HomeMy WebLinkAbout2024-03-13 Human Relations Commission Verbatim Minutes_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Planning & Transportation Commission 1
Verbatim Minutes: March 13, 2024 2
Council Chambers & Virtual 3
5:00 PM 4
5
Call to Order / Roll Call 6
5:02 PM 7
8
Roll Call 9
Chair Summa: ...everyone and welcome to the regular meeting of the Planning Commission, 10
except we’re starting an hour early today. Welcome to everyone and I wanted to remind – well, 11
let’s take roll call first, please. 12
13
Female: Yes. 14
15
Administrative Associate Veronica Dao: Chair Summa? 16
17
Chair Summa: Present. 18
19
Veronica Dao: Vice-Chair Chang? 20
21
Vice-Chair Chang: Here. 22
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Akin? 2
3
Commissioner Akin: Here. 4
5
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 6
7
Commissioner Hechtman: Here. 8
9
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Lu? 10
11
Commissioner Lu: Here. 12
13
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Reckdahl? 14
15
Commissioner Reckdahl: Here. 16
17
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 18
19
Commissioner Templeton: Here. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Veronica Dao: We have a quorum. 2
3
Chair Summa: Thank you so much. And I just wanted to remind my colleagues that we’re going 4
to end the first item after staff reports, our action item, about 5 minutes of 6 to welcome the 5
Human Relations Commission. Okay. So with that said, we will go to public comment and that is 6
three minutes for anyone who would like to speak to an item that is not on the agenda. Do we 7
have any speakers? 8
Oral Communications 9
The public may speak to any item not on the agenda. Three (3) minutes per speaker.1,2 10
11
Veronica Dao: I have no raised hands or speaker cards. 12
13
Chair Summa: Thank you very much. We’ll move on to Agenda Changes, Additions, and 14
Deletions, please. 15
16
Veronica Dao: Sorry. One person just... 17
18
Chair Summa: Oh. Okay. 19
20
Veronica Dao: ...raised, or two, for items not on the agenda. First is [Chad Basewell 19:29]. 21
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Summa: Okay. Go ahead, please. Mr. Basewell, you can go ahead. 2
3
Female: Or Base. 4
5
Chair Summa: Maybe we should go on to the second person, then come back to Mr. Basewell. 6
7
Veronica Dao: Okay. Next is Mittzy. 8
9
Mittzy Bephe: Hi. Can you guys hear me? 10
11
Chair Summa: Yes, we can. Go ahead, please. 12
13
Mittzy Bephe: [Zoom bomber] 14
15
Chair Summa: Excuse me but we don’t tolerate hate speech here. If you’ll give me a minute, the 16
City of Palo Alto is committed to a culture of belonging, where all members of a diverse 17
community feel included, safe, and respected. We strongly denounce the speaker’s message of 18
discrimination and hate. We have allowed the speech only because the First Amendment of the 19
Constitution requires us to give everyone an equal chance to express their views. If there are 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
additional speakers who use hate speech, City staff may leave the meeting until regular 1
business resumes. Members of the public may wish to do so as well. If board members, 2
commission members, committee members want to make brief comments, please do that 3
following the public comment period of today’s meeting. Next speaker, please, and I hope 4
there’s no more hate speak. 5
6
Veronica Dao: Next is [John Pukolowski 22:33]. 7
8
Chair Summa: Go ahead, Mr. Pukolowski. I guess, Ms. Dao, we could move on to the next 9
speaker. 10
11
Veronica Dao: Okay. Gabe Stutman? 12
13
Gabe Stutman: [Zoom bomber] 14
15
Chair Summa: I’m sorry. 16
17
Vice-Chair Chang: The man said Council. We’re not Council. 18
19
Commissioner Templeton: We’re not Council. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Summa: We – I’m sorry, you’re not addressing the Council and I believe you used a 2
discriminatory, derogatory term. Thank you. Next speaker? 3
4
Female: This is really... 5
6
Veronica Dao: That was all the public speakers. The ones remaining didn’t speak when I 7
unmuted them. 8
9
Chair Summa: Oh. Okay. Thank you very much. Would any of my colleagues like to comment at 10
all? This is the first time we’ve experienced this kind of hate speech at this body but seeing no 11
lights, we will move on to the next item, which is City Official Reports. 12
13
City Official Reports 14
1. Directors Report, Meeting Schedule and Assignments 15
16
Chief Planning Official Amy French: Thank you. One moment. So briefly, those of you who 17
attended the San Antonio Corridor Outreach Meeting and/or Open House, some of you were 18
there, the Cal Poly students will be presenting to Council over Zoom on March 18, so that’s a 19
study session to receive that report. On the screen, I have the upcoming meetings. You can see 20
we’re three months into planning ahead. We try to do this for all of the items that come in. 21
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Sometimes we don’t know until shortly before the meeting, something like tonight’s agenda 1
where we have an exciting transportation item. So you can see upcoming we have quite a 2
number of items. I’ll just remind you, don’t forget about the April 15 meeting with Council, 3
which is the joint meeting to review the amendments to the adopted Housing Element. And 4
then, there are several other items that are action items. And so, for instance, next meeting, 5
I’m sorry, Commissioner Hechtman will miss three study sessions but only one action item, so 6
that’s just one item there for action. April 10, we’ll have four action items that are tentatively 7
on that agenda. Then, upcoming in April, May, and June, we have multiple action items there, 8
so just to give a heads up. Thank you. 9
10
Chair Summa: Thank you very much. Do we have any other reports from staff? I don’t think so. 11
12
Female: Oh. Wait [inaudible 25:54]. 13
14
Chair Summa: What? Does he have his hand up? 15
16
Senior Transportation Engineer Rafael Rius: Yes. 17
18
Chair Summa: Mr. Rius. Thank you. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Rafael Rius: Thank you. Just a brief update from the Office of Transportation. Thank you, Chair 1
and commissioners. Rafael Rius, Senior Engineer with the Office of Transportation. Actually, 2
one of the updates just about upcoming meetings Amy had up there but the next 3/27 meeting 3
you’ll be hearing from our staff related to the Palo Alto Link and the bike plan update. And 4
then, also for City Council will be also hearing the Palo Alto Link update and a similar meeting 5
regarding the El Camino bike lanes that you’ll be hearing later today. Those two items will be 6
going to City Council on April 1. I don’t have any project updates today but I’m here for a little 7
bit if you have any questions. 8
9
Chair Summa: Thank you very much. Do any of my colleagues have questions? Oh. Okay. 10
11
Commissioner Reckdahl: I have a question about Charleston-Arastradero and the work both at 12
El Camino and Wilkie seems to be kind of stalled out. Do you know what’s going on there? 13
14
Rafael Rius: Yes. Actually, I just happened to ask our Public Works Department on that. We’re 15
hoping that the paving and ultimately the striping with the new bike markings would happen, 16
we’re hoping it happens in April. It might get delayed a little bit to May or so, if there’s weather 17
delays and/or potential things but we’re hoping next month [inaudible 27:29]. 18
19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Reckdahl: There are two sets of lights at Wilkie and Charleston right now. It’s 1
been that way for a couple months. 2
3
Rafael Rius: Yes. We did ask them [inaudible 27:37]. Apology. That one’s a little bit later. We’re 4
still waiting for the signal cabinet for that transition. We did ask to – for them to either bag or 5
turn the head, the signal indicators that are not in use right now to avoid the confusion. I 6
understand that was an issue. I believe it has already been done. We’re... 7
8
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah. It has been. 9
10
Rafael Rius: Okay. 11
12
Commissioner Reckdahl: I mean, it’s fine. I’d just... 13
14
Rafael Rius: Yeah. 15
16
Commissioner Reckdahl: ...like to see it done but... 17
18
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Rafael Rius: For sure. We’re definitely experiencing unprecedented delays in receiving the 1
traffic signal hardware, mainly the controller cabinets and stuff. It’s taking way longer than 2
ever, so. 3
4
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. Thank you. 5
6
Chair Summa: Commissioner Lu? 7
8
Commissioner Lu: I got a quick question for Ms. French. I wanted to ask whether there were 9
any ETAs for when we would get to be able to look at the new version of the Housing Element, 10
yeah, and confirm how confident we felt about being able to meet on April 15. 11
12
Amy French: How confident in terms of participation or? 13
14
Commissioner Lu: In terms of having everything ready. 15
16
Amy French: The staff are hard at work with regular meetings, as I mentioned at the last 17
meeting with the HCD staff, our reviewer, so we are optimistic that we are receiving some good 18
feedback and we’ll be able to make our deadline of publishing the document in time for the 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
packet for the April 15 meeting. Typically, the Council reports come out 1½ weeks before or so, 1
before that meeting but I can give a more precise date if I look at a calendar. Thanks. 2
3
Commissioner Lu: Thank you. 4
5
Chair Summa: Commissioner Chang? 6
7
Vice-Chair Chang: A quick question for Ms. French. You had mentioned to us that the HRC loses 8
their quorum later on at 8:00, I believe... 9
10
Amy French: That’s correct. 11
12
Vice-Chair Chang: ...and that our discussion, PTC’s discussion on that item, which would be the 13
Caltrain item, would end at that time as well. 14
15
Amy French: Yes. Caltrans item. 16
17
Vice-Chair Chang: If we have our quorum, does it – and there’s the desire for more discussion, 18
would it – are we allowed to continue? 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Amy French: Well, maybe we can check in later about that because we do have another item 1
after that... 2
3
Vice-Chair Chang: Right. 4
5
Amy French: ...where if we start after 8, then we will probably have to abandon that item, so 6
it’s worth considering being able to retain that item on the agenda. 7
8
Vice-Chair Chang: Thank you. 9
10
Chair Summa: Any other questions for staff? All right. Well, then we will move on to our first 11
action item, which is a recommendation on an ordinance updating Chapter 18.15, Density 12
Bonus law, so we will take that presentation now. Mr. Yang? 13
14
Action Items 15
Public Comment is Permitted. Applicants/Appellant Teams: Fifteen (15) minutes, plus three (3) minutes rebuttal. 16
All others: Five (5) minutes per speaker. 17
18
2. Recommendation on an Ordinance Updating Chapter 18.15 (Density Bonus) of Title 19
18 (Zoning) to Reflect Recent Changes in State Density Bonus Law and Revising 20
Regulations for Provision of On-Site Affordable Rental Units Under the City’s 21
Inclusionary Housing Ordinance 22
23
Assistant City Attorney Albert Yang: Thank you, commissioners. I don’t have a presentation for 24
you but I will just sort of briefly walk through the changes that are made by this ordinance. They 25
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
are almost entirely to implement changes in the State law into our local code and there are a 1
few edits for clarity and concision as well but, in large part, the edits are an updated section on 2
applicability. We previously had a short paragraph saying a density bonus does not apply to a 3
PC zone and I’ve just expanded that here to other situations, including development 4
agreements and local incentive programs, like the HIP or El Camino focus area. 5
6
We also have a host of updated definitions and new definitions and these are pulled directly 7
from the State law. One thing I want to note is that the new definitions include more detail on 8
how to define the base density in zones where the City does not actually limit the number of 9
dwelling units per acre. And in those zones, the new definitions explain that development 10
standards like FAR and height and setback will create a practical limit on realistic densities and 11
we’ll use that calculation to create a dwelling units per acre number, which then the density 12
bonus will be applied to. And this is becoming more relevant for Palo Alto because many of the 13
re-zonings with the Housing Element fall into that category where there is no longer a max 14
dwelling units per acre but instead we’re relying on standards like FAR and there are some 15
other edits throughout the chapter to further flesh out this idea. 16
17
Then there are some minor edits on the number of concessions that are available in certain 18
situations. The State law has changed so that where there used to be a maximum of three 19
concessions, now there’s a maximum of four, unless you are a 100 percent affordable project, 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
in which case you’re entitled to five concessions. Those numbers increased in State law and 1
we’ve made those changes in our code. 2
3
Also related to concessions and incentives, we have currently a menu of sort of preapproved 4
incentives and concessions. Over the years, we’ve found that developers have not used this 5
menu. And the menu is based on an older kind of distinction between what counts as an 6
incentive and what would count as a waiver. And so this menu has been relocated to a different 7
part of the code of this chapter, so it’s no longer under incentives and concessions only. It’s in a 8
broader section dealing with incentives, concessions, and waivers. But the PTC may want to 9
consider whether we just do away with this menu since it’s not being used. 10
11
And finally, there’s a new section added, allowing developers to use an additional density 12
bonus. That is a new feature of the State law. And where the previous maximum density bonus 13
was 50 percent if you provided a sufficient number of affordable units, deed-restricted units, 14
now a developer can reach that 50 percent threshold and provide some more affordable units 15
to unlock additional density bonus up to a maximum of 100 percent density bonus now. 16
17
And the final element of this ordinance is not directly related to density bonus law but it is 18
something that will become more important as developers seek to use density bonus law, and 19
this deals – this is Section 3 of the Ordinance on Packet Pages 34 and 35. This details the City’s 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
inclusionary ordinance requirements for rental units. So what do we consider to be compliance 1
with our inclusionary requirements for rental projects? Currently, rental projects are able to 2
just pay an impact fee. That’s the default. But they can elect, instead of paying the impact fee, 3
to provide affordable units on site. And in 2017, the Council adopted an ordinance saying that 4
instead of paying the impact fee, we would accept 15 percent of the units on-site at rates 5
affordable to moderate-income households. And we believe that this was an error back then 6
and so we’re trying to correct that now. It should be 15 percent of units affordable to low-7
income households. That’s kind of the standard in the industry for rental projects. And we’ve 8
also tried to create another option for those units to be provided at the very low income level, 9
and we’ve translated the 15 percent low income to be equivalent to 8 percent at very low 10
income. So that is an update that is in Section 3 of the Ordinance. And with that, I’ll just open it 11
up to any questions. 12
13
Chair Summa: Okay. Thank you very much for that. Do I have questions from my colleagues? 14
Commissioner Chang and then Commissioner Reckdahl. 15
16
Vice-Chair Chang: Thank you so much, Counselor Yang, for answering all the questions I emailed 17
you. I have one additional question, which is I’m just trying to understand the intent of the 18
State law with respect to the additional density bonus that an applicant could take advantage 19
of. I noticed that the additional density bonus only comes into effect if there are additional 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
very-low- or moderate-income units provided. Why only very low and moderate and why not 1
just the middle category of lower? 2
3
Albert Yang: Yeah. There are a lot of questions that I have on this provision. It’s – I don’t have 4
an answer for that particular question. I don’t know why they left out the low-income category. 5
I don’t know why they selected the ratios that they did. You can see that if you provide 15 6
percent more units at moderate income, you get a 50 percent density bonus. But in – under the 7
very-low-income category, you max out at – I lost it for a second – you max out at 38¾ percent 8
density bonus. I can’t tell you why that’s not there. I think the overall intent is to provide 9
greater flexibility to developers to reach a higher density bonus. About five years ago, the 10
maximum density bonus was 35 percent that you could get under State law, and then that was 11
expanded to achieve a 50 percent density bonus, and now we’re up to 88 or 100 percent. 12
13
Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. Thank you. I thought maybe it was a typo in State law. All right. Thanks. 14
I appreciate it. 15
16
Chair Summa: Commissioner Reckdahl? 17
18
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah. I’m confused about the low vehicle travel area. Can you explain 19
what that is and what part of Palo Alto would qualify for that? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Albert Yang: Yes. I’m not in the best position to go into depth about that. I know the concept is 2
basically if there are areas of Palo Alto that are below the sort of regional average VMT, then 3
they are considered sort of the preferred areas for development and... 4
5
Commissioner Reckdahl: The idea is that the additional travel wouldn’t have much impact on 6
the residents since [inaudible 41:06]? 7
8
Albert Yang: [Inaudible 41:06]. 9
10
Commissioner Reckdahl: That there is... 11
12
Albert Yang: [Inaudible 41:08]. Sorry. 13
14
Commissioner Reckdahl: You’re good. That because there’s low travel in that area, traffic is 15
better and that therefore the new residents won’t impact the current residents as much, is that 16
what they’re going after or? 17
18
Albert Yang: It’s hard to say because often, or at least in communities like Palo Alto, residential 19
development is thought of as a net benefit from a VMT perspective. So even in a high VMT 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
area, you wouldn’t find a significant impact on VMT by – through residential development as 1
opposed to other jurisdictions with different jobs-housing balances you might find the effect 2
that you’re referring to. 3
4
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. 5
6
Albert Yang: Yeah. 7
8
Commissioner Reckdahl: Thank you. So this ordinance has a lot of tables in it with a lot of 9
numbers. Are all those numbers are specified in State law or do we have any latitude on any of 10
them? 11
12
Albert Yang: All those numbers are specified in the State law. Yeah. 13
14
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. And finally, impact fees. Do you happen to know what 15
percentage of developers use impact fees as opposed to having the units themselves? 16
17
Albert Yang: So in the past, impact fees have been a very attractive option for rental 18
development because they provide more flexibility. I – so we, in the past 10 years, I’d say we’ve 19
largely seen payment of impact fees as the choice. I think going forward, because density bonus 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
has been expanded and provides so many benefits, it’s more likely that some developers will 1
choose to provide the units onsite because you cannot use the density bonus law unless you’re 2
providing the units onsite. 3
4
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. Interesting. How do we calculate what the impact fees are? Is 5
there some nexus study or how do we do that? 6
7
Albert Yang: Yes. The City conducted a nexus study. I believed it was adopted in 2017 and it 8
may have been updated or recalibrated since then but the fee is in the range of $20 to $25 per 9
square foot. 10
11
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. And is that indexed for inflation or is it just set? 12
13
Albert Yang: It is indexed for inflation. 14
15
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. Thank you. That’s all. 16
17
Chair Summa: Any other questions? I’m not seeing any. Oh. Okay. 18
19
Male: Commissioner Lu. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Summa: Commissioner Lu? 2
3
Commissioner Lu: Thank you. I had a couple of short clarifications but firstly, I just want to 4
mention that I really appreciate Commissioner Chang’s excellent questions and they addressed 5
a lot of the questions that I originally had coming in. Firstly, can you refresh us on how many 6
density bonus applications we’ve actually seen in recent years and how many of those were 7
actually built? 8
9
Albert Yang: I don’t have those figures available. The one that comes to mind most clearly is 10
2850 West Bayshore utilized the density bonus. And I know prior to that, we had not really seen 11
a lot of density bonus action, so there may have been one or two applications before that. Since 12
then, we have received I know a number of density bonus applications. One of them was for 13
the Sobrato project at the Fry site before that project went into the development agreement 14
process. And some of the projects that are seeking to use the Builders Remedy that have come 15
in the past few years have also submitted alternative proposals based on density bonus law. 16
17
