEMA would allow 1568 them to do it. 1569 1570 Vice Chair Markevitch: Thank you for your hard work. 1571 1572 4. Review of the Parks, Trails, Open Space and Recreation Facilities Master 1573 Plan. 1574 1575 Peter Jensen: Commissioners, good evening. Peter Jensen, Landscape Architect for the 1576 City of Palo Alto, here to continue our ongoing discussion of the Parks Master Plan. 1577 Tonight we'll be viewing the framework for the community outreach that is associated 1578 with this phase of prioritization and recommendation. I'm going to let Ryan go into more 1579 depth about that. We've been meeting with the ad hoc group concerning criteria and this 1580 outreach process. There is more to come about the criteria. We've had a good dialog 1581 with the ad hoc group about that. We'll be developing that more for the next meeting. I 1582 will be meeting with the ad hoc again before next meeting to vet the revisions to the 1583 Approved Minutes 38 APPROVED criteria that we're working on. Tonight we want to focus on the outreach effort for the 1584 community, how that will be structured and what that will entail. Without further ado, I'll 1585 let Ryan from MIG, our consultant, take us through that process. The handout that you 1586 got basically follows along with that. 1587 1588 Ryan Mottau: Thank you, all. Ryan Mottau, I'm your project manager this evening. The 1589 work that we've been doing over the last couple of weeks led to this handout which we're 1590 walking in with. I know you haven't had a chance to read this. I'm going to walk you 1591 through the key points. Most of it is just building on things that we have seen in 1592 preliminary versions, that you all have had some feedback on. What you're going to be 1593 seeing are some revisions based on that feedback and some extra clarification. As Peter 1594 said, we're trying to get to a place where we're all comfortable, particularly you all are 1595 comfortable, with an approach to the community outreach to get us a point of feedback 1596 from the community about prioritization. I want to clarify that this is not the be-all and 1597 end-all prioritization. We're not going to ask the community what exactly should go first. 1598 We're looking for a point of input about what their knowledge of the community is 1599 suggesting should be prioritized in front of other things. That's a complicated question. 1600 As you all know, we've been dealing with a lot of detail, a lot of finessed points of 1601 analysis and of input. A big part of this exercise is about how do we generalize some of 1602 the things that we've been thinking of in a way that we can get meaningful feedback and 1603 that people can provide us with some degree of emphasis about not only what things they 1604 put in position 1, 2, 3, but if they feel like something is particularly important. We want 1605 them to be able to accent that as they go through these exercises and give us that 1606 feedback, that not only is this important, but it is the most important thing to me or the 1607 most important thing in this category. With that, I'm going to walk you through a little 1608 bit about what we've been talking about. The ad hoc committee has helped us think 1609 through some of this. The first piece of this handout is a reminder that we're working 1610 through this process that's going from that data collection and analysis on to Plan 1611 development and review. We're continuing on that path. This stage is about giving you 1612 guys one of your points of input for the criteria that we have been discussing and getting 1613 into that community priority and how to get a better sense, building on some of the other 1614 input that we've had, of what the community feels is most important, but not just of 1615 anything. We've, of course, done a lot of filtering as we've gone through this process. 1616 We've gone through and thought about what broad directions the community wants to go. 1617 We've shaped some principles which were in the framework discussion in your packet 1618 last month. We introduced to you these areas of focus and got some feedback and 1619 revised, got a little more feedback and revised. What you're seeing starting on page 1 and 1620 flowing into page 2 is a revised list of those areas of focus, which are intended to serve as 1621 a bit of a proxy or a summarization of what will be more detailed recommendations. 1622 Again, I want to emphasize that with the community going into the action-by-action, line-1623 by-line recommendations is a much higher level of detail than we can expect them to 1624 readily respond to. What we want to do is give them categories of these 1625 Approved Minutes 39 APPROVED recommendations to work with. In order to clarify those, each one of those areas of focus 1626 now has a brief description, a couple of example projects, trying to give more meat for 1627 people to chew on about what we're talking about in each of these areas. In some of 1628 those areas, things have been collapsed, combined, to get this list into a more manageable 1629 number of items. It's still a pretty long list, because there's a lot of things that we've 1630 talked about. There's a lot of areas that this Plan covers. As we've talked through every 1631 step of this process, there's a lot of different things included in this Park, Trails, Open 1632 Space and Recreation Master Plan. The areas of focus, as a whole list, is the first couple 1633 of pages of this. I'm going to walk you through the community priority exercise, 1634 particularly for time reasons. I'm open to and happy to discuss the areas of focus, where 1635 we've collapsed, what we've done to those. I would love to get your feedback about 1636 those. I do want to explain the community priority exercise, so that you can understand 1637 how we're intending to use them, how we're introducing them to the public. 1638 1639 Commissioner Lauing: What we're trying to do here is make these areas of focus a little 1640 bit smaller? It was 18 down to 16, now it's 11. This is supposed to go in front of people 1641 in the community for them, as he'll discuss with you, to "weight." The second thing is we 1642 didn't feel that one line was going to be enough definition, so we asked for specifics 1643 about what this thing talked about and some examples to make it crystal clear. 1644 Hopefully, that's what's happened in the first two pages. 1645 1646 Mr. Mottau: This a reflection of our understanding of what we were talking about as we 1647 were developing these things. Totally open to the reality that people are going to read 1648 these a little bit differently. We might need some more clarification on those 1649 descriptions. Yes, that was exactly what we were aiming for, to get that detail in their 1650 hands as they're looking at it. Even at 11 items, it's still a fair bit of content. One of the 1651 other things the ad hoc helped us think through is a structure for working through this 1652 exercise in a way that gives a chance to deal with these in chunks as we work through this 1653 exercise. On page 3, we start talking about this exercise and how we would design this 1654 exercise. We aren't just throwing out ideas. This is based on our experiences with 1655 various different ways of prioritizing with communities. We're setting out some goals. 1656 We want to get a range of input, not just the thing that people walked in the door thinking 1657 about. "Sports fields is my most important issue so, whatever you say, the most 1658 important answer is sports fields." We want to make sure that those people who come in 1659 with one topic in mind also get a chance to process some of the other things that are being 1660 discussed in this Plan. We want people to be able to assign a value or a budget to items, 1661 making some tradeoffs. They're relatively gross tradeoffs. They're not finally 1662 understood; "I understand the minute differences between one choice and another." They 1663 are forcing people to make some choices; to think about the fact that we can't necessarily 1664 do everything that we all want to do; to give people that second chance to put the big red 1665 star or the big underline underneath the projects that they feel are most important. 1666 Overall, they are getting that chance to discuss, to add into that discussion that important 1667 Approved Minutes 40 APPROVED emphasis. We have five items here, five points. I'm going to point out that this whole 1668 exercise is designed to be done in person, in a workshop setting as well as online. That's 1669 learning from our experience with the earlier workshops in this process. We wanted to 1670 make sure that we not only got the face time, the in-person discussion, bouncing our 1671 ideas off our neighbors and our community members, but we also got a chance to reach a 1672 broader audience through the online efforts. We got great response from the online 1673 efforts early on, so we want to get some more bulk of numbers involved in this exercise. 1674 You'll see as we go through this that there's a little bit of clarification in each step about 1675 how we would do it online, how we would do it in the workshop format. I'll just walk 1676 through quickly the five points of this agenda for the meeting or the structure of that 1677 online exercise. Obviously there'll be a welcome. That's self-explanatory. The project 1678 update as well will be fairly self-explanatory. You all don't need much of that, but 1679 somebody coming into the workshop who hasn't been involved since the initial 1680 workshops or maybe not at all will want to get up to speed. Where do these things come 1681 from? What are we basing this on? It's not that we pulled it out of the air. The third item 1682 is where things get interactive. We want to save as much time in this agenda and in this 1683 exercise to give people as much time as possible to get hands on, to be thinking about this 1684 in small groups in the workshop setting. This is where we break down that overall list of 1685 11 items. We're proposing to break it down by the elements that we've been talking about 1686 in our analysis and in our overall structure. The three elements are described starting on 1687 page 4. The parks, trails and open space deals with the physical lands and the 1688 connections between them,. The recreation facilities, the pieces that enable the kinds of 1689 activities that we want to do, the physical pieces. The recreation programs which also 1690 enable the range of activities that we want to do, but represent more the people and the 1691 class type side of things. For each of these elements, we're setting up an exercise where 1692 probably we would have one table for each element. We would have a staff member or 1693 project team member there to discuss this and knowledgeable about that particular 1694 element. We would break down the overall group so that each time there would be 1695 people at each of these tables giving a score to the items that were most directly, out of 1696 that list of 11, related to that element. There's a little bit of overlap in these. What we 1697 ended up with is six items for each of those elements. We're going to ask people to 1698 assign five points across those six elements. We might do this in a physical way with 1699 pennies or with tokens or things like that. We'll probably have them, in any case, filling 1700 this out for themselves in a worksheet format, so that we can quickly do some tallying up. 1701 They can do some mental comparisons. At one table, we have people talking about 1702 parks, trails and open space and giving their score. They might give three to enhancing 1703 comfort and making parks more welcoming, one to another item and one to a third item. 1704 Again, this is about forcing some choices. It's about setting some priorities. Then we 1705 would have them rotate. Each group would move to all three tables. After they've had a 1706 chance to rank for themselves, they would have a chance to have some discussion 1707 amongst that small group for a few minutes about what did you choose, what did you 1708 observe, what was important to you. We talked with the ad hoc and the staff about the 1709 Approved Minutes 41 APPROVED importance of randomizing these folks as they come in, so we don't end up with a table of 1710 like-minded thinkers, so we get a chance for people to mix, and to have a diversity of 1711 ideas. This will give us a chance to look at each of these elements and to think about 1712 what is most important within those elements. We tried to match the overall areas of 1713 focus with those elements. They distributed pretty well. As I said, there's a little bit of 1714 overlap. One or two items fell into all three, but mostly they're in exclusively one or in 1715 two categories. We are looking at this at a system-wide level. We want to break it down, 1716 give people a chance to read through these areas of focus, think about them in these 1717 smaller chunks. Now that they've had a chance to think about all the areas of focus, bring 1718 them back up to that system-wide level and say, "If you were going to put your five 1719 tokens down on any project or any area of focus across the entire system, what would it 1720 be? Where would you put your gold star? Where would you put your big red underline 1721 to make sure the process as a whole understands that you think this is important?" We 1722 envision the workshop setting probably being a get-up and move around exercise. We 1723 like to get people out of their chairs if we can. We're thinking a large format printout of 1724 all of these areas of focus and giving everybody five dots. They get to put up the colored 1725 dots. We're building in live action a bar chart of the votes that people have made for 1726 different items. Then we have a wrap-up conversation that carries forward a little bit of 1727 "What did we find in common about these items? What things started surfacing as very 1728 important?" Also giving in that fifth point a chance for people to provide their open-1729 ended comment. What's the thing that they felt like was missing or the thing that they 1730 would like some extra clarification about? As you walk through this and as you get a 1731 chance to read this in more detail, you'll see we've detailed how this will work online. 