Commissioner Lu: Got it. That’s useful. And I realize the numbers will change with every 18
iteration of the law but I just want to set some context. Following up on a question that 19
Commissioner Chang asked, I wanted to confirm what the best way to read the no maximum 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
controls on density mentioned in Packet Page 20, Section D, Bullet Points 1 and 2. Firstly, on 1
Page 29, when discussing the limitations on waivers, it only mentions that the limitation on 2
waivers applies to Bullet Point 2, so developments located within a ½ mile of a major transit 3
stop. Does that mean that developments located in low vehicle travel areas can apply 4
additional waivers? 5
6
Albert Yang: I’m sorry. I’m going to get a glass of water and I’ll be right back. 7
8
Commissioner Lu: That’s fine. Yeah. On Packet Page 29, there’s a mention about how further 9
waivers not allowed for Point D.2 but it doesn’t explicitly mention D.1. I just want to confirm if 10
that meant that additional waivers could be applied for low vehicle travel areas but not for 11
areas near transit. 12
13
Albert Yang: I’m sorry. I think that may have been an error. Additional waivers would not be 14
available for either of those scenarios. If you have a 100 percent affordable project and you are 15
trying to take advantage of that provision where you get 33 additional feet and no maximum 16
control on density, then you are not eligible for any other waivers, regardless if it’s because 17
you’re close to transit or if you’re in that low vehicle VMT area. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Lu: Got it. And so points D.1 and D.2 only apply for 100 percent affordable units, 1
not 80 percent or any other thresholds. 2
3
Albert Yang: That’s right. 4
5
Commissioner Lu: Okay. Got it. Thank you. Those were my questions. 6
7
Chair Summa: Thank you. Do we have any other questions? I’m not seeing any, so I will go to 8
members of the public if we have any, Ms. Dao. 9
10
Female: I don’t see any. 11
12
Veronica Dao: Yes. I have one speaker card from Jeff Levinsky. 13
14
Public Comment 15
Jeff Levinsky: Good evening everyone. The staff report doesn’t give a lot of information on how 16
the density bonus law is currently being used in Palo Alto. Some large projects have already 17
been approved under it but many more are in the pipeline. With the exception of the Builders 18
Remedy law, which it’s uncertain we’re subject to, the density bonus law will be responsible for 19
the biggest buildings that don’t conform with our own local zoning code. In other words, it 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
appears to be the most consequential zoning override the State has imposed upon us, so it’s 1
very important for you to discuss. 2
3
One density bonus project currently in the pipeline is 739 Sutter, which is located a couple of 4
blocks south of midtown Safeway. That project is getting a 50 percent density bonus to put 12 5
units on a site that would normally allow 8 and it’s requesting 13 or so separate waivers 6
through the density bonus law too. Each one of those waivers overrides some part of our 7
zoning code. Now, the density bonus law offers what are called concessions, you earn so many 8
based on how much affordable housing you provide. And Sutter could get a concession for FAR 9
but the concessions are limited in number and how much each is worth, so Sutter is skipping all 10
that, instead asking for a waiver of FAR. But I don’t think the State Legislators who wrote the 11
density bonus law intended for waivers to give you as much floor area as you want, as why 12
bother then offering concessions for floor area or anything else. The Sutter developers can also 13
get a waiver for height. They could use the density bonus law to erect a 24-story building on 14
that site and build 12 units, each two stories in height. Each unit would sell for many millions of 15
dollars and have great views too. Yes, the building would have to provide some below-market 16
rate housing but in just 2 of the 12 units, not a big deal given the overall gargantuan size of such 17
a project. Please ask staff but I couldn’t find one word in the proposed changes before you 18
tonight that would stop this. What would? 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Well, you might suggest that our Council along with counties and other cities use our lobbyists 1
to ask the State Legislature to return some sanity to this law. The notion that every project can 2
get as much FAR and as much height as it wishes doesn’t appear to be the intent of the State 3
Legislature but rather the result of a few court decisions that completely ignored concessions 4
and the consequences of unlimited waivers. A second option is for our City, again in 5
combination with others, to have judges review the many flaws and the current precedence. As 6
you all know, one court’s rulings are sometimes overturned by another court or even by the 7
same court. Why can’t we present better arguments and seek more sensible judgments. A third 8
way is to find ways to limit FAR and height waivers within the structure of the density bonus 9
law itself. Has our Legal Department been ever asked to pursue that? You could recommend 10
that they do so, perhaps with the help of outside experts. In summary, the density bonus law 11
has mutated into something that undermines all of our zoning and planning in something that 12
even the State Legislature wouldn’t recognize, so please help turn that around. Thank you. 13
14
Chair Summa: Thank you very much. That’s our only speaker, so we’ll bring it back to the 15
commission. Would someone like to start off with comments? Commissioner Akin? 16
17
Commissioner Akin: Sure, I’ll start off. Regarding the menu of incentives and concessions that 18
Counsel Albert Yang described, it seems to me that it would be a good idea to eliminate it, if 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
simply to reduce the maintenance load for the code. I was curious as to whether anyone else 1
had thoughts along those lines. 2
3
Chair Summa: Commissioner Hechtman, is that your light I see? 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: I think so. Thank you. I was thinking similarly to Commissioner Akin. If 6
it’s – it’s been put out into the marketplace. It has not been used. That makes it a form of sort 7
of legislative clutter. And these concepts are complex enough without throwing something else 8
out there. So if, on that one, staff seems to – has invited us to weigh in on whether it should be 9
removed. I think it should. I did notice in transporting the menu from one section of the 10
ordinance to another, two or three of the items actually didn’t get transported. And I couldn’t 11
find if they have been put someplace else or just dropped but I – because I think there were 12
roughly eight items in the former location and five or so in the new. I’d be supportive on that. I 13
also wanted to talk a little bit about the other thing that staff asked us and that was on the 15 14
percent affordable, whether that should migrate from moderate to lower but I’m going to hold 15
that and see if Commissioner Akin had more to say on other issues. 16
17
Commissioner Akin: No. Please proceed. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. I was curious coming tonight to see if any members of the 1
housing development community might appear and weigh in on this issue of clarifying or 2
changing our ordinance to indicate that this affordability standard is not moderate but rather 3
lower, which is low or very low, and no one spoke. Because I was interested if there was an 4
economic counterargument why this would not result in additional affordable housing units in 5
developments going forward and I take that silence as a message that at least no one has a 6
great enough concern about it, at this point, to raise it. And while it’s a long-term concern of 7
mine that this move could compel housing developers to pay the in-lieu fee instead of providing 8
either the very low or a larger percentage of low, my thought is to make the change and then, 9
over time, let the marketplace tell us. Because if that’s what we see, that we’re not getting 10
more units, just more money toward for sale units, as I understand it, rather than these rentals, 11
then I think it’ll be an opportunity to relook at that but that’s two, three, four years down the 12
road. I’d be supportive of making that change from moderate to low and very low, as reflected 13
in the table in Section 3, which is on Packet Pages 34 and the changes in 35. Those are my 14
comments. Thank you. Otherwise, supportive of staff’s recommendation to move this forward 15
to Council. 16
17
Chair Summa: Commissioner Chang? 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Vice-Chair Chang: I too am supportive of both the staff’s recommendations to remove the 1
clutter in the code as well as the change from moderate to lower. One related but not a 2
hundred percent related thought I had is that given sort of the complexity of this density bonus, 3
also, given what – that there are more applications now, I would find it very useful to have a 4
study session on density bonus, so I just wanted to raise that as part of this discussion. 5
6
Chair Summa: Commissioner Lu? 7
8
Commissioner Lu: I agree with all the comments from Commissioners Akin, Hechtman, and 9
Chang. I agree with their reasoning and don’t need to expand much beyond that. I did actually 10
want to ask potentially a couple of questions following up on our public commenter. I firstly 11
want to ask about the, and these are for Mr. Yang, ask about the provisions about when 12
redeveloping occupied housing, providing equivalently affordable housing to the previous 13
occupants. That’s described in Packet Page 16 and 17. Can you confirm the scope of that as it 14
might apply to a project like 739 Sutter? If none of those units are deed-restricted affordable 15
housing but, in practice, the people who rent there or live there are -- meet income eligibility 16
for affordable housing, would the developer be required to provide potentially more affordable 17
units than they are right now? 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Albert Yang: Yes. Well, sorry, I just need a moment to look into this question if it’s more than 1
what is required just under the density bonus tables. 2
3
Commissioner Lu: Yeah. 4
5
Albert Yang: But the general concept of the replacement unit is that even if it’s not deed 6
restricted, if it is occupied by a lower-income household, then it needs to be offered at that 7
level. 8
9
Commissioner Lu: Okay. 10
11
Albert Yang: And if there is no information, then we’ll presume that some proportion of the 12
units being demolished were occupied, in fact, by lower income. 13
14
Commissioner Lu: Got it. So if we did outreach to the current residents and it turns out that all 15
eight units are occupied by people of lower income, we would go back to the developer and say 16
actually instead of two affordable units, you need to provide eight on site? 17
18
Albert Yang: Correct. Yeah. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Lu: Okay. Got it. That’s useful clarification and also a pretty strong protection for 1
lower-income folks who live in existing units that are redeveloped. I am curious whether we’ve 2
looked into that in the context of 739 Sutter or other developments but... 3
4
Albert Yang: Yeah. 5
6
Commissioner Lu: Yeah. 7
8
Albert Yang: Well, so I’m not sure about the details of that project but I know that, in general, 9
it’s a challenge to find that information to contact tenants. Often, units are vacant by the time 10
the application comes in. And so we do, we have this backstop of sort of the presumption if you 11
don’t give us any information, we’ll assume that some of them were occupied by lower income. 12
Sometimes the developers, the owners, have some records and are able to share those with us 13
but other times they’re not. 14
15
Commissioner Lu: Thank you. That is useful clarification, though. 16
17
Chair Summa: Commissioner Reckdahl? 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah. I’m confused the difference between concessions and waivers 1
and incentives. Can you kind of summarize that? 2
3
Albert Yang: Yeah. So the distinction used to be both more clear and less clear but as it 4
currently stands, concessions and incentives and there’s not really a difference between those 5
two terms, so those are one type. Concessions and incentives are supposed to be sort of 6
changes to the normal rules that provide some financial benefit, so that could be that you don’t 7
have to provide as much parking if parking is expensive to develop. It is also often interpreted 8
to mean some concession that lowers the per-unit cost, even if it increases the overall cost of 9
development, so that could be additional FAR. Maybe building larger, more square footage, 10
increases the total cost but on a per-unit basis it provides a financial benefit. Waivers are much 11
more kind of narrowly defined but there is, as the commenter mentioned, an unlimited number 12
of them available. And waivers are changes to physical development standards, things like 13
height, FAR, setback, so physical development standards that would preclude the project from 14
being constructed. 15
16
Commissioner Reckdahl: So why would anyone choose a concession if a waiver allows you to 17
have no rules as opposed to changing the rule? 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Albert Yang: Yeah. So some things just aren’t physical standards. The number of parking spaces 1
you have to provide isn’t like part of the building envelope of what you can physically build. 2
3
Commissioner Reckdahl: So that you could only change parking with a concession, not with a 4
waiver? 5
6
Albert Yang: That’s the way I would approach it, yes. 7
8
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. So apart from parking, what else would only be affected by 9
concessions? 10
11
Albert Yang: Perhaps a landscaping requirement, something like that. 12
13
Commissioner Reckdahl: What about setbacks, for example? 14
15
Albert Yang: Setbacks I would consider to be a physical development standard. 16
17
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. Yeah. I am still very confused. I think a study session would be 18
excellent because it seems to be just a mixed morass of rules. And I’m not sure if just that’s the 19
way Sacramento did it and we’re stuck with it or whether we can streamline and make this 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
more sensible. Because if I was a builder and I was trying to figure out what to do, I would be 1
confused. I don’t know how the builders know what to do. 2
3
Albert Yang: Yeah. There’s unfortunately not a lot that we can do as a local entity to affect the 4
way that this law works. Yeah. 5
6
Commissioner Reckdahl: So we’re stuck until Sacramento cleans it up. 7
8
Albert Yang: Right. 9
10
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. Thank you. 11
12
Chair Summa: I am not seeing any other lights at this time, so I’ll make a few comments. I want 13
to thank Mr. Yang for working so hard on this. And also, I want to thank our one public speaker 14
whose sentiments mostly I share and also my colleagues for bringing up some good points. And 15
I think I do support getting rid of the menu because no one has used it, so what’s the point? But 16
the one thing that I’m not certain about still and gives me pause is if we have done everything 17
we possibly can to get the best projects for our city under the constraints that the State has put 18
upon us with this law and particularly with concessions and incentives and waivers. Because 19
before the last amendment or a court ruling that may have affected it, our reading of it, there 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
was an apparent difference. And now, there’s really no reason for concessions in some sense 1
almost except now Mr. Yang just said parking and landscaping. But if waivers are so open 2
ended, then I almost don’t see the point of concession and incentives and I’m not sure that’s 3
what the State law meant. I guess my question there is if we can keep – well, the first question 4
is, when making – when updating this law for our code, did – were we influenced by any court 5
decisions or court rulings or just the way the State law was written? And that’s for Mr. Yang. 6
7
Albert Yang: So these updates are driven by the State law. The staff implementation as it 8
applies to any particular project might be informed by court decisions but these changes to the 9
ordinance are just reflective of State law. 10
11
Chair Summa: Okay. And I guess that would fall into the category, I think it was already stated, 12
about who knows why they left concessions and incentives in really when you can get 13
everything and anything from waivers. I would just like to keep in mind, I don’t think there’s any 14
point in not advancing this because we have to, to be compliant and it’s – there are some good 15
things in here too. But I would like to keep in mind that as we move forward that we use any of 16
the means we have available to us to address the problematic aspects of this law. It seems very, 17
very open ended. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
And then I wanted to ask about residential uses that are multifamily, which includes the 1
residential uses R-2 and RMD that are grouped. So RMD and R-2 are technically in land use 2
multifamily but in our zoning code we group them with R-1 because we see them the same way 3
pretty much and they’re protected differently. Under the new State law, are R-2 and RMD also 4
under the assumption that they could be developed at the maximum densities, the whole range 5
expressed for residential multifamily in the land use portion or am I misunderstanding that? 6
7
Albert Yang: No, you’re not. You’re dealing with a provision of the code that is not terribly clear 8
but we would take the position that the maximum density in the land use designation is 9
dependent on that zoning. You’re not going to get a – even if we say multifamily land use 10
designation can go up to 40 units per acre, that’s not going to suddenly change an RM-20 zone 11
to 40 units per acre. 12
13
Chair Summa: Okay. Good. That’s what I was asking. And then I hope just in a general sense as 14
we move forward with this and maybe there’s an opportunity for the Council to discuss this 15
with staff also that we make sure we’re using all the tools we have in our toolkit to get the best 16
for our residents and future residents out of the projects developed under this law. And then, 17
that being said, I’ll go to Commissioner Chang, no, Hechtman. Sorry. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Hechtman: I’m prepared to make a motion if – unless anyone else has something 1
to add. 2
3
Chair Summa: Go ahead, please. 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: All right. Before I make the motion, I want to mention that I noticed 6
in Vice-Chair Chang’s dialogue, email dialogue with Mr. Yang, there were a couple of typos she 7
identified and a couple of other changes that it appeared that she brought to Mr. Yang’s 8
attention that will be made. Additionally, I had a conversation with Mr. Yang yesterday about a 9
couple other non-substantive clarifying changes that staff might make, so I’m going to include 10
that in my motion. I just wanted to give that context to everybody. I will move the staff 11
recommendation to recommend that the City Council adopt the ordinance attached as 12
Attachment A updating our density bonus regulations with the following modifications from the 13
version of the ordinance that appeared in our staff report: First, deletion of the menu of 14
concessions which has in the draft been relocated to Section 18-15-090(d), as in door; second, 15
to include the clarification or change to the affordable housing requirement that it be low 16
income, which can be either very low or low, from moderate, and that appears in Section 3 of 17
the ordinance. That change has been made. And finally, that staff have the flexibility to correct 18
typos and make clarifications as this, of non-substantive issues that they find or that we have 19
discussed with them, as this travels toward Council. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Vice-Chair Chang: Second. 2
3
Chair Summa: Would you like to speak to your motion? 4
5
Commission Hechtman: No, thank you. 6
7
Chair Summa: Would you like to speak to your second? 8
9
Vice-Chair Chang: Yes. I’m not a big fan of the density bonus law for a number of reasons that I 10
had already highlighted. Some of them just kind of don’t make sense but that being said, this is 11
not a choice that we have as Palo Alto. 12
13
Chair Summa: I’m not seeing any other lights, so we may go ahead and vote, please, Ms. Dao. 14
15
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Akin? 16
17
Commissioner Akin: Yes. 18
19
Veronica Dao: Vice-Chair Chang? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Vice-Chair Chang: Yes. 2
3
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 6
7
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Lu? 8
9
Commissioner Lu: Yes. 10
11
Veronica Dao: Chair Summa? 12
13
Chair Summa: Unwillingly but yes. 14
15
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Reckdahl? 16
17
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yes. 18
19
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 2
3
Veronica Dao: Motion carries 7-0. 4
5
Chair Summa: Thank you very much. We’re going to take a little break while we get reorganized 6
and welcome our Human Relation Commission Members and staff. 7
8
Study Session 9
Public Comment is Permitted. Three (3) minutes per speaker. 10
11
3. Presentation to PTC and HRC by Caltrans on El Camino Real Bike Lanes and Parking 12
Space Removal 13
14
Chair Summa: And welcome to the Human Relations Commission and staff, and it’s nice to see 15
Council Member Lythcott-Haims here as well. So this is a study session and presentation to PTC 16
and HRC by Caltrans on El Camino Real bike lanes and parking space removal, etc. We will go 17
ahead and start with presentations, please. 18
19
Veronica Dao: Roll call first. 20
21
HRC Liaison Minka Van Der Zwaag: Thank you. I’ll just do it for the HRC. We have Chair Eberle. 22
23
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Eberle: Present. Here. 1
2
Minka Van Der Zwaag: Vice-Chair Kraus? 3
4
Vice-Chair Kraus: Here. 5
6
Minka Van Der Zwaag: Commissioner Smith? 7
8
Commissioner Smith: Present. 9
10
Minka Van Der Zwaag: Commissioner Stimmler? 11
12
Commissioner Stimmler: Here. 13
14
Minka Van Der Zwaag: Four present. Thank you. 15
16
Chair Summa: Thank you very much for that. And I guess now we will go to staff and 17
presentation. 18
19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chief Transportation Official Philip Kamhi: Sorry. And we were just holding on to get a 1
presentation for our Caltrans staff that’s here. I’m Philip Kamhi, Chief Transportation Official, 2
and introducing tonight our Caltrans representatives that are here. This is Nick Saleh, who is 3
going to be starting off this presentation. 4
5
District Division Chief and Project Manager Nick Saleh: Do I need to do anything here? We’re 6
good? Okay. Good evening. Thank you so much for invite us here. My name is Nick Saleh. I’m a 7
District Division Chief for – and a Project Manager. I oversee the capital program in Santa Clara 8
County. Today, actually, we will present to you a couple of things. I’ll give you a status update 9
on the ongoing El Camino rehab project, which goes through Los Altos, Mountain View, and the 10
city of Palo Alto and also would like to focus on the proposed additional bike lane through the 11
City of Palo Alto that came later in the game. But before I start, I would like to introduce 12
Caltrans team. There are some of us here and there are a few virtual somewhere else. Before I 13
start, I’d like to introduce Eunmi Choi. She’s a project manager. And I don’t know how to see 14
the others, the virtual ones but I will just name the names and hopefully [inaudible 82:19]. I’d 15
like to introduce Aung Maung, he’s, actually, he is the Chief Safety Engineer in District 4 and the 16
Bay Area. Lester Lee is an Office Chief. And Rick is a Safety Officer, Engineering, Safety Engineer. 17
And I’d like to introduce Sergio. He is the District Bike Liaison. Did I miss anybody? But before I 18
start, also I want to acknowledge the partnership and the help from the City staff and Philip, 19
Sylvia, and Melissa. We’ve been working together from day one on many issues. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
With this, I would like to start my PowerPoint presentation. Hopefully, we’ll be covering today, 2
between staff and myself, is the big picture. Can you just go to next slide, please? Yeah. We’ll 3
be talking about – we’ll give you an update of the current project schedule and status of where 4
is it. It’s in construction as we speak. We’ll give you a high overview of what’s going on. Also, 5
we’re going to present a planning and mobility high-level discussion on Caltrans Complete 6
Street and other related directives. Our Safety team will discuss the safety findings and what 7
the recommendation and the outcome that we recommend. And finally, we will overview the 8
design and what we went through and we analyze, what options we went through to come up 9
with that proposed bike. With this, I’d like to introduce Eunmi to provide an overview of the 10
project. 11
12
Project Manager Eunmi Choi: Good evening. Yeah. My name is Eunmi Choi, Caltrans Project 13
Manager. 14
15
Chair Summa: Excuse me. Could you get a little closer to the microphone... 16
17
Eunmi Choi: Okay. 18
19
Chair Summa: ...so we can hear you? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Eunmi Choi: Yeah. 2
3
Chair Summa: Thank you. 4
5
Eunmi Choi: Can you hear me now? Yeah. 6
7
Chair Summa: Much better. 8
9
Eunmi Choi: Yeah. Good evening. Yeah. I’m Eunmi Choi, Caltrans Project Manager. Today, I’m 10
here to provide you the overview of the Caltrans paving project on State Route 82, El Camino 11
Real. The project limits is between the city of Mountain View and the city of Palo Alto. And the 12
construction cost is approximately $30 million. And the project’s main scope is pavement 13
rehabilitation of the asphalt concrete pavement and concrete pavement, upgrade sidewalk, 14
driveways, and curb ramps to ADA standard. It will also include placing high-visibility crosswalk 15
pavement marking, electrical work including installing pedestrian hybrid beacon systems, APS 16
systems, and upgrading signal poles at several intersections. In addition to that, this project will 17
add new bikeways in the city of Mountain View and Los Altos. So we are here to propose new 18
bikeways in the city of Palo Alto limit and the time of implementation will be right after new 19
paving. And currently, new paving is scheduled tentatively late summer and fall of this year. For 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
project schedule, yeah, the construction has already begun in November 2023 and is 1
anticipated to be done in fall of next year. For next topic, yeah, I’d like to introduce Sergio Ruiz, 2
Caltrans Ped and Bike Coordinator. Sergio? 3
4
Pedestrian and Bike Coordinator Sergio Ruiz: Hi everyone. Can you all hear me? 5
6
Chair Summa: Yes, we can. 7
8
Male: Yes. 9
10
Sergio Ruiz: Great. [Inaudible 86:47] thank you. I’d like to provide a little bit of a higher-level 11
context with an overview of our planning policy and mobility needs that have been identified 12
for El Camino Real. Starting with just sort of the policy framework around how we pursue our 13
paving projects and incorporate Complete Streets, Caltrans has established several strategic 14
priorities as a department and just as the State of California, focused around safety, equity, 15
climate action, and prosperity. And so this is kind of the lens that we look at when we identify 16
investment opportunities not just when we do repaving or fixing existing roadway assets but 17
also in opportunities to really make sure that we’re providing a more sustainable transportation 18
network. We have a lot of various strategic planning documents and investment priority 19
initiatives that kind of help point to the preference of providing multimodal opportunities. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
That’s kind of setting the framework for why we’re pursuing bikeways on El Camino Real. Next 1
slide, please. 2
3
And so digging a little further into these priorities, we also have our Complete Streets policy. 4
What we mean by Complete Streets is it’s our organizational priority to encourage and 5
maximize walking, biking, transit, and passenger rail. This policy really does touch on all of our 6
strategic priorities that was mentioned previously. And this policy was recently updated also in 7
2021 and it was actually strengthened quite a bit to basically require Caltrans to include 8
comfortable and connected walking and biking facilities in all of our projects unless an 9
exception is granted, and so it really raises the threshold for when we are required to include 10
what we call or refer to as Complete Street facilities really focused on multimodal travel. Next 11
slide, please. 12
13
And just to go beyond the policy framework, there’s been a lot of planning done along El 14
Camino Real throughout the corridor, not just in Santa Clara County but also in San Mateo 15
County. Here are some of the planning documents we reference when we identify potential 16
needs and opportunities for Complete Street improvements. Some of these have been carried 17
out by Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority. Others were done through various 18
jurisdictions, including the Grand Boulevard Initiative studies that were done for Redwood City 19
and Palo Alto. But also at the district level, we developed our first district for a bike plan back in 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
2018, kind of using a database approach in identifying bicycling needs and proposed 1
recommendations. One of the key findings that came about in reviewing all of these planning 2
documents is sort of the desire and need for continuous bike facilities along El Camino Real, not 3
just in Palo Alto but in the adjoining jurisdictions as well since it does provide the most direct 4
connection and there is a need to have improved access to the destinations on El Camino and 5
not just some of the parallel bike boulevards or bike routes that can be somewhat circuitous. 6
Next slide. 7
8
Kind of to set the framework for how we identify needs for bike improvements, as I stated just 9
now, El Camino really does have that direct connection to various downtown business districts, 10
including from San Jose all the way to San Francisco. We know people are biking on there 11
today. We’ll touch a little bit on that later on in our presentation about the safety needs for 12
people using El Camino today. But also knowing that people are biking on there today and then 13
there’s the need for improved connectivity, Caltrans has what we call contextual guidance for 14
bike, preferred bikeway facilities and typically on roadways that have higher speeds and higher 15
volumes like El Camino and basically a lot of our state highways throughout the state. It really 16
points to the need for more separated bikeways to be more comfortable and attract more 17
users. This chart here on the right is just an example of how we determine what the more 18
appropriate type of bikeway would be for a context like El Camino where you do see higher 19
speeds and volumes. If it wasn’t like a Class IV, which is what we call a vertically separated 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
bikeway, it could also be a Class I shared used path, which is fully separate from the roadway 1
and those are more typically done in rural areas or places where we have more right-of-way but 2
in constrained rights-of-way we typically prefer Class IV bikeways. Next slide. 3
4
And, of course, we’re not just focused on Palo Alto. Nick and Eunmi mentioned that this project 5
also is already incorporating bikeways within the cities of Mountain View and Los Altos. Those 6
segments of El Camino, it was a bit of a different way that those were initiated in that the Cities 7
already had those identified in their plans and came to us to incorporate bikeways as part of 8
our project. And then, we have other paving projects throughout other segments of El Camino 9
Real where bikeways are proposed and you can see them listed here on the map with the 10
proposed construction start date for each of those projects. We really do see repaving as one of 11
the biggest opportunities to incorporate bikeway facilities, especially since as part of our asset 12
management approach, repaving is done every so many years, and so that really is the best 13
opportunity to do some real changes on the ground. There are some limitations to that 14
approach in relying on a repaving project to incorporate bikeways, especially when you get to 15
things like intersection improvements or when other design treatments are triggered like 16
drainage or electrical work. That sometimes becomes a limitation when we’re just focused on 17
the repaving aspect but we still see this as a major opportunity and a significant improvement, 18
particularly for those who are already biking and the need that we see out there along the 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
corridor. Next slide. Yeah, with that, I’ll pass it on to Rick Yeung in our Traffic Safety team to talk 1
about some of the safety considerations. 2
3
Traffic Safety Engineer Rick Yeung: Thank you, Sergio. Hi. Good evening everyone. My name is 4
Rick Yeung. Before I begin, can I just do an audio check to make sure my audio is coming 5
through? 6
7
Chair Summa: Sounds very clear. 8
9
Rick Yeung: All right. Thank you. My portion of the presentation is focused on traffic safety. 10
Specifically, I’ll be talking about the crashes that involve bicyclists on El Camino Real and what 11
we can do to prevent them from happening in the future. Next slide, please. 12
13
Here’s an overview of the topics I’ll be going over. I’ll start with our safety-first mindset 14
approach to safety. Then, I’m going to go into our Bicyclist Safety Improvement Monitoring 15
Program, follow that with a review of the crash history, and I’ll end by talking about the bicyclist 16
safety enhancement recommendation that we have for the repaving project. Next slide. 17
18
Before I go into all the detail, I’d like to just take a moment to talk about our general approach 19
to safety. At Caltrans, our mindset is safety first. What that means is our priority is for the 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
safety of all our road users. Our vision is to eliminate all fatality and serious injury on our 1
highway, and to do that we use the safe-system approach where we focus on preventing 2
crashes from happening in the first place and, if they do occur, we want to minimize the harm 3
done to the road users who are involved. Next slide, please. 4
5
One of the tools we use to improve traffic safety is our Bicyclist Safety Improvement Monitoring 6
Program. Using crash data from 2016 through 2020, the program looks for locations where we 7
have high concentration of crashes that involve bicyclists. We then take a look, take a closer 8
look at these locations, investigate, and we implement the appropriate safety enhancement 9
countermeasures. Next slide, please. 10
11
Through our Bicyclist Safety Improvement Monitoring Program, we have identified five highway 12
segments along El Camino Real in the city of Mountain View and Palo Alto where we have high 13
concentration of crashes involving bicyclists. One of the locations is located in the city of 14
Mountain View, Location Number 1. The other four locations are located in Palo Alto. Next 15
slide. 16
17
Let’s go into take a closer look at these crashes. From 2016 to 2020, across these five highway 18
segments, we have a total of 33 crashes involving bicyclists, 32 of them resulted in injury and 19
one of them sadly was a fatality. One thing I want to highlight from this slide, these 33 crashes 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
they not only tell us something about the incidents, they’re also indication that we currently 1
have bicyclists riding along El Camino Real, so we want to do everything we can to improve 2
safety for these riders. Next slide, please. 3
4
Here’s a breakdown of the 33 crashes by crash type. Overwhelmingly, broadside was the 5
highest at close to 80 percent. And this is significant because in a broadside crash, the 6
likelihood of the bicyclist getting – sustaining injury tends to be higher. Next slide, please. 7
8
This is a breakdown of the crashes by primary collision factors. Other violations came in highest 9
at almost 50 percent, followed by failure to yield at 30 percent. Next slide. 10
11
In addition to breaking down the crashes by type or by primary collision factors, we’ve also 12
grouped them into specific patterns so we can take a closer look at some of the underlying 13
issue and to identify potential mitigation measures. The three crash patterns we have identified 14
are drivers’ failure to yield, bikes going against the flow of traffic, and red light violation. Next 15
slide. 16
17
Our first crash pattern is drivers’ failure to yield. Typically, the underlying issues related to this 18
is driver distraction, visibility issue, or right-of-way assignment not being clear to the road 19
users. Things we may be able to do to improve this condition include upgrading and improving 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
traffic signage and markings, making sure we have clear line of sight especially at intersections 1
and driveways, continuing our effort with driver education, and, at selected locations, providing 2
bike boxes to improve the visibility of bicyclists. Next slide. 3
4
Bikes going against the flow of traffic, issues related to this one oftentimes is related to a lack of 5
having a designated area for people to ride bikes. Sometimes it could also be related to having 6
to deal with a high-stress riding environment on a roadway like El Camino Real. Potential 7
mitigation measures include providing standard bicycle facility so that we can designate a 8
portion of the roadway for the exclusive use by bicyclists. We can also install appropriate signs 9
and markings to clearly indicate the direction of travel for bikes. Next slide. 10
11
And our last crash pattern is red light violation. This could be related to speeding, drivers not 12
being able to see traffic signal equipment clearly, sometimes there could be an issue related to 13
signal timing. Potential mitigations include traffic enforcement, drivers’ education, and working 14
with our Maintenance and Highways Operation to make sure signal equipments are visible to 15
drivers and to make sure that each signal is timed properly. Next slide. 16
17
Based on our traffic safety review, our recommendation is to implement a bikeway on El 18
Camino Real with the ongoing repaving project. I just want to highlight some of the benefits of 19
having a bikeway. Number one, it provides the connectivity that Sergio had mentioned in his 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
portion of the presentation. It will reduce the incidents of bicyclists riding against the flow of 1
traffic, it will reduce the potential for conflict between bikes and vehicles, and ultimately, it will 2
improve traffic safety on El Camino Real. And with that, I’m going to turn this back over to Nick 3
for the next portion of the presentation. 4
5
Nick Saleh: The next slide will be the remaining of the presentation would be focusing on some 6
consideration and challenging through the design. Unfortunately, the design engineer did not – 7
couldn’t be available to attend this meeting but I will attempt to cover as much as I can but I do 8
have all the support from the staff to explain any of those outstanding things. 9
10
Chair Summa: Sorry to interrupt. It would help if you got a little closer to the mic. 11
12
Nick Saleh: I will as much as I can. [Inaudible 101:56]. I’ll be careful [inaudible 102:00]. 13
14
Chair Summa: Thank you. 15
16
Nick Saleh: How does it sound? 17
18
Chair Summa: Much better. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Nick Saleh: Thank you so much. Okay. Let me start over again about this one. I will be covering 1
and focusing on the design aspect of what went through the bike lane considerations 2
throughout the corridor, include Mountain View, Los Altos, and future Palo Alto’s proposed 3
bike lane. I will focusing on the challenges and some consideration went through the design. 4
We’ll be covering real estate challenges, which is right-of-way, on-street parking, intersections 5
and driveways, and transit stops. Next slide, please. 6
7
I don’t have to convince you a lot about the El Camino Real the real estate and the right-of-way 8
challenges and constraints with the right-of-way. I believe there’s three through lanes 9
throughout the corridor and multiple location has left turns or right turns. And so another 10
consideration, some of the towns along the El Camino it has been decided a long time I think is 11
the ownership of the sidewalk. Some of those sidewalks are owned by Caltrans. And whenever 12
we own the sidewalk, it means they give us from the back of the sidewalk to the opposite back 13
of the other sidewalk in the opposite direction, almost 130 feet across. In case we don’t have 14
that, it has been delegated by the Cities it will take us back to almost 100 feet wide. And in 15
between, there is little variation between, so the average width of the facility throughout the 16
corridor goes from a range from 100 linear feet to almost 130 feet in the best-case scenario. 17
Next slide, please. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
The second challenge and reality is the impact of the on-street parking. As Eunmi said and I 1
believe Sergio mentioned, this has the street parking went through the whole corridor. Palo 2
Alto and Los Altos we went through the same process. There were also a challenge to 3
accommodate for complete facility or to most standards, so they went through their City 4
Council for removal of the street parking. And this is a similar situation here. We believe that 5
initial number we are going to be impacting or the placement of the bikeway will be tentatively 6
impacting almost 600 plus or minus a couple of cars, 603 street parking spots, and that’s 7
through the whole segment of city of Palo Alto. Next slide. 8
9
The other challenge that will – it just created more hurdle to the design team to come up with 10
more [inaudible 105:35] standard facility is the frequency of the intersections and the 11
driveways through the corridor. And it’s very obvious it creates a lot of challenge and the 12
designer had to be very creative to come up with the most practical or reasonable approach for 13
design and that creates a lot of conflict zones for both actually, the automobile and the 14
bicyclists when they have to decide on which priority is. And also another constraint is the right-15
turn lane and left turn actually creating the same constraint about the bike facility. Next. 16
17
If those three reasons are not enough, we still have another one, which is the more frequent 18
bus stops throughout the corridor that create another conflict zone during any movement for 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
bicyclists and buses and motorists. It create a very challenging opportunity for the buses and 1
the bikes to pull in and out, so it’s one of the biggest challenge. 2
3
Next slide we’ll provide you sort of an ideal situation. Not ideal, actually. It’s an actual situation 4
how the facility is going to look like after Caltrans go ahead and upgrade all the ADA, the ramps 5