1732 We've got a tool that we can use that will force people to vote not more than five times on 1733 any group, and giving us that feedback in a quick way for a lot of people. The workshop, 1734 as I said, is about getting those people interacting and getting the discussion flowing face-1735 to-face with your friends and neighbors. The final point is that all of this input, as I said, 1736 is going to be summarized together and looked at as one of these overall criteria that 1737 we've been discussing. We're still working on it, as Peter mentioned. One of the 1738 constants in the criteria discussion is that everybody's felt this community priority aspect 1739 is very important. This is feeding into that community priority criteria that will be one of 1740 the things that we, as the project team, and you, as the PRC, use as one of your criteria 1741 for doing that final more detailed recommendations. With that, I'm curious about any 1742 thoughts about the format of the exercise. We want to start dialing that in so that we can 1743 get that, particularly the online exercise, mocked up and ready for you to look at before 1744 we send it live. The areas of focus have been an evolving list. We've just introduced to 1745 you those descriptions and examples. I understand that it might take a little bit of time 1746 for you to absorb those. I wanted to get them in front of you with the explanation of how 1747 we would be using them. With that, I’m going to be quiet and listen to what your 1748 responses are about how that exercise might work. 1749 1750 Approved Minutes 42 APPROVED Commissioner Crommie: I'm concerned that community gardens fell off the list. I'd like 1751 to know if we can put it back on somewhere in the areas of focus, specifically mention 1752 community gardens. We heard from the survey that people brought it up a lot. I want it 1753 to be there in language so people can choose it. Where would it fall? If you had to 1754 choose one, where would it fall under these 11? 1755 1756 Commissioner Knopper: Integrating nature maybe. 1757 1758 Mr. Mottau: I could see it in integrating nature. I could also see it in diversity of 1759 activities. 1760 1761 Commissioner Crommie: That's what I thought, diversity. I'd like it to be spelled out in 1762 words. 1763 1764 Mr. Mottau: As an example in one of them. I agree that it's a point that people have 1765 come specifically looking for. I see your point. 1766 1767 Commissioner Crommie: They won't know what to do. I'd also like to move nature up in 1768 the list. It's trailing over here. 1769 1770 Mr. Mottau: I meant to point out that the numbering and the order of these is totally non-1771 significant to me right now. I needed a reference point so that, when we started 1772 clustering them, we'd be able to cross-reference. The presentation of these would be 1773 more stacked than linear, not so much an ordered list. 1774 1775 Commissioner Crommie: Under recreation programs on page 4, it seems vague to me. 1776 How is it going to move into specifics? What do people really want here? Especially 1777 when you talk about trying out new types of programs All of these seem vague to me. 1778 Increasing the variety of things to do and existing parks for all ages and abilities. If 1779 someone chooses that, do we then ask them what they want to do? 1780 1781 Mr. Mottau: That's a good point. In recreation programming, it is particularly 1782 challenging, because of the rapid evolution and change in that area. That's an area of 1783 focus that is difficult to pin down at any point. What we're looking for is some general 1784 input about some bigger questions. If you go down one level, it's far too far, because 1785 you're going to go down to a particular type of program and people are going to like it or 1786 not like it. 1787 1788 Vice Chair Markevitch: You're going to get 50 different responses. 1789 1790 Mr. Mottau: What we've found to be useful in long-range planning for recreation 1791 programming is "Do you think what we're doing right now is on the right path? Do you 1792 Approved Minutes 43 APPROVED think we need to be trying a bunch of new things? Do you think we need to find specific 1793 areas that people are diving into?" Underneath these we would be seeing specific 1794 recommendations that are a result of the variety of inputs that we've had. What we're 1795 seeing is those individual things should fit underneath one of these areas of focus. As 1796 we're thinking about prioritizing the master list of actions, we can say, "People said that 1797 improving access was a huge priority to them, and this action is about improving access." 1798 We're attributing that input to that specific action. I understand the point. I don't have a 1799 way to say we're going to get them to say something more specific with any reliability. 1800 We're open to their commentary on those. We can work that into the worksheet, if 1801 people had specific ideas that they wanted to write in. 1802 1803 Vice Chair Markevitch: A comment section online? 1804 1805 Mr. Mottau: Yeah. There would definitely be a comment section. There's going to be 1806 open-ended comment online, because that's easy to collect. 1807 1808 Commissioner Crommie: Under Number 4, which is a key thing, distributing park 1809 activities and experiences across the city also relates to these inequities that we discussed 1810 about the dog parks and community gardens. Maybe people feel the same way about 1811 community centers. I don't know the full myriad of things that would come up. Why do 1812 you phrase it as improving access to parks through active transportation? That's listed 1813 first. What are you (crosstalk). 1814 1815 Mr. Mottau: Part of that was about collapsing some things together. In our effort to 1816 break down this list or crunch this list together, we were expanding this one to look at 1817 ways to add more things and to make it easier to get to things. It is a little bit of two sides 1818 of the same coin. It's a little bit of a stretch from the original description. The intention 1819 was to try to capture some of that active transportation focus that has been very important 1820 to the discussion overall. 1821 1822 Rob de Geus: I think we've lost our quorum. We need to wait. 1823 1824 Vice Chair Markevitch: We need to take a break please. 1825 1826 Commissioner Crommie: I'd like to follow up on that. I understand you're trying to 1827 condense a lot of information. What do you mean by active transportation? 1828 1829 Mr. Mottau: Active transportation incorporates bicycling, walking, using a scooter. 1830 Maybe this is too jargon-y; that may be what I'm hearing. Collapsing all those things that 1831 are people-powered. Most people consider active transportation to be biking, walking, 1832 rolling. 1833 1834 Approved Minutes 44 APPROVED Male: Not cars. 1835 1836 Mr. Mottau: Not cars, not buses, not trains. 1837 1838 Commissioner Crommie: It was lost on me. I thought you meant providing our bus 1839 routes when I read that. I was a little concerned about that. It seemed like it wasn't quite 1840 satisfying the urge. A lot of people who want to get to recreational activities or find time 1841 to go to the park don't want to get on a bus. 1842 1843 Mr. Mottau: We'll work on the language around that. 1844 1845 Commissioner Crommie: It's a very tender point, this idea that we're not meeting our 1846 Comp Plan ratios. We don't have enough parkland per person. We're glossing over it on 1847 this list. If they want to come in and say loud and clear, "I don't think we have enough." 