that Eunmi said about the scope of the work. We’re going to update some of the sidewalks 6
actually because they need some upgrades and pave the project and provide all the signal 7
upgrades and the bike lane and the striping. And that’s typical how this facility will look like 8
hopefully the day we leave. Next slide, please. 9
10
This is sort of a prospective how the facility is going to look like. Today and what we have today 11
and that will actually highlight the real estate and the right-of-way constraint and the upper 12
one says “before.” It does have on each side they have street parking and the sidewalk and the 13
through lanes. This is a typical section today across the whole corridor and that’s not limited 14
only to Palo Alto. This is through the corridor, Mountain View and Los Altos. And the second, 15
the lower cross-section will illustrate how the facility is going to look like when the street 16
parking and installing the bike lane. And actually, this is – it shows Class IV bike lane but 17
[inaudible 108:33] the challenges with the real estate, it could be Class II, Class I, and/or Class 18
IV. Next slide. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
This picture is before. It’s what we’re going to see if we drive on California street, El Camino, 1
how this is going to look like today. And hopefully when we complete the project, this is the 2
way we’re going to leave the facility, how this is going to look like. Next slide. 3
4
A few considerations we have done during the design – even though the main scope of the 5
project is to extend the life of the pavement and improve the ridability, which is really needed 6
at this time. And so we did, we looked into what does it take to maintain the street parking, 7
which is apply all the design exceptions that allow us to reduce the lane width, allow us to move 8
things around to fit the existing facility, and which is we are doing that. We reduced in some 9
instances the lane width from 12 standard feet to could be 11 and 11½, whatever we needed as 10
much as we can. And I think that’s both the lane reduction approach as far as long it’s comply 11
with the DIB, with other standard design standard and geometric. And we don’t want to create 12
any unsafe situation by improving one aspect of the safety, so we’re looking at this very closely. 13
So to maintain the road, it’s very challenging and, unfortunately, we could not come up with 14
enough reduction in the lane that accommodate to keep the street. Lane width, again, we are 15
going from 12 feet to 11 and as much as we can to accommodate to free up some real estate to 16
keep the facility as is. 17
18
Other option we did not look in the detail but was brought up to the table which is what we call 19
it it’s a possibility of a future lane elimination or what you call it road diet, which means you 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
take a through lane from each direction to accommodate for street parking and the bike facility. 1
And this is a great vision and I think we’re all for it. Unfortunately, the time does not allow us to 2
go through the entire analysis to accommodate that. It does – it has a lot of impact from it’s a 3
regional corridor. It does have a lot of stakeholders. A lot of stakeholders need to be on the 4
table to decide how is the future of this corridor look like it but Caltrans would be more than 5
happy to be part of that team to discuss it. 6
7
What’s next for us? So far, this is our third public engagement outreach for the last three 8
weeks. I think we broke the record, even Caltrans, that once a week with present the project. 9
And the next step, we’ll be going, I believe the City staff will be going to the City Council for a 10
resolution to remove the street parking. As I just – I want to – and that conclude my 11
presentation. Before I finish and give you the chance, I want to look at it from the opportunity 12
[inaudible 112:24]. So far, what we have done, Palo Alto and Los Altos they incorporate all the 13
facility with it. Our goal is to entertain and come to you guys. Hopefully we’ll incorporate the 14
work within Palo Alto. And it’s great. It’s taken us a little while because actually it’s not because 15
of the project is going slow, it’s just we’re trying to accommodate the ongoing Palo Alto sewer 16
line project that actually came sort of last minute into the game, so we have to push our project 17
a little bit further to accommodate for the sewer line. It takes, I think, 10,000 linear feet. The 18
timing is great. And what makes this project a little bit different is the – we’re trying to do 19
things once and hopefully do it right. We need to eliminate or reduce any throwaway down the 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
road. And hopefully we’re here with the team to answer any of the questions related to this. 1
Thank you so much. 2
3
Chair Summa: Thank you for your presentation and to your team. Does staff have anything to 4
add, our staff have anything to add to the presentation or...? 5
6
Philip Kamhi: No. I don’t think so. Not at this time. 7
8
Chair Summa: Okay. And then, so we’ll go to questions and comments first. And I see that 9
Commissioner Templeton’s light has been on for some time. 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you, Chair. So first of all, I just want to say to Mr. Saleh and 12
our whole staff from Caltrans, thank you for presenting this opportunity to us not just this night 13
but overall working with our staff and reaching out for such an amazing opportunity to make El 14
Camino Real safer for our city. The – I have a couple of clarifying questions, one is I know it’s a 15
touchy subject but just to clarify, is that fatality the middle schooler? Do you recall? 16
17
Nick Saleh: I don’t recall. But I don’t know, Rick, do you recall the nature of the fatality? 18
19
Rick Yeung: Yeah. It was a – it’s the one on California. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. Okay. And I just want to emphasize that that was a young 2
person trying to be mobile and get around and collided with a very large vehicle. Now, that 3
road is closed down. That intersection is probably less dangerous I can only hope. But the idea 4
that we haven’t really done anything since then to improve the safety of El Camino is on my 5
mind, so I just thank you for clarifying what the nature of that fatality was. 6
7
The other question is I’ve been reading the comments that are coming in from the public and 8
there’s a lot of, well, this is nice but this would be better, and conjecture and brainstorming and 9
things like that. I want to ask while you’re up here, just to anticipate more discussion around 10
that, are there any other roads that you’re considering adding bike facilities to in Palo Alto? 11
12
Nick Saleh: Well, we only own, that’s the State, owns El Camino Real only. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. I just wanted to make that really clear. 15
16
Nick Saleh: That’s the only piece of real estate we own. 17
18
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. Because we’re hearing some speculations of other things we 1
could do that would be better for bikes and I think that’s probably true but it’s outside the 2
scope of your work. 3
4
Nick Saleh: It’s outside scope of Caltrans’ jurisdiction. 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you for clarifying. 7
8
Chair Summa: Commissioner Akin, I believe. Ah. Commissioner Smith. 9
10
Commissioner Smith: What kind of dividers are you going to use on the road? I know that in 11
Palo Alto there’s been I see a lot of these new tandem bikes with babies and moms and all that 12
kind of stuff. I’m just curious what kind of dividers will be used on the street. 13
14
Nick Saleh: I believe it's the normal channelizers is between the bike within the buffer lane but 15
Sergio, you want to add to it if you know, I mean the specific? 16
17
Sergio Ruiz: Yeah. I think that detail hasn’t been fully fleshed out in our plan set but the idea is 18
to move toward flexible channelizers where there is that space that allows for a buffer and so 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
they would be at regular intervals. And the thing with flexible channelizers if they do get hit by 1
bicyclists it’s not like a hard object, so it does give way a bit. 2
3
Commissioner Smith: [Inaudible 117:12]. 4
5
Nick Saleh: I think what Sergio said it’s some similar flexible channelizers that will accommodate 6
if somebody hit them but that’s what he said is channelizers that will be raised and flexible to 7
move around and this is... 8
9
Commissioner Smith: Is there a sample or a picture of what a channelizer looks like in the 10
presentation anywhere? 11
12
Nick Saleh: I think, yeah, there is. Sergio? Yeah. We will provide the detail. I think that’s... 13
14
Amy French: Like Page 76 [inaudible 117:51]. 15
16
Sergio Ruiz: I want to say Slide 23 might have that shown if it’s in the same order as the slide 17
deck that I have. 18
19
Amy French: Packet Page 76. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Smith: I just wanted [inaudible 118:05]. 2
3
Nick Saleh: Okay. 4
5
Commissioner Smith: I can pull it. 6
7
Sergio Ruiz: Yeah. 8
9
Nick Saleh: Here. Yeah. Those would... 10
11
Male: [Inaudible 118:12] is there a separation of cars [inaudible 118:18]? 12
13
Male: You got to let the Chair speak. 14
15
Nick Saleh: I’ll focus and if you have a question I will come to you. Is that, Commissioner, is 16
that... 17
18
Commissioner Smith: Thank you so much. That’s such great clarity for me. Thank you. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Summa: [Inaudible 118:32] were they speaking? 1
2
Vice-Chair Chang: Yes. He was asking a question. 3
4
Chair Summa: Oh. Okay. Thank you for that answer. And just to remind the members of the 5
public that are here that there’ll be a time for you to speak and ask questions and make 6
statements. Is that all, Commissioner Smith? 7
8
Commissioner Smith: That was it. 9
10
Chair Summa: Okay. Commissioner Chang? 11
12
Vice-Chair Chang: Sure. I’ve got a couple questions. So there was a breakdown of bike crashes 13
into three categories, failure to yield, going the wrong way, and then red light violation. I guess 14
this question, I think it was Mr. Yeung who presented that to us, I’m not sure. 15
16
Male: Yes. 17
18
Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. Yeah. A question for Mr. Yeung, do you have the breakdown of what 19
percent of those 33 accidents fell into each of those categories? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Rick Yeung: Yes, I do. Just if you can give me a second here, let me pull that up. 2
3
Vice-Chair Chang: Sure. No problem. 4
5
Rick Yeung: For drivers’ failure to yield 10 out of 33, bicyclists riding against traffic 13 out of 33, 6
and then red light violation 4 out of 33. 7
8
Vice-Chair Chang: Great. Thanks. That’s very helpful, especially since bike lanes are proposed as 9
a solution, so that might well help with the bikes going against traffic. My second question is do 10
you know for the design or at least the draft design, what kind of proportion of the new bike 11
lanes would be Class IV versus a lower class? Because my understanding is Class IV is the safest, 12
correct, or the most separated? 13
14
Nick Saleh: That’s correct. I don’t have offhand but I will be happy – Sergio, do you have any or 15
Eunmi? 16
17
Vice-Chair Chang: Or even a rough estimate, like two-thirds, four to one, whatever it is. How 18
much of the bike... 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Sergio Ruiz: Yeah. 1
2
Nick Saleh: The reason it’s a draft because those what we present today might be changing 3
tomorrow because of the comments we got. But Sergio, if you have some initial numbers, that 4
would be great. 5
6
Sergio Ruiz: Unfortunately, I don’t have a breakdown of how much of this will be Class IV versus 7
Class II but yeah, I think significant portions will need to be Class 2 where there are conflict 8
zones like at the bus stops and at driveways and intersection approaches. I would hesitate to 9
give a number just because we haven’t really summed that up yet. 10
11
Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. Thanks. And then next question is I noticed that there is a footnote in 12
our staff report about the DIB-94 design guidelines for Complete Streets and the timing of the 13
draft proposal for bike lanes is very close to that of the release of the DIB-94 guidelines. And I 14
had heard from a member of the public that it doesn’t look like parts of the proposal, notably 15
intersections, are compliant with DIB-94. I wanted to ask Caltrans staff if the draft design is 16
compliant everywhere with those or does it meet those guidelines. 17
18
Nick Saleh: The DIB-94, actually it has been released in a final. And Caltrans, as we speak, they 19
are actually [inaudible 122:31] adjust because this is broader. It’s not made for El Camino. It’s 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
made for the state of California. So we’re trying to digest where if it’s apply and where is it that 1
fits with the compliance. And we heard this comments in the last couple meetings, public 2
meetings, and we’ve taken it and we’re going to evaluate this one. And we will run our own 3
workshop and make sure that we also satisfy both DIB-94 and the Highway Design Manual 4
that’s also it’s [inaudible 123:04] for all other safety and the lane width and other design 5
geometric. 6
7
Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. Thank you. If I’m to paraphrase, it’s that we don’t – that Caltrans is not 8
a hundred percent sure the answer that that evaluation or comparison of the various guidelines 9
has not yet been made for the current draft design? 10
11
Nick Saleh: That’s correct. 12
13
Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: And is that because this is a draft? 16
17
Nick Saleh: No. It’s no longer a draft but during the work progress, everything came at the same 18
time, so the draft we have today we need to revisit the DIB-94 to make sure [inaudible 123:46]. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Templeton: And you will do that because your intention is to be compliant? 1
2
Nick Saleh: We want to do the right thing too. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. Thank you. 5
6
Nick Saleh: Yeah. 7
8
Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. Great. Thanks for clarifying because I wasn’t sure where this – where 9
we were in the process with respect to the draft plans. And then my final question is I know 10
that this is tentatively scheduled to go before our City Council and our City staff has been – has 11
asked in letter to Caltrans what happens if our City Council doesn’t agree to remove parking 12
spaces. And I just want to know what the – what happens then? 13
14
Nick Saleh: I, and I hope, I don’t want to speculate [inaudible 124:31]. I think we’re here, we’re 15
going around, and we presented the fact and factual and we have a safety concern today and 16
we have a liability. I hope we’ll continue working with the City on coming up with a solution but 17
I’ll be honest, I don’t know what exactly our legal obligations are after if a City said yes or no. 18
That will be remain with Caltrans to decide. But again, this is what we’re trying to avoid. And I 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
think we – hopefully we’re doing enough clarification for outstanding items and hopefully that 1
will make it easier on the City Council to decide but... 2
3
Vice-Chair Chang: Thank you so much, Mr. Saleh. 4
5
Chair Summa: Okay. Chair Eberle? 6
7
Chair Eberle: Thank you. I have a few questions. First, in the plan it talked about sharrows and 8
where the buses are going to come in and stop and how the bikes then have to share that space 9
with the buses. I was wondering if you have data on how many of those accidents were bus-10
related accidents, first of all. Do we know? 11
12
Nick Saleh: Rick, do you have? Did you hear the question? 13
14
Rick Yeung: Yeah. I did. The 33 crashes that I have mentioned, none of them involve transit 15
buses. 16
17
Chair Eberle: Great. And the other question that I have is El Camino still will be a three-lane 18
road and how are these bikes going to go from the right bike lane to make left turns? They’ll 19
have to cross all those lanes? I’m just trying to think through how, as a biker, how feasible that 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
is and does that defeat the point. I just don’t know because there are so many intersections on 1
El Camino, how do you stay on the right lane for long? 2
3
Nick Saleh: Yeah. 4
5
Chair Eberle: I don’t know. 6
7
Nick Saleh: The challenge would remain if you put it on the right side or the left side, somebody 8
is going to cross something. But I believe some of the details, Sergio, do you – I remember 9
there’s a few details that will facilitate the crossing. 10
11
Sergio Ruiz: Yeah. I think with our draft plan... 12
13
Nick Saleh: I just want to add one thing. I’m sorry, Sergio. We also are enhancing and upgrading 14
all the crosswalks through the intersections through the whole corridor to the most updated 15
and with the signage with APSs with that. We also have that to facilitate the crossing for both. 16
But I’m sorry, go ahead, Sergio. 17
18
Sergio Ruiz: Yeah. One of the strategies that we’re utilizing that’s incorporated in our draft 19
plans is particularly on multilane roadways where a lot of bicyclists just don’t feel comfortable 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
merging across three lanes of traffic is to facilitate two-stage left turns is what we call it, where 1
bicyclists can stay on the right side, they’ll cross an intersection at the green but then they’ll 2
pivot to turn left or orient themselves to turn left and wait for the next signal cycle to go 3
straight. And so we’re doing that by installing or proposing two-stage left-turn boxes, which are 4
these designating markings that indicate to bicyclists where they can position themselves to 5
make those left turns. We propose those at strategic locations where there are crossing bike 6
facilities or to access parallel facilities like the Stanford Perimeter Trail. But we’ve gotten a lot of 7
feedback on left turns and so we’re currently looking into other potential locations to include 8
these as well. 9
10
Chair Eberle: Okay. Thank you. That makes total sense and it does seem that it’s a safer way to 11
cross. Thank you. Let me see. I have a question. Well, let me stick with this topic. Now at what 12
stage are Mountain View and Los Altos and is it all going to look the same? 13
14
Nick Saleh: Yes. Actually, the project we’re talking about, unfortunately, sometimes we have to 15
name the cities but it’s one contract, one project. At the end of the day, it’s supposed to look 16
similar as nobody knows which town you are in... 17
18
Chair Eberle: Okay. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Nick Saleh: ...hopefully. 1
2
Chair Eberle: And now there are several RV dwellers and vehicle dwellers on El Camino, and I 3
see what the proposal is. Have you heard back from that part of the community, what’s the 4
feedback you’re getting, and is Caltrans working on other places for them to go? 5
6
Nick Saleh: Actually, this, the parking, on-street parking in general is going to – we’re looking at 7
two different stages sort of because it’s an active construction zone. If tomorrow construction 8
they’re going to go dig and repair a sidewalk, they need to have space to do construction. We 9
do have a monthly meeting with all the stakeholders, that includes City of Palo Alto, Mountain 10
View, the County, Los Altos, and provide three weeks’ schedule ahead of schedule for upcoming 11
construction. And Caltrans will post the signs to say no-parking zone within two weeks ahead of 12
the time and in addition to the communication with the Cities. Now regarding the permanent 13
situation is our Caltrans liaison for such a thing would be in contact with the City of Palo Alto 14
and the County, and I believe they are working or at least start working on some kind of plan. 15
As I said, Caltrans we don’t own an inch after El Camino, so it has to be a regional, it has to be a 16
local effort to accommodate for the next step. 17
18
Chair Eberle: Okay. You are relying on the Cities and I guess the Counties to work to [inaudible 19
130:50]. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Nick Saleh: We are talking to the City and the County, and we start the conversation a little bit 2
ahead, yes. 3
4
Chair Eberle: [I’m finished for now 130:58]. 5
6
Assistant to the City Manager Melissa McDonough: Commissioner, Melissa McDonough, 7
Assistant to the City Manager. I can provide you a little more information on that. When we 8
learned of the three-step plan notification to the County, continuum of care, which the 9
continuum of care is sort of a shorthand for the folks that help out to get people who are 10
unhoused into housing and services, that that was a two-week notice and then 72-hour notice, 11
and then CHP, we reached out to the County ourselves. We also reached back out to Caltrans. 12
We’ve met with a structured community group that meets once a month. Some people on your 13
Commission and some people in this room have attended that meeting to try to bring together 14
resources to come up with a collective impact answer to this. We are also meeting internally to 15
see if there’s any resources the State can bring to bear to, at minimum, improve the 16
notification, try and get more information to people sooner, and see if we can find a place for 17
people to, if people are displaced, for them to relocate to. One other thing I’d like to mention, I 18
believe on Zoom this evening there is the Executive Director of Karat School foundation, 19
Evelyne and she has sort of a direct connection with portions of our neighbors that live in 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
vehicles on El Camino. I’m not sure if she’s going to be speaking tonight but I did see her on 1