1848 Where does that person go on this list? 1849 1850 Mr. Mottau: One of the things we discussed as a possibility is the acquisition of 1851 additional parkland on an opportunity basis. It's one of those things that we thought 1852 could go without saying. As you said, currently it is a Comprehensive Plan goal to get to 1853 a certain level of parkland. Needing to underline that five times or 500 times didn't feel 1854 as important as getting some of the nuance between these other points. There isn't a place 1855 on this list to say, "I want more." A lot of these things would imply and would require 1856 either more space or tradeoffs of space. No matter how many times you say you want it, 1857 it doesn't make it more available. We don't need any more public voice than we've 1858 already heard. 1859 1860 Vice Chair Markevitch: I'd like to piggyback on that, if Commissioner Crommie doesn't 1861 mind. Nowhere in the rough draft could I find where it spells out the Comp Plan goals. I 1862 would like to see the actual piece from the Comp Plan, word for word, pulled out of it 1863 and put in our document somewhere, even if it's in the overview. It's missing and that's ... 1864 1865 Commissioner Lauing: In the Master Plan, you mean? 1866 1867 Vice Chair Markevitch: In our Master Plan. It needs to be directly pulled from the Comp 1868 Plan and put in there and locked down. 1869 1870 Mr. Mottau: That was one of the topics that we were discussing this afternoon in 1871 preparation for the City Council work session that we're planning for August. That type 1872 of standard is difficult to obtain for one thing. It becomes impossible once you stop 1873 growing at the edges of the City. If you continue to add people and you don't continue to 1874 add land, you cannot achieve a population-based acreage standard. 1875 1876 Approved Minutes 45 APPROVED Vice Chair Markevitch: Not true. Heritage Park and Johnson Park both came from 1877 donated land. Buildings were torn down; parks were put in. It is doable. I strongly feel 1878 we should be putting that language somewhere, even if it's in the overview. 1879 1880 Mr. Mottau: It needs to be addressed, because it is a stated goal. 1881 1882 Council Member Filseth: Can I chime in on this? 1883 1884 Vice Chair Markevitch: Yes, please. 1885 1886 Council Member Filseth: If you're looking for language, Policy C-28 in the existing 1887 Comp Plan is one place that it's called out and breaks it out into two categories of parks. 1888 One is neighborhood parks and the other is City parks or something like that. That was 1889 my reference. We've talked about population growth. Population growth is impacted by 1890 policy. The idea that population is going to grow and we can't afford any more park 1891 space, that's too constraining for what you guys need to do. 1892 1893 Mr. Mottau: This is a live discussion. Both the opportunity to express more as a 1894 statement and also, as Commissioner Markevitch is saying, it's important to acknowledge 1895 that existing goal and to be thinking about (a) is that the most useful goal and (b) where 1896 and how do we incorporate it and does it need to be shifted in one direction or another. 1897 It's an important question. 1898 1899 Council Member Filseth: If I understand your response to Commissioner Crommie, more 1900 park space is motherhood. Some of all of this is motherhood. Enhancing comfort and 1901 making parks more welcoming is motherhood too. Everybody wants that. If you don't 1902 figure out how to put that in your priority scheme somehow, then you're ignoring it. 1903 1904 Commissioner Crommie: We can do it. I don't like to hear you say we can't. Other cities 1905 have found ways to do it. 1906 1907 Mr. Mottau: I'm not saying that you can't add parkland. I'm saying that you're chasing a 1908 goal that will slip further away from you as population increases, if population is 1909 increasing. All indications as part of this process are that that is the intended direction. 1910 1911 Council Member Filseth: It seems to me you're being overly constraining by saying that's 1912 a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we don't put it on the table, then we're not going to address 1913 it. It seems you're being overly constraining. You're saying, "We don't believe we can 1914 do anything about this, so let's ignore it even if it's a high priority." 1915 1916 Mr. Mottau: I didn't mean to represent that it was not a priority for people or that we 1917 would ignore it. We were taking it as a fundamental good. In all of the input that we've 1918 Approved Minutes 46 APPROVED heard, I have not yet heard people saying, "We have too much parkland and we aren't 1919 going to need any more." 1920 1921 Council Member Filseth: I haven't heard anybody saying our parks are too comfortable 1922 and they're too welcoming. You can make that argument about anything you've got on 1923 your list. 1924 1925 Mr. Mottau: We have heard that our parks are not comfortable enough and are not 1926 particularly welcoming in places. Those are choices that have to be made. I hear what 1927 you're saying. There is a fundamental balance of this. What you're talking about is, is 1928 there something here that people would say no to. In relation to other items, what we're 1929 trying to get is an expression of relative interest. I wouldn't want anything to be on this 1930 list that we didn't think this community supported. At this stage in the game, if we 1931 haven't gotten to that level of filter, we would have missed the boat entirely. This is 1932 about giving us some input on where to focus effort, most immediately, most pressing, 1933 most important to me which is what we're going to get from this kind of exercise. 1934 1935 Commissioner Hetterly: Can I interject? 1936 1937 Vice Chair Markevitch: Yeah. 1938 1939 Commissioner Hetterly: You have two different levels of questions going on. You have 1940 these areas of focus. If you use this list as revised, you would get input from the 1941 community for us to filter the millions of things that came up through the outreach 1942 process so far. We can say, "If we have a fixed pot of money and these are the five areas 1943 that you want us to focus on." It helps us decide among this huge universe of possible 1944 programs, facilities, activities. Overlaying all of that is the question of should we be 1945 investing in these kinds of activities in the areas of focus or should we be taking an active 1946 stance to promote acquisition of new parkland. It is in the Comp Plan. It is something 1947 that a lot of people think is motherhood and apple pie. It's certainly not something 1948 everybody thinks is how the City should spend money. Whatever the cost of real estate 1949 in Palo Alto is, there are plenty of people out there who are going to say, "No. That's not 1950 a good return on investment." I imagine. It's a legitimate question to raise to the public 1951 to get their sense of should we be doing that. We have this secret list of properties that 1952 people are keeping their eye on in case we want to acquire it or in case it comes on the 1953 market. There doesn't seem to be any plan to take action on that. There's no momentum 1954 or push for the City to say, "Those targeted properties, we should make an offer on that 1955 one in order to meet this goal of the City." There's nothing to push that. If you don't ask 1956 the question to get a sense of the public, do we want to do that or not do that, then we 1957 don't know and there's not ever going to be any momentum. There's just going to be us 1958 saying, "We need more parkland. The Comp Plan needs more parkland." Everybody 1959 saying, "Yeah, we can't afford it." 1960 Approved Minutes 47 APPROVED 1961 Vice Chair Markevitch: The second you pull that list out of your back pocket, you get a 1962 land rush. 1963 1964 Commissioner Hetterly: I understand that. That's been the reason why we have never 1965 pursued it. I don't know if any of those properties have come on the market. Once it 1966 comes on the market, the second the City's interested, the price goes up. It's an inevitable 1967 outcome of property exchange. It seems like that perspective, we can't talk about it 1968 because prices are going to go up, means we're never going to do it. That's my worry. 1969 1970 Mr. Mottau: We've talked in a lot of communities about opportunity-based acquisition 1971 funds, so that you can start building some resources, so that when something comes up ... 1972 1973 Commissioner Hetterly: You're ready. 1974 1975 Mr. Mottau: .... you have it. In order for that to work as a strategy, there have to be some 1976 resources somewhere to make a quick move if a property becomes available or if an 1977 option on a property becomes available or some big change happens. That's a good point. 1978 It may be in here and it may also be from other points of input, but us building the case 1979 that that is important to this community or not is an important point. Let me work back 1980 through that and figure out if it unfairly or unreasonably got dropped out of this list, also 1981 if there's another way to build that case and understand that story. It is something we've 1982 heard a lot about. In fact the reason it came off the list was we felt like we'd heard a lot 1983 about it over the course of the project. 1984 1985 Commissioner Crommie: You can't leave it off if you're going into prioritization. To 1986 leave it off means you lose it. That's my point. 1987 1988 Mr. Mottau: I hear your point. 1989 1990 Commissioner Crommie: If it's that important, that's exactly why it should be on here. 1991 Bringing up what Commissioner Hetterly said, we're asking detailed questions and we're 1992 asking big picture questions. I don't know if you want to tier prioritizations. It makes it 1993 more complicated to have two kinds of prioritization lists. If you wanted to have big 1994 picture prioritization ... 1995 1996 Mr. Mottau: Are you speaking in terms of the breakdown versus the larger? We talked a 1997 little bit about that too. 1998 1999 Commissioner Crommie: If I understand what you're doing, you're going to give people 2000 chips and they're going to put dots on something and they're going to have maybe five of 2001 these. You could have them have to work with one list and distribute those five or you 2002 Approved Minutes 48 APPROVED could give two lists. You could have data coming in in parallel with two sets of chips. If 2003 you find things are out of balance or you say, "if we put acquisition of land or something, 2004 all chips are going to go there." Commissioner Hetterly is saying maybe not. Maybe 2005 they won't. Sometimes when people are prioritizing, you do have to make the choices on 2006 equal footing. If acquisition of land can't be on equal footing, then it has to be on a 2007 separate prioritization list. 2008 2009 Mr. Mottau: I hear what you're saying about the equal footing. That decision and the 2010 detail it will take to get to that is going to use this input and other things. I don't think the 2011 community is going to tell you that, because one thing costs $1 million and one thing 2012 costs $750,000 or one thing costs $200,000, it's going to influence their shuffling of what 2013 they think is important that much, in my experience. We've done things with budget 2014 numbers attached and not attached and various other things. It is important to recognize 2015 those differences in projects. Improvements to comfort in a park might be a $50,000 a 2016 year thing and you could do the whole system for the cost of adding an acre. 2017 2018 Commissioner Hetterly: I wouldn't bill it as acquire new parkland. I would bill it as 2019 maybe an area of focus, invest in a reserve fund to enable future purchase of additional 2020 parkland or something to that effect. 2021 2022 Mr. Mottau: Let me see if I can work this in. 2023 2024 Commissioner Hetterly: Out of my $5, I don't want to abandon our whole park system in 2025 order to buy a new park. That doesn't make any sense. I might spend one of my pennies, 2026 invest it so it can be growing over time while I'm also investing in these other things. 2027 2028 Mr. Mottau: I hear what's being said there. Let me see about how we can work that in. 2029 2030 Commissioner Crommie: Can you also tell me on this list where gym space is? That's a 2031 hot topic in the City. 2032 2033 Mr. Mottau: Improving and enhancing community center spaces and recreation spaces 2034 across the community was capturing a variety of indoor spaces. We talked about this 2035 with the ad hoc committee. This is Number 2. There's a lot of things that could be 2036 considered when you're talking about indoor spaces. There's a lot of variety in that. In 2037 this case, unlike recreation programming where you jump into the real detail, there 2038 maybe is a split in that that could be more of a classroom versus sport kind of space. 2039 That's a little bit of what we're getting at. We've heard that split a lot. There's more 2040 classroom space, even if it's not exactly the classroom space that some people would like, 2041 than there is gym space available. There's other things going on with that. Is that getting 2042 at ... 2043 2044 Approved Minutes 49 APPROVED Commissioner Crommie: Gym space is lost. If the rest of the Commissioners think it's 2045 okay, it's not my burning passion. It feels like it's a bit hard to find in here. 2046 2047 Commissioner Lauing: Space for indoor sports. 2048 2049 Commissioner Crommie: Do you think people will pick that up? 2050 2051 Vice Chair Markevitch: You could put "(gyms)" if you needed to. 2052 2053 Commissioner Lauing: We've given other examples such as gyms and fitness. 2054 2055 Commissioner Crommie: Maybe throw the word "gym" into that. 2056 2057 Mr. Mottau: Like you were saying with community gardens, it may be something that 2058 people are looking to key on. They're like, "This is the thing that I came looking for, 2059 because it has been a topic." 2060 2061 Commissioner Hetterly: Another one they might do that with is aquatics. That doesn't 2062 fit. That's not indoors. 2063 2064 Mr. Mottau: That's true, and it's a big ticket item. 2065 2066 Vice Chair Markevitch: Commissioner Hetterly, did you finish your comments? 2067 2068 Commissioner Hetterly: No. I was just piggybacking on somebody else. 2069 2070 Vice Chair Markevitch: Commissioner Knopper, do you have anything to say? 2071 Commissioner Lauing, how about you? 2072 2073 Commissioner Lauing: Nope. I spent a lot of time in the ad hoc. 2074 2075 Vice Chair Markevitch: I have nothing to say about this. 2076 2077 Commissioner Hetterly: I do have some comments. 2078 2079 Vice Chair Markevitch: Go for it. 2080 2081 Commissioner Hetterly: I was trying to think of the things that we've heard a lot about 2082 that ... 