Zoom. 2
3
Chair Eberle: Thank you. I think those are all my questions for now. 4
5
Chair Summa: Okay. All right. And forgive me again, I can’t always tell whose lights on because 6
of our generous number of commissioners tonight. It’s either Akin or Stimmler. 7
8
Commissioner Akin: [Inaudible 133:00]. 9
10
Chair Summa: And then Stimmler, I have you on later also. Then the order would be Akin, Lu, 11
and then Stimmler. 12
13
Commissioner Akin: Thank you, Chair. I have what should be a fairly straightforward question 14
but I find that the more I think of it it’s not, and that’s the high percentage of accidents that are 15
a result of travel against the flow of traffic. 16
17
Female: Excuse me, Commissioner. Can you speak a little bit closer into – yeah. Thank you. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Akin: I have a question about the high percentage of accidents that have to do 1
with travel against the flow of traffic. Is this – I’ll pose the question and then get an answer at 2
the end. Is this extended travel in a vehicular lane against the flow of traffic? Is this travel on a 3
sidewalk that happens to be adjacent to a flow of traffic in the opposite direction? Is this the 4
initiation or completion of a turning movement that causes you to be traveling against the flow 5
of traffic briefly, or any of a number of other possibilities? And the reason I ask is to try and get 6
a sense of how much improvement we could expect to have from a bike lane depending on the 7
cause of this type of accident. Or are we simply going to end up with two-way bike lanes 8
because anyone who is willing to travel against the flow of vehicular traffic would almost 9
certainly be willing to go against the flow of bike traffic? Can you break down the nature of 10
those accidents a little more carefully? 11
12
Nick Saleh: Hey, Rick? I hope... 13
14
Commissioner Akin: Thank you. 15
16
Nick Saleh: ...you copied this as it was [inaudible 134:46] question. I hope you copied the whole 17
options. Have you? 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Rick Yeung: Yeah. I heard it. Primarily, there are two types, either bicyclists are riding on the 1
roadway itself going against the flow of traffic or they may be riding on sidewalk but going 2
against the flow of traffic. Both of them, the primary issue we’re concerned about is it makes it 3
really difficult for someone in a vehicle to expect the sudden entry into their immediate 4
surrounding. And I think the bike lane that we’re proposing, this is going to encourage more 5
people riding with the flow, which makes more orderly traffic movement and hopefully will 6
lessen some of these surprises and confusion and make it safer. 7
8
Commissioner Akin: All right. Thank you. I’ll probably have a follow-up in the next session on 9
that. 10
11
Nick Saleh: Okay. Can I just add one thing to Rick also? It’s great to have a facility. And I think 12
what we’re proposing is to enhance safety, not to eliminate – I mean I hope that will take care 13
of all the issues but this is step one towards bigger things. And if there is maybe additional 14
education in Phase 2 of the bike lane or additional improvement, that will actually – hopefully 15
that will continue enhancing the safety. 16
17
Chair Summa: Okay. Commissioner Lu? 18
19
Commissioner Lu: Thank you. I have a few quick clarifying questions. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Female: Who’s next? 2
3
Female: Thanks [inaudible 136:35]. 4
5
Commissioner Lu: Personally, I just want to be able to put the public comment we hear in 6
perspective. What kind of outreach have we done with residents in RVs or small businesses in 7
advance of this meeting or what will we do in advance of the City Council meeting in a few 8
weeks? And this is both for City staff and/or Caltrans. 9
10
Nick Saleh: As far as Caltrans, we already initiated the moment the project was awarded and 11
approved to go to construction. We know it’s going, we start the conversation with the City. 12
And we talk about only the project was approved in November of ’24 [sic], so it wasn’t that long 13
ago the conversation started and will continue and as to see it fits jointly with the City. 14
15
Commissioner Lu: Oh. Yeah. Sorry. To clarify, I mean have we reached out to small businesses 16
specifically or residents in RVs specifically before this meeting or before the City Council 17
meeting so that they can submit email comments or attend these meetings? I just want that 18
context both so I can encourage more [inaudible 137:45]... 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Nick Saleh: Sure. I... 1
2
Commissioner Lu: ...on it and to... 3
4
Nick Saleh: Go ahead. 5
6
Commissioner Lu: ...just contextualize. Yeah. 7
8
Nick Saleh: Sure. 9
10
Melissa McDonough: Thank you, Commissioner. This is Melissa McDonough, Assistant to the 11
City Manager. In our early conversations with Caltrans, we asked them to and they assured us 12
they were handing out leaflets to like leafletting each business along El Camino as their workers 13
went down throughout the route. But this being Palo Alto and we believe in making sure 14
everyone is aware of what is going on, we reached out to two different trusted sources in the 15
community. A lot of the folks living in vehicles on El Camino are a vulnerable population and 16
may not answer the door if you knock on it or may not answer the door speaking English. We 17
do have two nonprofit organizations that do not have a contract with the City or the County but 18
offered to, in their interactions with these community members, let them know what is being 19
proposed and to let them know about these opportunities to come out and learn more and 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
share what they know. On top of that, I am working with our Economic Development Director 1
to try and get a handle on what small businesses we think may be most impacted. We also 2
reached out to the Chamber to let them know about this work. 3
4
Commissioner Lu: Thank you. I realize it may still be difficult to get public comment from some 5
folks but I really appreciate the outreach and that’s useful context. I’ll try to squeeze in two 6
quick clarification questions. We’ve gotten a couple of comments about the percent of 7
accidents that consisted of people actually riding on El Camino versus people crossing El 8
Camino at an intersection and being broadsided while crossing. The point about wrong-way 9
riders on sidewalks and roads is useful but is there any other context or data you can share 10
about the percent of accidents that consisted of people riding on El Camino versus crossing? 11
12
Nick Saleh: Rick, do you have? 13
14
Rick Yeung: Yeah, I can probably say something about that. I would say roughly two-thirds of 15
those crashes happen at intersection and half of them were people crossing or riding on El 16
Camino and they’re crossing the side street and then the other half they’re riding from the side 17
street and crossing El Camino, so it’s a mixture of both. It’s not just one type versus the other. 18
We’ve seen both types. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Lu: Thank you. That’s really useful and helps clarify some comments that I’ve 1
seen that say that these won’t be useful because the broadside incidents are happening from 2
people crossing El Camino, not people riding on El Camino. I think that’s useful context for us. 3
And finally, one very specific question, I sent several questions about the specific design and 4
safety features in a doc/email previously. I just want to confirm one point there that was a little 5
bit ambiguous. In one of my questions, I highlighted how a point, a section of Sheridan converts 6
from a bike lane to sharrows and then a bike lane again in a span of maybe a few dozen feet. 7
And in the reply I got on that question, it seemed kind of ambiguous whether you were saying 8
that sharrows will continue to be there or whether a Class II bike lane will actually be applied 9
there. Can you clarify that? 10
11
Nick Saleh: Hey, Sergio? 12
13
Sergio Ruiz: Sure. Yeah. Our preference by far is to make sure that we can provide continuity in 14
the bike lanes that we propose. And there are a couple of sections, particularly in a couple of 15
major intersections with multiple turn lanes where that real estate is very constrained, and the 16
draft plans that we’ve shared do include sharrows at a couple of those approaches. We’re still 17
looking into what other potential options there might be to provide that continuity and try to 18
avoid that situation where at all possible because we recognize that’s definitely not an ideal 19
situation and it would greatly improve the project if we do provide that continuity. We 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
definitely recognize that and we’re still kind of working internally to see how that can be 1
addressed. 2
3
Commissioner Lu: Okay. Got it. I thought I saw in the reply that the reply from Caltrans said that 4
in the context of the Sheridan sharrow that all lane widths will be reduced to 11 feet and a Class 5
II bike lane will be placed there. And I’m guessing that that is not actually in reference to 6
Sheridan but kind of referencing more generally that you’ll put Class II bike lanes where you can 7
in. Okay. 8
9
Sergio Ruiz: Yeah. I believe that is the case. Yeah. 10
11
Commissioner Lu: Okay. Thank you. 12
13
Chair Summa: Okay. Commissioner Stimmler followed by Commissioner Hechtman, and then I 14
have another light down at that end and it’s Commissioner Smith again. Okay. 15
16
Commissioner Stimmler: All right. Thank you all. Many of my questions have already been 17
answered, so thank you to the other commissioners for asking those. Page 60 it shows that 42 18
percent of the accidents were due to other violations. That’s the majority of accidents. We 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
don’t know what is causing them or what kind of violations they involved? Is there any more 1
information than that? 2
3
Nick Saleh: Rick, can you [inaudible 143:51]? Yeah. 4
5
Rick Yeung: Yeah, certainly. Those are the actual coding that came from the Traffic Collision 6
Report and I think I tried to put a little more context to that when I break them down into 7
different crash pattern. For example, some of them could be bicyclists riding against the flow of 8
traffic and it doesn’t really show up as that specific item. Sometimes they just fall under other 9
violation. 10
11
Commissioner Stimmler: Yeah. Okay. Thanks. And then the other question was around this 12
might have to do with Commissioner Lu’s question as well about driveways. You had talked a 13
number of particular challenges on El Camino. I think we’ve talked about the turn lanes, the 14
speed, the bus stops but we haven’t gotten much detail about what you’re doing around the 15
driveways. Is that where the channelized lane will then become a Category II lane? 16
17
Nick Saleh: I think this is what we committed to go back and evaluate. We heard – because due 18
to the frequency of the driveways into the El Camino, so we’re going to go ahead and evaluate. 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
And we heard from previous sessions that there’s a certain concern, so we’ll be reevaluating 1
what we do and then hopefully we could improve. Sergio, anything you want to add to that? 2
3
Sergio Ruiz: Yeah. In terms of the best practice for when we have these vertical separators is at 4
major intersection approaches we would want to have a Class II bike lane at those approaches 5
because there would be a lot of motorists turning right and you don’t want to have a situation 6
with right-hook collisions potentially. With driveways that are generally low volume, you can 7
keep that vertical separation up to the driveway if you’re not expecting a lot of right turns. But 8
we did hear a lot of feedback, like Nick was mentioning, particularly from at least one or two 9
members from the Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Committee from Palo Alto, concerns about 10
that, those driveway treatments, so we are revisiting that and just looking to see if there’s any 11
way we can refine that. 12
13
Commissioner Stimmler: And this is probably a really dumb question but I’m going to ask it. If a 14
business desperately needs parking in front of it, which some businesses do, some businesses 15
involve carrying large bags of goods or maybe it’s a doctor’s office, what are – are there any 16
options that those businesses could propose or that could be done for those businesses. What 17
if anything, where if anywhere, is there wiggle room for those businesses in this situation? 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Nick Saleh: We have not heard any specific requests. But I, on the top of my head, I mean, that 1
can be treated as a loading zone and whatever the City could permit through their local zoning. 2
I mean, that’s another option that Caltrans have delegated to the City. I’m not pushing the 3
solution to the City. I hope nobody misunderstood what I said. But it has to be joint with 4
reevaluating and local zoning. 5
6
Commissioner Stimmler: Great. Thank you. 7
8
Chair Summa: Commissioner Kraus? 9
10
Vice-Chair Kraus: Hi. I have a couple of questions for you. Thank you for the answers on the RV 11
dwellers, which continue to keep me up at night. What about the Safe School routes? What is 12
the cost going to be to upgrade those? Have we done the calculations around them? The one 13
I’m most familiar with is El Camino Way and the tens of bikes that just go through on the 14
Charleston exit. What have we done in that area so that we don’t demolish what we’ve 15
achieved? 16
17
Nick Saleh: My understanding of the basic Safe to School routes, actually it goes from school to 18
the other end somewhere else and I think El Camino is part of it. Caltrans would work with the 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
City if there is any designated route that we could improve safety but we need to know which 1
route. I don’t think... 2
3
Commissioner Stimmler: They cross El Camino on the way to Gunn in particular. 4
5
D4 Chief Safety Engineer Aung Maung: Nick, I can add to that. 6
7
Nick Saleh: Sure, please. 8
9
Aung Maung: The Safe Route to School program is more geared towards the local. When the 10
Safe Route to School crosses a state facility, we try to work with a local partner and facilitate 11
with a high-visibility crosswalk, pedestrian hybrid beacon, and that type of strategy. That Safe 12
Route to School, we have City of Palo Alto we are planning to apply for that program grant. 13
State will be more than happy to provide support and work with the City for the particular 14
route that intersects with El Camino Real. 15
16
Vice-Chair Kraus: I have a list from the community of 12 intersections and I’m happy to make 17
them available to you. They want to understand how it will change, what the cost is associated 18
with that, and what the overall impact will be. And I’m happy to share but I think you’ve 19
probably seen them from this community member. Moving on, what about disability handicap 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
parking? Have we done any thinking of the impact of these plans on people that can’t walk very 1
far, that need to be able to get out of their cars and not have a curb that’s suddenly larger? 2
Have we done our homework with the disability community? 3
4
Nick Saleh: We would continue working with the City. I mean it – we’ll continue working with 5
the City on this. We haven’t – it hasn’t been identified yet as part of the process but I think we’ll 6
work with the City on options. 7
8
Vice-Chair Kraus: There are doctors’ offices on El Camino. 9
10
Nick Saleh: I understand. 11
12
Vice-Chair Kraus: There are services for the disabled. Please look into this. I’ve gotten calls with 13
that. What’s going to happen? How can I get to my doctor’s office? What do I have to do? It is a 14
huge concern. 15
16
Nick Saleh: Sure. 17
18
Vice-Chair Kraus: We want everybody to bike but we want people to be able to walk safely and 19
get into the facilities. I had other questions about surveying the small businesses that 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Lu raised as well. I know you’ve done leaflets but do people really understand 1
the impact of this? Have you gotten feedback? 2
3
Nick Saleh: This is our third engagement session and open to public. The first one it was I think 4
we attracted more than 75 people. And I understand, I believe that the message has been 5
communicated across section of all El Camino. And I trust that the business community we have 6
reached in one way or other as far as the about what’s going on and that was in partnership 7
with the City I have to admit. And again, we’ll continue, we look forward to working with the 8
City to mitigate whatever we can help. I understand that and I’m fully on board with what you 9
say. And I understand the constraint too. It’s just you cannot provide one thing and leave it just 10
– but we’ll be happy to work with the City on a daily basis and on all levels. 11
12
Vice-Chair Kraus: Thank you. 13
14
Chair Summa: Thank you, Commissioner Kraus. Now, we have Commissioner Smith and then 15
Commissioner Templeton. 16
17
Commissioner Smith: The one thing that I think is missing from tonight’s discussion is has 18
Caltrans done this project in any other municipality. What’s been the impact? What is the 19
current thinking and methodology and City and Civil planning around this? Because I often find 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
sometimes we suffer from terminal uniqueness in Palo Alto. We always want to reinvent the 1
wheel. And I would just love to hear is there, and I’m sure you have the whole team online, like 2
is there increase in business because of walkability and bike travel or is there decrease given all 3
of the methodology out there? Is there increased safety? Is there increased community 4
activity? Is there walking? What is the best thinking in civil engineering right now around bike 5
paths? And even as you talk about things like doctor’s office, I’m just trying to understand what 6
is the best methodology. Because you guys came up with this plan and probably done it, I think 7
it was 2012 when the initial report came out from the State to drive this forward, so I’d love to 8
hear what you guys are thinking. What is the best methodology and experience at this point? 9
10
Nick Saleh: To implement the bike lane? Just to understand your question. 11
12
Commissioner Smith: Implementation and impact. 13
14
Nick Saleh: [Inaudible 154:06]. 15
16
Sergio Ruiz: I can speak to that. 17
18
Nick Saleh: Go ahead. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Sergio Ruiz: Sorry. I’ll just start with there’s been an evolution especially within the California 1
Department of Transportation in terms of how we look at accommodating people walking, 2
biking, driving, whatever mode. I think over the last decade, it’s gone from providing any kind of 3
lane dedicated for bicyclists, like we’re looking at what we now refer to as Class II bike lanes. 4
We have those now in place in the city of Gilroy, up in Sonoma County. There are a few places 5
where it’s actually been implemented already throughout our – the Bay Area District that I 6
work in. Not enough examples to do a full-blown study of what’s the impact to businesses’ 7
safety but there have been some national studies that show bike lanes do increase safety. They 8
do actually support businesses. But it’s hard. It’s always apples to oranges. Every community is 9
different. Every project is different. 10
11
And then the evolution has kind of shifted toward really focusing on low-stress facilities. Adding 12
a bike lane alone really doesn’t attract the bicycle ridership that we want to see to support our 13
goals. We really have to have some kind of separation from traffic, especially on roadways like 14
El Camino. That’s kind of the focus or the priority that we have now. And we have a lot of 15
projects that are in development that are kind of shifting toward that kind of, those kinds of 16
facilities but, to be honest, a lot of them have not been built yet just because developing 17
projects takes a long time within Caltrans. But we do have a lot of them that are kind of on the 18
way. Hopefully that partially addresses your questions but I know it’s kind of a – there’s still a 19
lot we’re looking to do on that regard. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Nick Saleh: Can I just add to Sergio? In every project Caltrans implement as an owner of the 2
right-of-way, we’ve been asked to implement and I think we’ve been approached by all locals to 3
implement the Complete Street and the bike lane. And this is the opportunity. So we always in 4
every project I think since I think Sergio mentioned the 152 Downtown Gilroy until now, it’s like 5
15, 10, 15 years, in every project actually we ask the question, we reach out to the community 6
in every single project. This is not the last one and we kind of continue. We are going to through 7
the corridor whenever there’s an opportunity, I think there’s could be funding opportunity or 8
actually the timing opportunity or, in this case, the safety opportunity. Thanks. 9
10
Commissioner Smith: Thank you. 11
12
Chair Summa: Okay. Commissioner Templeton? 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. I’ll be quick. I realize we’re running out of time. I just 15
want to thank Commissioner Smith and Commissioner Kraus for their questions. I would add 16
that Mountain View and Los Altos have been working on this plan in detail for years with 17
Caltrans and it was not something that our City pursued until Caltrans said we’re doing it for 18
everybody else, can we do it for you too. And I think that’s a really important way to look at 19
this, as an opportunity for us to take a benefit of the study that our neighbors and colleagues 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