2083 2084 Mr. Mottau: That people might be looking for. 2085 2086 Approved Minutes 50 APPROVED Commissioner Hetterly: ... people might look for. Aquatics was one of them. Loop 2087 trails was another. It would fall in Number 6, but I would use the words in the 2088 description. Loop trails came up strongly as I recall, and signs illustrating exercises using 2089 a park horse did not come up very strongly. I would substitute loop trails for that. I 2090 agree that community gardens should be called out. Number 8, integrating nature, that 2091 darn topic. I struggle with it, but my biggest problem is "all Palo Alto parks." I can see a 2092 group of people looking at that and saying, "We want a bird habitat in every single park? 2093 That isn't a wise investment." I would take out "all." 2094 2095 Vice Chair Markevitch: Some parks are too small to accommodate it. I couldn't imagine 2096 trying to integrate nature in Scott Park. 2097 2098 Commissioner Crommie: I don't agree with that. All parks have room for nature. It 2099 doesn't take a lot of space to put plants that butterflies like. 2100 2101 Mr. Mottau: You're both right in that there is a way to do it, but I don't think the public is 2102 necessarily is going to connect with that. It may be a turnoff. 2103 2104 Commissioner Hetterly: Taking "all" out doesn't preclude it. 2105 2106 Mr. Mottau: It can be addressed in multiple ways. It doesn't preclude it. Dropping "all" 2107 and saying "in Palo Alto parks." 2108 2109 Commissioner Crommie: It should be done in all parks, so I like the word. If you want 2110 to take it out and say "in Palo Alto parks." 2111 2112 Commissioner Lauing: The questionnaire will depress response rate on that question if 2113 you put in "all." 2114 2115 Mr. Mottau: A little bit of trigger in that. 2116 2117 Commissioner Crommie: Since we're on that topic, we've lost the word "preserving." 2118 2119 Vice Chair Markevitch: We still have Jennifer's comments. 2120 2121 Commissioner Crommie: In the title, it's just saying "integrating." 2122 2123 Vice Chair Markevitch: She was still doing her comments. 2124 2125 Commissioner Hetterly: That was the last of my comments. I want to make a general 2126 comment. This is a meaty document. It should be in the packet, because the public 2127 doesn't have an opportunity to see it, reflect on it, come and comment on it if they don't 2128 Approved Minutes 51 APPROVED like it. At places is not a good way to go and that happens very often with this Plan. Any 2129 help getting it out earlier would be ... 2130 2131 Mr. Mottau: I understand and respect that position. You're on the right track. It's been in 2132 a lot of development. It's been a trick. We will try to get in front of these things a little 2133 more, so that we can get everything, especially if it's substantial like this, into the packet. 2134 You were saying about preserving. 2135 2136 Commissioner Crommie: I'm sensitive to it, because we already have a lot of good 2137 nature in our parks. I don't want it taken away for a park horse. It's two arms of this; 2138 don't take away what we have and consider putting in more. In the description 2139 underneath the title, you do say protecting. That is the word I'm going after. If you'd put 2140 it in the topic sentence. There are people who just want what we have, not to lose any of 2141 it. 2142 2143 Mr. Mottau: You're right, there are a lot of people who will be concerned about that. My 2144 concern is about putting too strong a language on that front. We had a similar discussion 2145 about this when we were talking about the principles in terms of balance. When you 2146 make a decision that in a particular place, maybe some aspect of nature is giving way to 2147 something else. We're trying to restore that balance in other places. I would caution 2148 against putting too many absolutes into the language. Preserving feels very strong, and it 2149 often gets interpreted as everything that is seen as being natural must always stay natural. 2150 I don't necessarily think that that's your perspective on it, but that is an interpretation that 2151 we see a lot. People will say, "You're supposed to be preserving nature. This is nature," 2152 even if it's marginal nature, even if it's part of an overall balance. I'm curious about that. 2153 I'm not trying to say one way or the other. That would be my hesitation on using that 2154 language. It comes back to that balance. 2155 2156 Commissioner Crommie: You're over-thinking it. I wouldn't get overly caught up on 2157 that. You do use the word "protect," which I like. If it's impossible for you to wordsmith 2158 that, (crosstalk). 2159 2160 Mr. Mottau: We'll take a look at it. 2161 2162 Commissioner Crommie: Ask other people as well. 2163 2164 Mr. Mottau: I appreciate the comment, and we'll take a look at it. I wanted to express 2165 my side of that. Not necessarily my side, but my perspective on it. 2166 2167 Commissioner Crommie: Do we have accessibility in here, ADA-type stuff? I couldn't 2168 pre-read this document, I'm struggling to read as you're talking. That's why I'm asking 2169 these questions. 2170 Approved Minutes 52 APPROVED 2171 Mr. Mottau: Accessibility comes in in two places. One is that by law we have to meet a 2172 base standard. In addition, there is also a specific area of focus that is about removing 2173 barriers. It is improving access to the full range of recreation opportunities, actively 2174 reducing and removing physical programmatic language and financial barriers, so that all 2175 ages, abilities and cultures can enjoy parks and programs. This is about the best practice 2176 towards universal design, which I think we've talked about in terms of getting beyond 2177 what the law requires and thinking about accessibility in a creative way. That is about 2178 continuous improvement. It's not an absolute final answer, you do it and you're done. 2179 You are constantly trying to remove the barriers that people are facing. You all 2180 expressed a lot of concern about the other barriers, the financial barriers, the other kinds 2181 of barriers that people face. This felt like it came together nicely. 2182 2183 Commissioner Crommie: I want to make sure it's enough. Commissioner Ashlund is not 2184 here. 2185 2186 Vice Chair Markevitch: If it's not, she'll let us know. 2187 2188 Commissioner Crommie: Maybe she can weigh in on it. It does say adapting existing 2189 programming, which I like. I wanted to make sure physical barriers are also employed 2190 here, not just programmatic barriers. You do say actively reducing and removing 2191 physical. You use the word "physical" in that first sentence. 2192 2193 Mr. Mottau: We wanted to get the physical and the programmatic, but also the cultural, 2194 language, financial, etc., barriers that might exist. 2195 2196 Vice Chair Markevitch: We'll get a copy of this for Stacey, and then she'll have a whole 2197 month to look it over. I'm sure she'll have some comments next month. 2198 2199 Commissioner Lauing: Where are we, Peter, on taking this to the public relative to our 2200 next Commission meeting? 2201 2202 Mr. Jensen: We are going to have another ad hoc meeting about this. We'll look at this 2203 again, and then probably bring it back to the Commission next month to confirm and then 2204 release shortly after. 