have implemented and worked on. And if we can have those facilities too, I think that’s what 1
you’re offering, right, the same kind of – so then the question that Commissioner Kraus asked 2
got me thinking as well. I know this sounds like a very basic question but we’re trying to cover 3
the concerns. When we have change in Palo Alto, sometimes we have concerns, so we’re trying 4
to address those and I’m just going to be really explicit. Do you believe that the facilities that 5
you’re planning to implement will be compliant with ADA laws? 6
7
Nick Saleh: Well, you’re talking about the bike lane or that we are... 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: That people will be able to access their services... 10
11
Nick Saleh: Okay. 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: ...some way or another that’s compliant with the law. 14
15
Nick Saleh: Yeah. And I think one of the scope of the work is the upgrade of the ADA. And when 16
I say ADA is... 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Nick Saleh: ...the ramps onto the signals and the crosswalk and the side slope of the sidewalks, 1
and all of that comes with it. Yes, definitely we are. We’ll be in compliance with ADA. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. 4
5
Nick Saleh: Because that’s the purpose. 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: Well, it’s important for our community to hear it... 8
9
Nick Saleh: This is... 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: ...explicitly, so we ask these questions for those reasons. 12
13
Nick Saleh: No. Thank you. No. I want to assure you. 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. 16
17
Nick Saleh: And I think that’s our goal too. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. And I realize that we may not get through back another 1
chance after public comment, so I would just say that I have – I live right off of El Camino. I use 2
it every day. I cross it on the bike, on foot, with a car. I’ve seen collisions. I’ve seen people with 3
near-misses. I recognize that there’s a safety issue and it means a lot to me that we have all of 4
our different government agencies at every level, City, State, County, working on making it 5
safer, so thank you. 6
7
Chair Summa: Okay. Chair Eberle? 8
9
Chair Eberle: Thank you. Quick question, I was just going through the slides again and one of 10
them was particularly interesting to me, which is Slide Number 6, which is Packet Page 49. And 11
it shows bike lanes in Albany that are very different from what you’re implementing here but 12
look very safe to me. Is this something you considered for El Camino? 13
14
Nick Saleh: [Inaudible 159:59]. 15
16
Chair Eberle: Yes? And why? 17
18
Nick Saleh: Do you mind show – the Slide Number 6? 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Eberle: It’s, yes, I believe it’s Director’s Policy 37 Complete Streets. 1
2
Nick Saleh: Oh. 3
4
Chair Eberle: It’s just the photo that you chose it’s from San Pablo Avenue in Albany and it 5
shows a totally separate bike lane, two-way bike lane. 6
7
Nick Saleh: I wouldn’t focus too much on the picture. 8
9
Chair Eberle: But it’s interesting to me. 10
11
Nick Saleh: Sergio, do you recall any detail... 12
13
Sergio Ruiz: Yeah. 14
15
Nick Saleh: ...on the picture? 16
17
Sergio Ruiz: Yeah. I can speak to that just briefly. This image is showing a short two-way cycle 18
track on San Pablo Avenue within the city of Albany and this was developed through a local 19
development project. The bikeway itself runs the parcels of that development and it’s really 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
intended to connect two bike boulevards or bike facilities that are perpendicular to the highway 1
and so it’s just a short jog. And it was funded through the local developer and not through our 2
State Highway Operation and Protection Program, which is the program that we utilize to fund 3
paving projects, so different program. But we do like to show this image because, you’re right, 4
it does illustrate a low-stress bike facility showing the two-way bikeway there. 5
6
Nick Saleh: Oh. I see. 7
8
Chair Eberle: And is this something that could not be implemented here? 9
10
Sergio Ruiz: Not as part of the repaving project since our project primarily focuses from curb to 11
curb as well as ADA improvements. 12
13
Nick Saleh: Yeah. And it could be part of this picture could be majority is in the City right-of-14
view too, since Sergio said they paid for it. 15
16
Chair Eberle: Okay. Thank you. 17
18
Chair Summa: Okay. I am not seeing any other lights and we – I wanted to remind everyone 19
that the HRC will not have a quorum any longer, so cannot... 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Smith: We have [inaudible 161:57]. 2
3
Chair Summa: Are you going to have a quorum past 8:00? 4
5
Commissioner Smith: Yes. 6
7
Chair Summa: Oh. Okay. 8
9
Female: Oh. 10
11
Chair Summa: New news. Okay. All right. Regardless of that, we are going to go to the public. 12
13
Commissioner Smith: One last question. 14
15
Chair Summa: Oh. Okay. One last question. 16
17
Commissioner Smith: Does Caltrans have any other funding buckets to use on the street grading 18
at the same time? Because it’s – and I’m not a civil engineer but it sounds like you’re taking 19
advantage of a budget that does just repaving the street and we’re going to put in some bike 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
lanes. But if it’s a priority for the State to do bike lanes, are there any of the grants, funding 1
channels anywhere else that funds can be found to do more like the work that Commissioner 2
Eberle highlighted in Albany? I’m just asking. 3
4
Nick Saleh: Yeah. I know. I think I just I’m trying to – there’s also – it has nothing with civil 5
engineering. It’s a banker’s question on the money. In the case of this project, particular 6
project, Palo Alto, sorry, Mountain View they did – actually, they have their own money 7
contributed to the project to accommodate the improvement. For this project, we get a funding 8
opportunity to from the federal actually to enhance safety. That’s specific to that. Caltrans, as 9
part of Complete Street component, we will do our best to accommodate the bike lane. Now 10
Sergio, do you know if we have separate funding if we‘re going to do only bike lanes? And I 11
believe there is some somewhere but very limited. 12
13
Sergio Ruiz: Yeah. I mean, there are state and federal funding programs that could be used to 14
provide more robust bike facility improvements but we’re talking about in terms of cost unit 15
order of magnitude of 10 times or greater in terms of costs. And we really do rely on 16
partnerships with local and county agencies to prioritize those investments. I think a good 17
example is VTA is looking at developing the Central Bikeway, which would include very robust 18
bike facilities on a separate portion of El Camino within the city of Santa Clara through city of 19
San Jose. And so we’d be working with them to try to pursue those, that funding. Those 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
projects tend to take many more years to just to try to fund, basically, and develop. And so 1
we’ll continue looking for those opportunities all along El Camino, not just within Santa Clara 2
but not just within the city of Santa Clara for – with VTA but with all the other jurisdictions 3
because we do see kind of the – definitely seen the benefits of really continuing to make 4
improvements beyond just the scope of this paving project. 5
6
Nick Saleh: I just I want to also add too. Since he mentioned VTA, I believe actually VTA 7
Measure B has a portion of the measure designated for bike lane improvement for the local 8
agencies. And we’ll work with the City, with anybody to, through our local assistant to – for me 9
with any grant opportunity. 10
11
Chair Summa: Okay. I am not seeing any other lights now, so I’m going to go ahead and ask Ms. 12
Dao. It looks like we have seven speakers from the public now and or maybe we got eight now. 13
14
Nick Saleh: Should I make room here so they can... 15
16
Chair Summa: Oh. I’m sorry. Yes, please. 17
18
Nick Saleh: ...[inaudible 165:38] speak here? Okay. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Summa: Thank you so much. 1
2
Matt Bryant: Thank you. 3
4
Chair Summa: Okay. We’ll take comments from the public now and you will have each three 5
minutes. 6
7
Veronica Dao: Okay. First... 8
9
Chair Summa: But I did want to bring something up before we start, which is that will conclude 10
the time that HRC was planning to be here. I understand they have a quorum, so it’s – we’re 11
going to have to decide, both Commissions, if we want to stay long past 8 or, you have a 12
quorum so you can, or we have other things on our agenda. We’ll have to kind of decide what 13
we want to do. Why don’t we go ahead and call the public speakers, please. 14
15
Veronica Dao: Yes. First is Rosemary Wick Stevens. 16
17
Public Comments 18
Rosemary Wick Stevens: Hi. Can you hear me? Oops. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Male: [Inaudible 166:40]. 1
2
Rosemary Wick Stevens: Hello? Can you hear me? 3
4
Male: Yes. 5
6
Rosemary Wick Stevens: Okay. For the past 30 years, I’ve peacefully pedaled my three-speed 7
bike with its wicker basket through the beautiful tree-lined streets of Palo Alto. Over the years, 8
I’ve covered approximately a hundred thousand miles. Last August, on my way to the farmers 9
market I crossed University Avenue and had the right-of-way and I came to the center of the 10
intersection and a distracted driver turned and drove his black SUV into me and pushed me and 11
my bicycle up University. I wondered if I was taking my last breath. My bike tipped and I fell 12
onto University Avenue. Ouch. It’s hard. I always wondered if I ever got into a serious incident 13
with riding my bike would anyone notice. Would anyone help me? Would anyone really care? 14
On that day, I found out. While this bike-SUV collision was happening, another driver was 15
waiting in the cross traffic and witnessed this horrific event. He stopped what he was doing and 16
he helped me and soon others helped me as well. Thank goodness for these attentive and 17
thoughtful people. For them, I’m very grateful. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
While my life was interrupted on that day, it was not ended; however, Sarah Muller and Maria 1
Elise Jabon, they were not so lucky. In two separate incidents each riding bicycles, they were 2
killed by drivers of automobiles, Sarah on Embarcadero Road at Newell in Palo Alto and Maria 3
on Foothill Expressway. The losses of these two very capable young women it’s – they’re gut-4
wrenching tragedies. We now have ghost cycle and – white cycle bike at the corner where 5
Sarah was killed by a motorist and it’s a somber reminder of her death. I biked over there to 6
pay tribute and to take a few photos and while doing so I witnessed a car running a red light. 7
Why are you still allowing cars to run red lights without consequence? Where is the 8
enforcement? 9
10
Today, you’ll consider an opportunity to propose these proposed changes on El Camino to 11
remove parking spaces and convert the space to dedicated bike lanes. This bold offer from 12
Caltrans is an excellent first step to establish bike lanes along El Camino. As I understand it, the 13
proposal is for basic lanes, which includes green road paint, signage, and a few poles. I think 14
that’s a good first step but it’s certainly not adequate. As traffic zooms by at 35 miles per hour 15
or more, a protective bike infrastructure is necessary along with driver/biker education and 16
enforcement. Please do what you can to keep us safe and biking. Biking is good for the 17
community, it’s good for the planet, and you have a choice. 18
19
Chair Summa: Thank you for your time. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Veronica Dao: Next is Carol Muller. 2
3
Carol Muller: Thank you. I’m Carol Muller, a longtime resident of Palo Alto, a driver, cyclist, 4
former bike commuter, retired now. It’s great to see bike lanes finally coming to El Camino. It’s 5
long overdue along with the paving. I don’t know if any of you have tried to ride a bike on El 6
Camino recently. It’s really bumpy, so it can only be an improvement. And I encourage all of you 7
who are involved in decision making to move forward. Take advantage of this opportunity. I 8
understand it’s not perfect. It’s short term in some ways but it’s absolutely a good step forward. 9
Cycling, as Rosemary said, makes for healthier communities and people, less pollution, fewer 10
cars on the road, less wear and tear, increased fitness, health, mental health. We have a superb 11
environment in terms of the weather, in terms of the topography, and we should be a super 12
bicycle-friendly community. 13
14
That said, in recent years, cycling has become far more dangerous principally, as you heard 15
tonight, due to worsening driver behaviors, speeding, inattention, lack of knowledge of the laws 16
and the rights of cyclists and drivers alike. I know that Caltrans has in its mission increased 17
driver education. Continuing effort with driver education was mentioned tonight. I didn’t hear 18
any plans about it. I don’t know what’s happening with that. I feel as if we need a regional, with 19
all the different jurisdictional leaders, policymakers coordinating to have a concerted effort to 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
try to turn that around. In Silicon Valley, we love that slogan: Move fast, break things. Please, 1
let’s not do that to our people. We need to slow down and be more mindful and be more 2
attentive. We need enforcement. And that’s, I guess, my main message. Thank you. 3
4
Chair Summa: Thank you. 5
6
Veronica Dao: Next is Albert Henning. 7
8
Albert Henning: Hi. Thank you. I’m a longtime bicycle commuter, bicycle rider, car driver. I first 9
started commuting on bike from Fair Oaks near 101 to the intersection of Bowers and Central in 10
1979. I’ve also done a lot of commuting from our home in the Duveneck area to out near 11
Facebook. And I’ve also done a lot of commuting all the way down to Campbell from our home 12
here in Palo Alto using both the road systems as well as a combination of Caltrain and VTA. 13
14
I would like to make a statement about what El Camino is. It’s a state highway. And in my mind, 15
the principle purpose of a state highway is transportation; it’s not parking and it’s not housing. 16
And I may sound a little insensitive on that but I also am a Palo Alto resident and I know that we 17
are already highly sensitive to the issues of displaced people and are working diligently and 18
avidly to find alternatives for RVs and similar housing situations so that people can work their 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
way through that or live that way if that’s their wish but I don’t think it’s appropriate myself 1
that El Camino be a housing location. I think we can accommodate both of those purposes. 2
3
Last comment I want to make is I’m really in favor of this design and I encourage the City of Palo 4
Alto to adopt what Caltrans is proposing because a uniformity of the corridor presented to both 5
drivers and cyclists will encourage more cyclists. We’ll actually get more human beings flowing 6
down the transportation corridor and ideally fewer cars. The whole thing will be safer. Cyclists 7
will be presented with a uniformity of transitions. Right now, if you drive right along El Camino 8
you’re dealing with parked cars, you’re dealing with driveway access. You’re dealing with a lot 9
of cars coming in and out. It’s mindboggling. If you can stick to a bike lane, then your mindset 10
becomes you have fewer decisions to make and your corpus, your body is safer. Similarly, 11
you’re changing the mindset of drivers because they become more familiar with the bike lanes 12
and it becomes normative and it changes the entire community mindset incrementally, which is 13
where, in my opinion, we need to be working toward day after day and year after year. Thank 14
you. 15
16
Chair Summa: Thank you. 17
18
Veronica Dao: Next is Scott Mace. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Scott Mace: Thank you for this opportunity to speak. As this Commission knows well, solving 1
one problem often introduces other problems. I am a lifelong lawful cyclist, former Chair of the 2
San Mateo County Bikeways Committee, life member of the Silicon Valley Bike Coalition, 3
frequent visitor and occasional cyclist in Palo Alto. I stay at The Zen Hotel and witness the 4
incredible ridership of schoolkids on Maybell Avenue. And I’m a current resident of Monterey 5
County. 6
7
This multicity bike lane on El Camino Real will be an attractive facility. Complete Streets appears 8
to be silent on the presence of driveways. In 1974, I crashed while bicycling. It was a broadside 9
crash at a driveway complex zone in Santa Clara. I ended up on the hood of a car turning left 10
into the driveway and my bike was crushed under the car’s wheels. Fortunately, I was okay. A 11
bike lane would not have helped prevent my crash but fewer driveways might have. Green 12
paint on bike lanes is not enough of a mitigation or awareness factor for motorists. The role of 13
this Planning Commission may be to follow up on regulating by regulating or eliminating 14
driveways on El Camino Real so it more closely resembles the safer grand boulevards of Europe 15
of which I have also bicycled. I am also aware of the surge of development activity on El Camino 16
Real, which could mean more and busier driveways and hence more conflict with cyclists, many 17
of whom are now buying faster e-bikes. This Planning Commission would be well served to 18
regulate and limit as many driveways as possible. Caltrans is going to defer on this question to 19
the Cities. Thank you. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Summa: Thank you. 2
3
Veronica Dao: Next is Charlie. 4
5
Charlie Weidanz: Good evening Commissioners. Charlie Weidanz, President and CEO of the Palo 6
Alto Chamber of Commerce. Thank you for taking up this very important issue tonight and 7
thanks to Caltrans and City staff for all the work that you’ve done on this presentation and for 8
your outreach. I just want to say that I know that leaflets were passed out and I know City staff 9
has done some outreach. We have not completed our outreach to the businesses yet. We still 10
aren’t completely understanding with the removal of some 600 parking spaces along El Camino 11
what will be the impact to their businesses for businesses that rely on a drop-off or a pick-up or, 12
as it was mentioned earlier, for people with disabilities or have accessibility issues that want to 13
get in and out conveniently. Again, I was here more to listen this evening but I did want to let 14
you know that. And I appreciate all of the comments that were made tonight but from the 15
business community, from the Chamber of Commerce’s perspective, we haven’t yet finished 16
our outreach and we still, as Commissioner Smith said, we don’t know what the impact is going 17
to be to the businesses. And I know there’s no businesses here yet, here tonight. And again, I 18
think it’s still that we have outreach to do with them to really understand what the impact is. 19
Again, thank you for this opportunity and thank you for addressing this issue tonight. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Summa: Thank you. 2
3
Veronica Dao: Next is Matt Bryant. 4
5
Matt Bryant: Hi. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Dr. Matt Bryant. I 6
am a cyclist, a bike commuter, and I’ve got two kids that bike to school at Gunn as well as 7
Fletcher, so I’ve experienced all of the cycling routes around Palo Alto and throughout the Bay 8
Area. I’ve had many opportunities to ride on El Camino. And I just want to point out some key 9
areas that I know that my children do in fact cross El Camino on the Safe Routes to School. They 10
also attend soccer matches near Stanford at the soccer fields there as well as the ones on Page 11
Mill and El Camino and there’s really not great infrastructure to get bicycles in and out of there 12
because there’s no bike lanes that go there directly, so oftentimes kids are riding on the 13
sidewalks or across the crosswalks, which is okay, but also parents are driving them instead, so 14
then you’ve got long lines of car traffic going in and out of those locations. 15
16
I just want to say also that cycling is in fact a very healthy thing for the community. It’s great for 17
mental health for, again, all of our students out there. It’s a good way to just sort of put 18
everything else out of your mind and just think about the road and the ride. Public health is a 19
big issue we know today. As I do work in healthcare, the number one reason for liver transplant 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
is fatty liver disease as a result of steatohepatitis. Diet and exercise is the best way to take care 1
of that. And the more opportunities we have to allow people to get out there to walk, to cycle, 2
to just enjoy the community, the better. 3
4
I just want to make another point with regards to bicycling when we think about handicap and 5
parking. I did have to take my large dog all the way down El Camino to past Los Altos today and 6
I parked on El Camino. As far as I can tell, there’s no handicap parking anywhere on El Camino. 7
You can’t even open a door on El Camino as I tried to get out of my car today and then 8
subsequently get my dog out of the car it was very difficult. I think having this type of bicycling 9
is good. And many of the businesses also do have their own parking lots along El Camino. 10
11
And one last thing about the housing, the infrastructure of housing that’s been being put in 12
along El Camino today, there’s not enough parking for the apartments that you’re building. And 13
so many times, like there’s a place on El Camino Real and Page Mill, it doesn’t have enough 14
parking. Yet these people are supposed to ride out of their home and there’s no way for them 15
to ride except right out onto El Camino Real or onto Oregon Expressway/Page Mill, so it really 16
doesn’t make sense. Having a bike lane is the right thing to do and I support bike lanes in Palo 17
Alto. Thank you. 18
19
Chair Summa: Thank you. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Veronica Dao: Okay. Next on Zoom I know we have one group speaker from Ken Kershner. I 2
have Natalie in the Chambers but if you can also let us know the three other people in your 3
group. 4
5
Ken Kershner: Hi. Can you hear me okay? 6
7
Veronica Dao: Yes. 8
9
Ken Kershner: I have several other people: Frank Viggiano, Katherine Dumont, Patrick Franks, 10
April Webster. 11
12
Chair Summa: Are they all on Zoom or in the room physically? 13
14
Ken Kershner: I believe we have at least five of them on Zoom. 15
16
Veronica Dao: Yes. 17
18
Chair Summa: Okay. Thank you. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Veronica Dao: And he has a short presentation. 1
2
Chair Summa: Go ahead, please. 3
4
Ken Kershner: Yeah. Thank you. My name is Ken Kershner. I’m a advocate and volunteer with 5
the Silicon Valley Bike Coalition. I’d like to share with you some canvassing that Katherine 6
Dumont and I have conducted over the last two months specifically to understand what 7
businesses’ concerns were along El Camino. Next slide. 8
9
We created a database of the Palo Alto ECR businesses. This is just an image of that database. I 10
actually have a link to the live database. It covers hundreds of businesses. And we’re trying to 11
capture not only the addresses, the number of spaces on El Camino in front of that business but 12
also the number of parking spaces off of El Camino available to that business. And then where it 13
was possible, we conducted a friendly conversation with the staff or the owner of those 14
businesses just trying to understand what their concerns were and generate the ability to 15
contact them in the future. Next slide. 16
17
Some of the results of that is we focused immediately on the southern part of El Camino and 18
then worked our way northward. To date and we’re not completely done with this exercise, we 19
found that there are 161 parking spaces in front of those businesses and over 1300 off El 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Camino, so roughly a 9:1 ratio and that does not include the side streets that were available 1
near many of the businesses. And so far, there are four businesses without much ECR parking; I 2
named them there. There are more in the Evergreen Park area, specifically around the 3
residential parking permit program with the dentist and the orthodontist there. And many of 4
those businesses have the parking for bicycles available because many of their clients arrive by 5
bicycle there. You’ll note in our database we actually have seen many shared spaces where 6
two, three, four businesses will share parking space of 8 to 10 spaces off of El Camino and that 7
seems like a super-efficient way to go about it. 8
9
While we were out doing our canvassing conversations, we were partnered with the TMA 10
program and we’re distributing the Transit Pass postcards and we’ve been able to generate a 11
few applications to the businesses there. 12
13
Could you click on the “here” link? Okay. This is a link to the live Google Sheet that actually lists 14
that. If you scroll down, you can see that there’s actually hundreds of them. The pink blocks are 15
where there’s shared spaces between three or four businesses and I used the spreadsheet 16
math to create that 9:1 ratio. 17
18
If you could go back and then there are some videos because we were just out and wanted to 19
share some of what the actual behavior was. Could you click on the “video” link? Okay. Maybe 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
scroll up and these will – this is some of the parking infrastructure for bikes around the dentist 1
in Evergreen Park. I think if you can just scroll up and keep going. This is some of the bike traffic 2
at Serra and Park Avenue. Just keep scrolling up. More bike parking infrastructure around the 3
dentist and the orthodontist. 4
5
Keep going. This is a woman who came upon me and was riding on the sidewalk behind me. 6
You can click on that link. She actually rang her bell and asked me politely to get out of the way. 7
You see she’s riding the wrong way on a very narrow sidewalk because that’s the safest place 8
for her to ride. 9
10
Okay. Go on. Let’s save this guy for last if we have time. He’s quite an interesting biker down in 11
the Ernie’s Liquor area and has a very strong opinion about El Camino. This is another biker 12
riding the wrong way on El Camino. Keep going down. Some of the RV parking around 13
McDonald’s. More bike parking in central Palo. That bike is parked inside Ernie’s Liquor. Keep 14
going, keep going, and one more, one more. These are people walking their bikes in front of 15
Barron Park Market. You can sort of see the access that they’re using. We did get many 16
business owners concerned. 17
18
This is an interesting video. Please play that one. This is a scooter rider skirting the bike lane 19
going at a relatively high speed in the lane of traffic in the door zone. Go on, go on. This is 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
another scooter rider riding on the sidewalk near Hotel Nest. You sort of see them looking both 1
ways, crossing the intersection, and then going with the flow of traffic up on the sidewalk. And I 2
think that’s about it, if you could go back, okay, next slide. 3
4
Some of the summary statements, the businesses really appreciated being made aware of 5
Caltrans plans and they were basically unaware of it prior to our conversations. Their top 6
concern was the high speed of car and truck traffic and they viewed the narrower lane designs 7
as a potential plus if it slowed traffic down. Many of them noted that car and trucks block 8
sightlines for customers and employees entering and exiting El Camino. And they noted that 9
there are many near misses, some of them daily, as bicyclists use the sidewalk riding in the 10
wrong direction, surprising drivers that fail to look to the right. And bicyclists on sidewalks also 11
cause near misses when pedestrians are exiting a doorway. Many of the businesses noted that 12
their employees park on El Camino and they reserve their off El Camino parking for customers 13
and they really appreciated the time to plan alternative parking. And then we’ve handed out 14
lots of postcards. Next slide. 15
16
This is a video of one of the wrong-way bikers just as an example. I don’t know if you can click 17
that link in there. This is down in front of Hotel Cabaña. We noticed that there were several 18
bikers riding e-bikes, so that is going to be a future concern as bike speeds generally speed up. 19
Okay. If you have any questions, I’m happy to take them or I wanted to thank the Commission 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
for holding this study session and I appreciate the conversations we’ve had with the 1
community. Thank you. 2
3
Chair Summa: Thank you. 4
5
Veronica Dao: Okay. Next is Tim. 6
7
Tim Oey: Thank you. Honorable Commissioners, my name is Tim Oey and I bike to Palo Alto 8
regularly to teach people how to bike as well as to visit friends, attend events, shop, and eat. 9
Palo Alto has done a great job creating some excellent bicycling infrastructure, kudos and thank 10
you. My friend Ellen Fletcher got you all going down a great bike boulevard as it were; however, 11
Palo Alto still has some gaps to fix. I do bike along El Camino to get to places. Bike lanes and 12
narrowing car lanes on El Camino to reduce speed in Palo Alto are huge steps forward in making 13
El Camino safer both for people traveling along El Camino as well as people crossing El Camino. 14
Climate change, pollution, and deaths from traffic collision are all serious problems that could 15
be made better by encouraging more people to bike and walk everywhere, and making driving 16
a bit less convenient. Cars frequently kill others, bikes not so much. We need a fully built-out 17
network of safe bicycling routes to all destinations. Palo Alto is a leader in safe bicycling. Please 18
keep it up and make El Camino Real a Complete Street and safer for everyone. It would be a 19
tragedy if all the other cities get safe bike facilities along El Camino but Palo Alto ends up as a 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
large gap in this key route in our network. Don’t miss out on this once in every 20-year chance 1
to improve safety. Thank you. 2
3
Chair Summa: Thank you. And I just want to remind everyone that if you gave your time for the 4
group, you cannot speak again. Next speaker, please. 5
6
Veronica Dao: Next is Bruce Arthur. 7
8
Bruce Arthur: Thank you very much. Let me get my notes up. I want to express my support for 9
the plan from Caltrans to add bike lanes for the full length of El Camino. I think they’ve done a 10
very thorough job looking at accidents and history. And adding bike lanes will make traveling 11
safer. El Camino has a large number of businesses, it has some schools, and it has public service 12
areas like soccer fields. Additionally, it has health providers that people want to visit and some 13
of us want to ride our bikes there. Additionally, as we look to the future to adding housing on El 14
Camino, it will be even more important to make the street safe for cyclists who are living on or 15
near El Camino and want to use that as a way to get around town. Additionally, removing the 16
parking from El Camino will make it much easier for cyclists to move safely. It will also have the 17
benefit of making it easier for car drivers to get in and out of driveways on El Camino because 18
removing the cars will improve the visibility for everybody, cyclists and drivers alike. Finally, I 19
would like to see Palo Alto pursue adding speed cameras and red light cameras to provide an 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
automated traffic enforcement system to make our roadways safer for cyclists, pedestrians, 1
and drivers. There’s no excuse for us not trying to make the speed limits lower and trying to get 2
rid of people who run red lights. Thank you very much. 3
4
Chair Summa: Thank you. 5
6
Veronica Dao: Next is Penny Ellson. 7
8
Penny Ellson: Can you hear me okay? 9
10
Veronica Dao: Yes. 11
12
Chair Summa: Yes, we can. 13
14
Penny Ellson: Thank you. I first want to thank you for this opportunity to speak tonight and for 15
studying this study session. I see that City staff has hastily implemented some parking counts. 16
And though I thank them for doing that work, I’m disappointed that they were not able to do 17
counts at El Camino Real segments near the Maybell and Los Robles intersections during school 18
commute times. I have, in previous meetings on this subject, raised the concern that removal of 19
El Camino Real parking at this location may cause parking to migrate to the El Camino Way 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
school route that connects East Meadow to the two El Camino intersections I just mentioned. 1
There is an existing problem on El Camino Way of automobiles illegally parking in bike lanes 2
that students use to get to El Camino Real. The City has not been able to effectively and 3
consistently do enforcement in this area. We may need a plan to mitigate a worsening parking 4
problem here if we remove parking in that area. I’m not saying don’t do it. Hear me that I’m 5
saying I think we may need a mitigation plan. I’d like us to take a look at the potential problem. 6
Do some counts in that area. 7
8
I am overall dismayed at Caltrans’ overall failure to use this repaving opportunity to improve 9
crossings of El Camino Real in every city on the corridor, not just Palo Alto, especially on school 10
commute routes and at transit crossings. Paint, which is really all we’re getting at these 11
intersections, and plastic is a prayer. It’s not a safety plan for people of all ages and abilities. 12
You have to cross this six- or seven-lane, depending on where you are, highway. At school 13
routes, we really need – at some of our school routes, we need longer signal timing. Caltrans 14
has said they’ll look at it. I want to hear a commitment to make changes where they are needed 15
on this. Young people have shorter legs. People with disabilities sometimes have difficulty 16
getting across the street on a signal and children can misjudge crossing time, so it would be 17
very helpful to have protected pedestrian refuge islands in the middle of long intersections. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
I asked at the last meeting for there to be a collaboration of both Caltrans and the City of Palo 1
Alto to create wayfinding signage to help bicyclists who are less skilled navigate between the 2
parallel bicycle boulevard and El Camino Real destinations. I view this, honestly, as an 3
incomplete street plan. I think we have a lot of work to do at the intersections and I hope that 4
Caltrans will work on that and be true to their commitment to Complete Streets. Thank you. 5
6
Chair Summa: Thank you. 7
8
Veronica Dao: Next is Alan Wachtel. 9
10
Chair Summa: Go ahead. 11
12
Alan Wachtel: Hi. Sorry. There was a problem with muting. I’m a member of the Bicycle and 13
Pedestrian Advisory Committee but that committee has not taken a position on this project, so 14
I’m speaking only for myself. I have been critical with Caltrans in this project. I have submitted 15
written comments to that effect and I ask you to look at those at your convenience. I’ll try not 16
to repeat myself. I see some encouraging signs tonight and I want to focus instead on those. 17
Until tonight, Caltrans had not given us any information about how many of the 21 bike crashes 18
at sites occurred crossing El Camino and how many along it. Rick Yeung has given us 19
information about that tonight. That’s helpful. I’d still like to see causes, an analysis of the 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
causes of the individual crashes in those 21 cases. It’s not a lot to look at. It would be very 1
informative and give us a much better idea of the countermeasures. I’d also like to see bike 2
counts along crossing El Camino Real so we don’t have to guess. 3
4
I’ve also been critical of Class IV bikeways. I know many people consider them low stress. I 5
would consider them high stress because I recognize the conflicts they could create at 6
driveways and intersections. Again, I’m very glad to hear Sergio and Nick tonight acknowledging 7
those conflicts and committing themselves to address them. I would encourage them to look 8
not just at DIB-94, which is really a planning document, but at DIB-89 Class IV Bikeway Design 9
Guidance. It’s far from being perfect but it has a lot of useful information. Communication 10
between Caltrans and the City has also been spotty and irregular and it’s much better tonight, 11
and again, I appreciate that from Caltrans. 12
13
One final note on that bikeway that we saw in Albany, when I look at that it immediately raises 14
a lot of red flags about the design but I see that those conflicts are resolved by separate bicycle 15
signal phases. Separate signal phases are one tool that you have to resolve turning conflicts at 16
intersections. They introduce delay for both bicyclists and motorists. Because of the delay, 17
there are also issues with compliance but I encourage you to consider those too at complicated 18
intersections like El Camino and Page Mill. So again, encouraging signs from Caltrans tonight, I 19
hope they keep up. Thank you. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Summa: Thank you. 2
3
Veronica Dao: Next is Emil Abraham. 4
5
Emil Abraham: Hi. Can you hear me? 6
7
Chair Summa: Yes. 8
9
Emil Abraham: Okay. Good. Open my note. Okay. Yeah. I am absolutely in support of these bike 10
lanes. Thank you very much, Caltrans, for your hard work and being proactive and reaching out 11
to Palo Alto. El Camino has a bright future if we have people like you guys considering all users 12
of this corridor, not just cars that go up and down this whole peninsula. It would be an absolute 13
shame if Palo Alto missed out on this opportunity and got these bike paths. I love hearing that 14
Caltrans is in support of maybe a future road diet. I know you’ve considered it for this plan. A 15
road diet helps pave the path towards dedicated bus lanes and I know that’s out of scope for 16
this repaving project. I’m just glad to have Caltrans on the side of a brighter, greener future and 17
I hope that Palo Alto is also on board. You’ll definitely hear me, hear my voice in support during 18
future meetings whenever that project comes down the pipeline. You mentioned that you 19
would also be updating signs at intersections. If possible, I would love to eliminate right turn on 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
red at as many intersections as possible. The stats show that broadside collisions are most 1
common and I feel that if it’s within this project’s scope that we should try it. Thank you very 2
much. Yeah. Thank you. Have a good night. 3
4
Chair Summa: Thank you. 5
6
Veronica Dao: Next is Ofer Ben-Shachar. 7
8
Ofer Ben-Shachar: Hi. Can you hear me? 9
10
Chair Summa: Yes. 11
12
Ofer Ben-Shachar: Okay. Great. I was in the meeting in face to face earlier but it took a while, so 13
I decided to went and do it on Zoom. I cycle and try to commute using my bike, I also raise four 14
kids in Palo Alto, and so I have a lot of experience cycling. I want to remind everybody just the 15
physics of riding a bike. A bike typically costs – weighs 30 pounds. A typical human being weighs 16
anything between, I don’t know, 120 to 200 pounds, so it’s not much more. A car on the other 17
hand, an average car in the U.S. weighs 4000 pounds, roughly 40 times that, and a car obviously 18
goes much faster than a cyclist. When a cyclist – the physics of the cyclist going with the 19
pedestrian is one thing but when a cyclist goes with cars, it’s very dangerous for the cyclist. And 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
I have to tell you that I rode to the City Hall today and it’s just unpleasant when you have a 1
4000-vehicle behind you and you hope they see you, I have lights in both sides but sometimes 2
they don’t, sometimes they look at something else, and your life is at risk in any point. That’s 3
one thing. 4
5
Secondly, there’s a lot of work on this elsewhere in the world. I hope we’re not isolated off the 6
world. But there’s work on this on the Netherlands, which is leading the world on biking 7
infrastructure, many places in Europe, recently Paris; in North America, Montreal, in near 8
Berkeley, and other places around here. And the more cyclists and the more cycling 9
infrastructure you have, it improves commute for everybody. The more safe routes there are, 10
the more cyclists ride those roads and the less car traffic there is, and so it’s better for 11
everybody. And it’s also better for businesses. When a cyclist or somebody walks near a 12
business, the chances they’re going to stop at the business is much higher than somebody goes 13
40 miles an hour on the middle lane of El Camino. I think also it’s clear that biking infrastructure 14
is a lot cheaper to build and maintain than car infrastructure. And as a citizen of Palo Alto, I 15
want to be able and I want my family and my kids to be able to go and have a choice of riding 16
safely in Palo Alto and use my taxes for my safety, not just for other people cars. I have cars, I 17
ride cars but as a citizen, as many others here, we have a right for the taxpayer to use our 18
money in ways that enable us choice. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Summa: Thank you so much. 1
2
Ofer Ben-Shachar: Thank you. 3
4
Chair Summa: If you could finish up, please. 5
6
Ofer Ben-Shachar: Okay. I think that we need safe routes and those are completely protected 7
routes. I think that what we have with the proposal on El Camino is better certainly much more 8
than now but it’s not enough. And we need to think about our children that don’t have a car 9
license and they need to ride [inaudible 207:25]. 10
11
Chair Summa: Thank you so much for your comments. We have to move on to the next. 12
13
Ofer Ben-Shachar: I have just one question if you will, is there’s also already a bike 14
infrastructure on El Camino in Stanford between Stanford Avenue and Embarcadero on the left 15
side if you’re going north and if it’s going to be... 16
17
Chair Summa: Thank you again for your comments. I’m afraid we have to move on so the next 18
speaker can speak. Thank you. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Veronica Dao: Next is Kristina Davis. 1
2
Kristina Davis: Hi there. Can you hear me? 3
4
Chair Summa: Yes. 5
6
Kristina Davis: Okay. Perfect. So I’ve been a bike commuter for 15 years. That was until I moved 7
to this area. I live in Mountain View. I commute to Palo Alto daily. And when I moved, I did the 8
commute a couple days and then I realized even though I’ve been a bike commuter in Chicago, 9
in D.C., in Maryland, Virginia, I had never felt as scared on my bike as I do in this area. There are 10
beautiful bike lanes and infrastructure that have been built in individual municipalities and I 11
lovingly call these sort of roads to nowhere because they’re so beautiful but they don’t help 12
connect. I’m so excited about this project because it runs through so many different areas. And 13
those areas I find to be most dangerous and scary when I’m commuting will disappear when 14
you have something like this on El Camino that stretches between multiple different 15
municipalities, so I’m very much in support of it. I’m excited to see where it goes. The one area 16
of concern I still have is that the crashes that were reported, two-thirds of them happened at 17
intersections, which even with the Category IV lanes that are being proposed on some areas, 18