2205 2206 Commissioner Lauing: We can do some wordsmithing on this? 2207 2208 Mr. Mottau: The wordsmithing, I'm not as concerned about. The thing I would like to 2209 check-in with you on is the structure of breaking it down by the elements and then asking 2210 the overall question. Commissioner Crommie has expressed some concern about what is 2211 and isn't included. If that structure works, we can start setting up what that looks like, so 2212 Approved Minutes 53 APPROVED you can see how it works. I don't want to chase that down a rabbit hole if you guys don't 2213 think it works. By the time we're wordsmithing and getting the language just so, I want 2214 to be able to show you functionality of it online, so when we come back next month, 2215 we're able to look at that in detail and then maybe we're making word changes and saying 2216 go. Does that seem reasonable at this point? 2217 2218 Commissioner Hetterly: Yep. 2219 2220 Vice Chair Markevitch: Council Member Filseth, do you have anything to add? 2221 2222 Council Member Filseth: Nope. 2223 2224 Commissioner Crommie: Can I ask one more thing, because I ... 2225 2226 Vice Chair Markevitch: One more and then I'm cutting you off. 2227 2228 Commissioner Crommie: I couldn't listen and read this thing. It was difficult not getting 2229 this ahead of time. When you say each small group will complete one element, can you 2230 (crosstalk)? 2231 2232 Mr. Mottau: That may not have been clear enough. I apologize for that. We're intending 2233 that everyone will move through all three of these elements and will prioritize three times 2234 the break downs of these that are listed on ... 2235 2236 Commissioner Hetterly: The elements being parks, trails and open spaces; recreation 2237 facilities; and recreation programs. 2238 2239 Mr. Mottau: On page 4, each of those lists. If you as a participant walked into this 2240 meeting, you would be assigned to a group. That group would start on one of those 2241 elements. You would sit down. You would work through for yourself and in discussion 2242 with your small group a ranking of the list of six items underneath parks, trails and open 2243 space. Then you would be asked to rotate to another table. You would go through those 2244 items for recreation facilities. Then you would rotate to another table. 2245 2246 Commissioner Crommie: Is the participant reading lists one through eleven? 2247 2248 Mr. Mottau: Not in one bite. That's an important point of clarification. Because we're 2249 going to do this first, it gives them a chance to absorb the descriptions of these on the 2250 smaller list basis, building up to the whole list. The final exercise does involve the whole 2251 list. 2252 2253 Approved Minutes 54 APPROVED Commissioner Crommie: When I was reading this and commenting, I was focusing on 2254 lists one through eleven. That's why I gave you my comments. I will have to make sure 2255 when I go home and read this that I feel those are well represented under these other three 2256 categories. I didn't have time to digest it. 2257 2258 Mr. Mottau: All of the items on one through eleven are incorporated in at least of these 2259 element lists. If you feel like there's one that should be in this list or not in this list, that's 2260 a possibility. I want everybody to understand that the intention is every person as a 2261 participant would get a chance to look at the element and rank the things that we felt 2262 related to that element for each element. Then to go to the whole list and say, "Overall, I 2263 feel like these are the five things or the three things or the one thing that is important to 2264 me." 2265 2266 Vice Chair Markevitch: Thank you. 2267 2268 Mr. Mottau: I appreciate the feedback and the help. The ad hoc committee has been 2269 working with us on this. We will provide you with materials in your packet next month. 2270 I hear that loud and clear. I apologize for not getting it to you ahead of time. 2271 2272 5. Other Ad Hoc committee and Liaison Updates. 2273 2274 Commissioner Hetterly: I have a little update. We're getting close on the website. We 2275 would like to be on the agenda next month for the website. We have our public outreach 2276 meeting for the shared-use dog opportunities this Thursday, July 30th at 6:30. 2277 2278 Vice Chair Markevitch: Any other ad hoc? 2279 2280 Commissioner Crommie: We worked hard on our community gardens ad hoc. We have 2281 written a draft report, which we're presenting to staff. We'll have that on an upcoming 2282 agenda. I won't be here at the next meeting if we have it at the end of August. We might 2283 do it in September. 2284 2285 V. COMMENTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS 2286 2287 Peter Jensen: The Scott Park opening is on Friday. 2288 2289 Rob de Geus: Is it Friday? 2290 2291 Mr. Jensen: It's Thursday. 2292 2293 Mr. de Geus: The Mayor will be there. Thanks to Daren and staff for organizing it. 2294 They did a wonderful job with the park, if you've had a chance to drive by it. 2295 Approved Minutes 55 APPROVED 2296 Commissioner Lauing: It looks good. 2297 2298 Mr. de Geus: If you're around, do come out. Is it 1:30, Daren? 2299 2300 Daren Anderson: No, it's 2:00. 2301 2302 Mr. de Geus: There's also a community meeting coming up on August 11. There is a 2303 new citizen advisory committee working on the Comp Plan. At that meeting, they're 2304 going to look at the Community Services facilities element specifically on the 11th. 2305 2306 Vice Chair Markevitch: Do you have the time on that? 2307 2308 Mr. de Geus: 6:30 to 9:00 at Mitchell Park Community Center. 2309 2310 Mr. Jensen: Is there someone on the PRC on that? 2311 2312 Commissioner Hetterly: No. There's not. We were not invited. 2313 2314 Mr. de Geus: You may be interested in coming to that community meeting. 2315 2316 Commissioner Hetterly: Do we have a paper? The last time we went through the 2317 Community Services Element here, maybe the minutes from that last meeting where we 2318 discussed it, it would be helpful for that committee to have that background information. 2319 2320 Mr. de Geus: I'll mention it. They're meeting with Hillary Gitelman, the Planning 2321 Director who's overseeing this work, tomorrow in preparation for the 11th. I'll be there, 2322 and we'll look at that. The Commission may have put a paper together specific to that. 2323 2324 Commissioner Hetterly: I think we did. 2325 2326 Mr. de Geus: It would be good to share that. Maybe the Commissioners would like to 2327 attend as well. The summer camps and aquatics wrap up in the next few weeks. I don't 2328 know if there are any Commissioners interested in visiting some of the camps and 2329 programs before summer ends. If you are, happy to give you a tour. You know where I 2330 am, so you can call me or email me. Does everyone know who this gentleman is back 2331 here? 2332 2333 Vice Chair Markevitch: No. 2334 2335 Mr. de Geus: This is Brad Eggleston. He's Assistant Director of Public Works. Brad, 2336 why don't you come up and say hello? Brad carries a huge load within Public Works and 2337 Approved Minutes 56 APPROVED oversees the capital projects among many other things. Joe Teresi is one of the staff that 2338 reports to Brad; he's been involved with the golf course. You may not have seen him, but 2339 he's been very involved. Also the levy flood control work. He always asks about the golf 2340 course. I'm going to let Brad respond to the challenges we have there. Just the latest 2341 update. 2342 2343 Commissioner Lauing: Since Keith's not here, I'll ask the question. How's the golf 2344 course? 2345 2346 Mr. de Geus: I knew you were going to do that. Go ahead, Brad. Maybe say a little 2347 background about what you do. 2348 2349 Brad Eggleston: Since you mentioned the camps and aquatics, my two 7-year-olds spent 2350 two weeks at Foothills Park camp and loved it. That was good. Rob, you were saying 2351 you guys talk about the status of the golf course permitting at most of these meetings. 2352 The critical issue is getting the permits that we need from the Army Corps of Engineers. 2353 The ongoing issue that we've had is that both the Corps of Engineers and the Regional 2354 Board tie the permit for the golf course to the same type of permit that they're also issuing 2355 for the JPA flood control project. There's a little bit of good news on that front. The 2356 Regional Board has issued their permit for the JPA project. The Army Corps of 2357 Engineers has formally initiated that process, and they've begun the consultations they 2358 have to do with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries 2359 Service. There is a little movement on the JPA project. The thing that's still bad for us is 2360 that the Corps of Engineers continues to tell us that we can't get our permits from them 2361 until they've completed that process. In fact, up to now they have not been willing to 2362 initiate the consultations with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on our project. We've been 2363 having some discussions with them. We recently submitted some information that they 2364 needed from us and sent a letter to them formally asking them to begin that consultation 2365 and reminding them of the steps they've already taken and the progress that they're 2366 making on the JPA flood control project. We just sent this letter recently; we're making 2367 some phone calls and escalating these discussions up the chain with the Corps of 2368 Engineers. That's the most recent update. A little progress, but more so on the JPA 2369 project to date. 2370 2371 Commissioner Lauing: Any issues with respect to rounds of play? 2372 2373 Mr. de Geus: The golf course is still open. We're in a little bit of a temporary situation 2374 with the big stockpile there. That's still a challenge, so we have to discount rounds. We 2375 can't fully recover the cost of running the golf course in the current condition. Given that 2376 we had advance notice in not being closed, we've been able to bring some tournaments 2377 back. Play has picked up a little bit, which has been good, but it's still not sufficient. 2378 2379 Approved Minutes 57 APPROVED Commissioner Lauing: It hasn't continued to go down; it's been relatively stable or 2380 maybe picked up a little in the last six months? 2381 2382 Mr. de Geus: Relatively stable. Obviously we've had great weather, and that's been 2383 helpful this year. In the end, the City is essentially subsidizing the golf course at this 2384 point. 2385 2386 Commissioner Lauing: Do you know if the driving range has fallen off as well, just from 2387 lack of traffic, or is that still pretty busy? 2388 2389 Mr. de Geus: I don't know off the top of my head. I suspect it's dropped off as well, but I 2390 don't have the figures in front of me to know that for sure. We know half of the driving 2391 range activity is golfers hitting a bucket of balls before a round of golf. It's a fairly 2392 significant amount of activity on that driving range from that. It has dropped off, not as 2393 much as the rounds. Daren? 2394 2395 Mr. Anderson: That's correct. Relative to last year, June 2015 to June 2014, we're up 2396 around 10 percent, but nothing to where we were two or three years ago. 2397 2398 Commissioner Crommie: Why doesn't the Corps of Engineers want to give approval? 2399 2400 Mr. Eggleston: They tell us, their staff people at least, that they're concerned about 2401 potential liability, because there are some people opposed to the JPA project, mainly 2402 some environmental groups who still have hopes apparently that somehow it might take 2403 more of the golf course and create more habitat. That's what some of these groups are 2404 wishing for. The Corps of Engineers doesn't want to be perceived as taking any action 2405 with respect to our permit that would show that they're moving towards approving it 2406 before they've finished all the steps of analysis on the JPA permit. Obviously if that did 2407 need to happen and we had already begun building our project, it would create a problem. 2408 2409 Vice Chair Markevitch: We're about to hit another El Nino, and it's a bad one. This stuff 2410 is going to back up. The creeks are completely filled with brush and plants. Some of it's 2411 20 feet tall. They need to be cleaned out as part of this. The more this gets delayed by 2412 the environmental group or the people who are opposing it, that's not right because 2413 houses will be a risk at the other end. It irks me that this thing is so slow. 2414 2415 Mr. Eggleston: It's extremely frustrating. 2416 2417 Vice Chair Markevitch: It's very frustrating. Not to mention the golf course is suffering. 2418 Does anybody else have any questions? Thank you. 2419 2420 Approved Minutes 58 APPROVED VI. TENTATIVE AGENDA FOR AUGUST 25, 2015 MEETING 2421 2422 Vice Chair Markevitch: I have two things, which is the Master Plan and an update on the 2423 website. Is there anything else? 2424 2425 Commissioner Hetterly: We'll probably have an ad hoc update on the dog meeting, but 2426 we probably won't have a full presentation at that point. 2427 2428 Commissioner Lauing: I'm presuming that this is at the scheduled meeting time? 2429 2430 Vice Chair Markevitch: The 25th. That's a short meeting. 2431 2432 Commissioner Crommie: Do we have enough people for that meeting? You did a poll. 2433 2434 Catherine Bourquin: I think it was even. It was four just like it was for here. I don't 2435 know if there's going to be a fifth person. 2436 2437 Vice Chair Markevitch: I think the only thing driving it is the Master Plan update. The 2438 other stuff clearly could wait a month, but this looks like it can't. We could possibly 2439 consider doing it another day. 2440 2441 Commissioner Hetterly: We only had four for the 25th? 2442 2443 Ms. Bourquin: Yeah. When we tried to do it for the other time—it's up to you guys. 2444 2445 Commissioner Lauing: You could do a poll again. 2446 2447 Ms. Bourquin: Sure can. 2448 2449 Vice Chair Markevitch: It doesn't have to be a Tuesday. 2450 2451 Commissioner Crommie: Maybe have a poll that represents every week. 2452 2453 Ms. Bourquin: The rooms, that's the difficulty. All the other Commissions have theirs 2454 on certain dates too. 2455 2456 Mr. de Geus: We also could just have a shorter meeting where we deal with the Parks 2457 Plan and move that along and push the other items off. Seems like the community 2458 gardens one we shouldn't do if Commissioner Crommie is not here, since she worked on 2459 it. If the other ones aren't time sensitive, it's fine to have ... 2460 2461 Vice Chair Markevitch: We could have just a short meeting. 2462 Approved Minutes 59 APPROVED 2463 Commissioner Lauing: The quorum was more critical than the length of the meeting. I 2464 think you have to poll again. 2465 2466 Vice Chair Markevitch: We have a tentative agenda for a tentative meeting at a tentative 2467 date for next month. 2468 2469 VII. ADJOURNMENT 2470 2471 Meeting adjourned on motion by Commissioner Hetterly and second by Commissioner 2472 Knopper at 10:20 p.m. 2473 Approved Minutes 60