that’s not protection in those intersections. How do we continue to keep our riders safe even as 19
we put in more structures for them? Thank you. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Summa: Thank you. 2
3
Veronica Dao: Next is Cedric. 4
5
Cedric Pitot de La Beaujardiere: Good evening, commissioners and Caltrans. Thanks for having 6
this study session. I am a lifelong Palo Alto biker. I have biked El Camino Real to reach 7
businesses and/or to reach speed and it is extremely dangerous and terrifying. I have seen 8
wrong-way bike riding, which is also very dangerous. I do generally support the bike lanes. 9
10
For the ADA, I understand you want to make some improvements. I unfortunately witnessed 11
my brother go into a wheelchair before he passed away. I’ve seen that cross slope at driveways 12
makes it difficult for wheelchair riders, so please try to provide flat space before the sloping of 13
the driveways. For the buffers, the buffered bike lanes, we really need to have bollards that are 14
beefy but yet soft in case a bicyclist hits them but also beefy enough that cars don’t want to 15
crash into them. 16
17
I’ve seen El Camino a great video on YouTube comparing El Camino, calling it a stroad. It’s trying 18
to be both a street and a road and it’s doing both badly. A road is kind of like a highway and 19
should be fast and a street is slow to reach the businesses. I understand that your goal is to do 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
this only through pavement and marking but I think that you could do that here and you could 1
make the rightmost lane be a right-turn only lane, a slow street to access those businesses, and 2
the bike lane would be to the left of that so the bikes would have minimal conflicts with cars 3
that are right turning into and out of businesses or intersections. And then there would be 4
strategically placed places where drivers who have turned right out of businesses onto that 5
slow street edge of El Camino would have an opportunity to yield to bikers and cross that bike 6
lane back into the thoroughfare of El Camino, the proper road highway. I’m wondering if 7
Caltrans has tried such approaches in other jurisdictions and perhaps this might be a way to 8
reduce the conflicts between bikes and cars and yet maintain the capacity that you so value. 9
Finally, for the moderator, it would be nice to announce the next two speakers for people on 10
Zoom who can’t see the speaker’s list. Okay. I think that might be it. Thank you. 11
12
Chair Summa: Thank you. 13
14
Cedric Pitot de La Beaujardiere: Oh. I just want to add that about 80 percent of the lanes are 15
not buffered but they’re striped due to all the driveway conflicts. I forgot to mention that. 16
That’s why we need a solution to that. That’s why those buffered lanes aren’t quite as safe as 17
we think they are, thus the solution I proposed. Thank you. 18
19
Chair Summa: Thank you. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Veronica Dao: Next is Evelyne followed by our last speaker, April Webster. 2
3
Chair Summa: Excuse me. Wasn’t April Webster part of the group or am I mistaken? 4
5
Veronica Dao: Yes but the group had enough people, so. 6
7
Chair Summa: Oh. Okay. Thank you. 8
9
Veronica Dao: Yeah. 10
11
Evelyne Keomian: Thank you. Can you guys hear me? 12
13
Veronica Dao: Yes. 14
15
Evelyne Keomian: Okay. My name is Evelyne Keomian and I’m a local grassroots organizer. One 16
of the staff, the City staff mentioned earlier that they had been working closely with us to 17
communicate these upcoming works so the RV families and those who may be affected by this 18
[inaudible 213:40]. And I want to say that many of the families living in RVs in our community 19
and along El Camino Real do use bikes as a way to get around. It is in fact, by large, their ways 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
of commuting in our community, and so they are very excited that we’re thinking about the 1
safety of this. We, as a grassroots organization, in fact give bicycles to children and youth during 2
the holiday season not too long ago to enable them to get to and from schools. 3
4
And so for these mothers having the safety of their children is very important and so many of 5
them are excited about the improvement; however, this will dislocate families for a very long 6
amount of time. And children who will not have other alternative humanly dignifying way in a 7
safe way and inclusive way to shelter them, children are going to be moved away from their 8
schools, their friends, and their communities. We’re just wondering as we’ve been asked as we 9
hit the pavement, who is this the issue of? Is this the issue of Caltrans? Is this the issue of the 10
City? Who do we, as grassroots organizers, will work with to make sure that children can still 11
come to school as we’re making El Camino Real safe for all of us and most importantly for 12
bikers? Who do we get to ask or who will get to answer to these families who are going to be 13
dislocated, and again, with no real human ways for them to be sheltered in our community? So 14
since we’re going to be doing the work and it’s going to be great for all of us, let’s think about 15
our unhoused communities. And I want to agree with many of those who have spoken before 16
who made great suggestions about other things that can be done. If we’re disrupting things for 17
this long amount of time, let’s make sure that we’re including things that will make our 18
community better for all. Thank you. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Summa: Thank you very much. Now, I think it’s our final speaker. 1
2
Veronica Dao: Yes. April. 3
4
April Webster: Hi. Thank you for letting me speak. I’m a resident of Mountain View. I’ve been 5
biking in the area for I think 10, 13 years. I often use the Ellen Fletcher Bike Boulevard to bike 6
from Mountain View to Cal Ave to go for dinner. It’s wonderful. And I think Palo Alto has a great 7
legacy there, being the first city in the United States to have a bike boulevard. And I’m excited 8
and I hope that that can continue with ECR. As another speaker mentioned – I’m also in 9
support. I’m very happy that Caltrans is working on this. I’m going to state just a few affiliations. 10
I’m on the Caltrans D4 Bicycle Advisory Committee as Vice-Chair. I’m also in the MTC Active 11
Transportation Working Group and SVBC’s Policy Advisory Committee. I’m not speaking for any 12
of those but it does help me stay in the loop about what’s going on. 13
14
I wanted to ask a few things and people have mentioned this but I’d like to see greater 15
compliance with DIB-94, which just came out on January 16. Class IV would be great, as people 16
have mentioned, as much as possible along here given it’s the safest, Class IV or Class I it’s the 17
safest class of infrastructure. I’m assuming Palo Alto has traffic volumes that would identify 18
them as urban and the speed is 35 miles per hour, so technically DIB-94 identifies 10.5-foot 19
lanelets in Table 5.3 and Class IV or Class I facilities in this particular scenario. I’d also like to see 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
more robust vertical separation than flexible posts. That’s just one option. And I think to get 1
lower stress, more robust separation would be great. I think cyclists are more concerned about 2
being hit by cars than they are about hitting these posts; it doesn’t happen that frequently. 3
4
As someone mentioned intersections, it would be – intersections are where a lot of the 5
collisions happen and it’s the most dangerous conflict area for bicyclists. And I know this is a 6
SHOPP project. It might not be the right place for this to be addressed but the D4 bike plan for 7
Caltrans is currently under development and it includes some best practices for intersections, 8
so it would be great to see this team, the Caltrans team, review those recommendations. 9
10
I think the work that Canada team did on businesses is wonderful. I’m from Vancouver BC and it 11
has been a game changer for downtown businesses to have bike lanes put in. It’s increased 12
traffic. The people are interested. There’s a recent article, March 7, ‘24 in the Business Insider 13
that talks about – it identifies 32 research articles that talks about the impact of bicycle lanes in 14
city design and making it more walkable and person-friendly and how that impacts businesses. 15
And thank you so much for the time. I appreciate it. 16
17
Chair Summa: Thank you very much and thank you very much to all of our speakers and those 18
of you in the room here and of course Caltrans and staff. Now, we are at about half an hour 19
behind schedule, so. And I really appreciate our colleagues from the Human Relations 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commission’s patience as the number of speakers grew and grew and grew. But do we want to, 1
I think we need to ask staff if they would like, so we can close the public hearing now and we 2
could continue this meeting and invite our colleagues back another time? Or would you like us 3
to con-, because we do have another item. Or what would you like? Any opinion from staff and 4
also from my colleagues. 5
6
Philip Kamhi: Sorry. Just to note, this is a study session, so there’s no action needed on that. 7
8
Chair Summa: No. I know. But we haven’t had any discussion. We had questions. We haven’t 9
really had a time for discussion but I know the next item is more time sensitive, so I’m kind of 10
looking for preferences from staff and my colleagues. 11
12
Amy French: Well, this item won’t be coming back again before April 1. I mean, we do have 13
another meeting on the 27th, which is also packed with items, so if we don’t get to retail, we 14
have an ad hoc committee that might take some of the work from the full commission if we 15
can’t get enough of the meetings with the commission, so that’s something to think about. 16
17
Male: I won’t be here. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Amy French: If – I would like to understand if we do have speakers in the audience for the retail 1
study item that is supposed to go tonight. 2
3
Chair Summa: Okay. Can we determine that, Ms. Dao? 4
5
Veronica Dao: I haven’t received any speaker cards for Item 4. 6
7
Vice-Chair Chang: Does she have anyone online? 8
9
Veronica Dao: No. 10
11
Chair Summa: Okay. Colleagues? Commissioner Smith? 12
13
Commissioner Smith: I think the value of us being here is to ask questions. To deepen the 14
discussion, I think your commission, and I’m speaking for myself, I think your commissioners 15
have more policy experience based on some of the questions being asked, so I don’t know if we 16
slow your discussion down or we’ve added enough already. 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: Absolutely you don’t slow us down. Absolutely you add value and 19
under no circumstances would I want to close this off without having a discussion with you 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
here. That’s the whole point. I’m firmly against it and I don’t care if we go to midnight on the 1
other thing because we have a unique opportunity to have a conversation with people that ask 2
different kinds of questions. 3
4
Commissioner Lu: I agree with that. 5
6
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. I’m just – I think there’s benefit to a dialogue of this full body. 7
And so at a minimum, I would think if there are I think 11 of us here, if we each had three 8
minutes to provide comments at a minimum that’s just over half an hour. And I think that 9
would be useful because a lot of folks – I mean, nobody has really commented. Everybody has 10
been asking questions. 11
12
Chair Summa: Go ahead. 13
14
Commissioner Stimmler: I’d be in favor of a short round robin. 15
16
Female: Short round robin. 17
18
Commissioner Stimmler: Short two- or three-minute round-robin. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Summa: Okay. Then I think as long as that seems to be the prevailing preference, we’ll go 1
ahead and do a short round of comments and try to keep it to three minutes. That’s a good 2
suggestion. And if we’re done in about a half-hour or so, we can, it’s 9:00 and we can take up 3
the retail item. Okay. With that said, who would like to go first? 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: I’m really excited to see this come before us. I’m thrilled. I want to 6
thank Caltrans for putting the work in and doing the outreach. I wanted to ask you, over how 7
many years have you been talking to Palo Alto before we did the official letter last fall? Do you 8
know? Probably since you started with Mountain View and Los Altos? 9
10
Nick Saleh: Regarding that bike issue? 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: Well, the bike plan that Mountain View and Los Altos put together 13
and worked on, that was from what 2019? I assumed you talked to us then as well. 14
15
Nick Saleh: Yeah. Actually, it went through a little process and I’ll be happy to explain it. I think 16
we did reach, actually, matter of fact, I think somebody else mentioned. Mountain View, they 17
reached out to us to implement their bike lane because of the funding [inaudible 223:58]. 18
19
Commissioner Templeton: Right. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Nick Saleh: And we said, why don’t we use that opportunity. We reached out to everyone 2
within the project limits, which is Los Altos and Palo Alto. And at that time, some other some 3
reason, said they rather defer the discussion until later on until the safety report came out and 4
that sort of drove that conversation back. 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: Awesome. Thank you for picking it back up. And sometimes we have 7
an ebb and flow of our priorities and it makes total sense but it’s wonderful to have it back on 8
our plate with our Department of Transportation. 9
10
What I want to say is I hear our commenters who have said it’s important to fix other things too 11
and I completely agree but there are things we can’t ask Caltrans to fix while they’re doing their 12
El Camino upgrade. They’re separate things funded by separate entities under separate 13
buckets. And this is a facility, an amenity, an upgrade that’s being offered to Palo Alto by the 14
owner of a road that is cut right through the center of our city. And all the other cities are 15
taking advantage of this. Right now, I saw an article today that South San Francisco is working 16
on getting the funding for this as well and we already have it all lined up. And there is no excuse 17
not to take advantage of this opportunity to save lives, to make El Camino less of a pollution 18
thoroughfare and more of a connector for this city. I really hope that the Council will evaluate 19
this offer for what it is. It’s not some other opportunity. It’s not some other road. It’s not some 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
other parking along east – I mean Maybell or El Camino Way, which I drive on every day 1
because it’s a little scary for me to bike across El Camino to get there and I hear that. I hear that 2
it’s scary for the commuters, the students that are driving to Gunn. 3
4
I witnessed two young women who were students at Gunn get hit by a car at that intersection. 5
It wasn’t included in your road report because they were late for school. They were thankfully 6
not injured enough to stick around and make a report. And I’m going to tell you, judging from 7
what I read, from my friends, notes, emails, updates, texts, Facebook messages, that’s 8
happening every day. It’s not being reported. We don’t have a mechanism to capture the 9
collisions that don’t require police or ambulance but it’s happening a lot. And we owe it to 10
ourselves and to our students that use our Safe Routes to improve those facilities as well. And I 11
think once we see improved facilities on El Camino itself, maybe that’ll be enough to motivate 12
us as a City to improve the facilities of our intersecting streets. Thank you. 13
14
Commissioner Hechtman: I’m not going to suggest this for any other commissioner but Ms. 15
Dao, can you run the clock for me? I will – I just want to make sure I stay somewhat close to the 16
three minutes that I put out into the universe. 17
18
This is a very complex issue but as shown in one of the first slides from Caltrans and as the 19
Commission and Council have discussed, the biggest factor here is safety. It’s the biggest goal to 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
improve safety. Our staff report tells us that El Camino is 4 percent of our roads but 63 percent 1
of our injuries. It’s not clear to me if that is just the KSI, the fatalities and significant or all 2
injuries, but it’s a huge percentage. This is an opportunity to make a big step toward the goal 3
that the Planning Commission talked about of no KSIs by 2030. It’s not clear to me if the Council 4
has yet faced that and adopted that but unless we’re going to say no KSIs by whenever except 5
on El Camino, we have to take this opportunity to make this roadway safer. 6
7
And what’s complicated is we have so many constituencies that we need to factor in. We’ve got 8
the pedestrians on the sidewalk who need to be safe from bicyclists. We need the bicyclists 9
who need to be safe from the cars. We have the cars and other passenger vehicles that need to 10
travel this route and to do it efficiently or they will choose other routes. We have the transit 11
that needs to operate efficiently if ridership is to – if it is to be reliable so ridership will be on it. 12
We have the current people who are parking along the both sides and that is both the residents 13
and those people who are parking to address – to utilize the businesses along El Camino. And 14
we have those businesses on El Camino who some of those have located there really in reliance 15
on that parking in front of them, not that they have a legal right to it but just that’s the setup 16
that they came to. And we have the neighborhoods behind those who use El Camino and would 17
be impacted. And so what I want to say is we have to balance all of these things. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
And if we are driven by safety, I think where that puts us is – okay, I’m still going – where that 1
puts us is we have to incorporate bikes into this road and something has to give. If we neck it 2
down to what I think the Caltrans called a roadway diet and it’s two instead of three lanes in 3
each direction, then what’s going to happen is, at least during busy times, folks are going to 4
seek other routes and they are going to travel through Palo Alto on roads that aren’t as safe for 5
pedestrians and bicyclists. They haven’t been designed to deal with that volume of traffic even 6
though they can handle the capacity. 7
8
And so as we go forward with this, I think that we have to be looking at what I think Ms. Ellson 9
called mitigations. If we’re going to get rid of the parking on El Camino, we have to realize that 10
there are impacts and we have to address that, both to protect the kids so that – or all bicyclists 11
and pedestrians so that people aren’t parking off El Camino in bike lanes and to ensure that 12
there are places where the stores that need that parking that their folks can park off El Camino 13
and that impacts the neighborhood. And – but when I look at that balance, again, we’re talking 14
about life safety issues versus what I would call a quality of life issue and I think those are tough 15
issues that the Council is going to have to deal with but where I fall on that is life safety over 16
quality of life where you have to make those hard choices. Thank you. 17
18
Vice-Chair Kraus: How do I follow that? Safety is paramount and we’re lucky with the riches we 19
have that we have this opportunity to go forward. My comments are going to be about the 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
unhoused and how we mitigate the issues surrounded by the people who have made their 1
home on El Camino Real in RVs. And I don’t know how the City can deal with that and the 2
support and the resources necessary. We’ve heard Evelyne talk about that. Melissa, Assistant 3
City Manager, you’ve heard this constantly and I know you’re doing your best but the 4
disruption to their lives is real and I worry about that. 5
6
As you spoke about parking, we’re going to have to have a balancing act and we’re going to 7
have to let people park in the residential areas and we’re going to have to negotiate those 8
processes by it being okay to park in the neighborhood and yet the businesses have access for 9
their employees and their customers. This is a tremendous opportunity with a lot of finite tasks 10
that have to be encompassed. I again worry about those that are less able and I’d love to see 11
your disability thoughts on people that can’t walk far and that are infirm and how do they 12
mitigate those intersections. It’s a big issue if a curb is higher. It’s huge. It’s like going from the 13
desert to the mountain for people that have disabilities. I personally work on stairs because it’s 14
my weak spot after my broken knee. I am constantly training on stairs. God forbid I was hurt 15
worse. It’s like walking up to the Alps for some of us. Those are my thoughts. I would love to 16
see the City give more resources into those areas and I understand the challenges, so God bless, 17
go forth, and may we be successful. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Vice-Chair Chang: So I agree with what my colleagues have said. And I think my biggest 1
frustration is like I think it was Ms. Ellson who talked about the process for this. I do think that 2
we need to prioritize safety. The reality is that there are bicyclists on El Camino and that there 3
are accidents. At the same time, I really question the wisdom of doing a partial implementation 4
of what we think would actually be the safest solution because bikes are so at risk for the most 5
serious injuries. And we’ve had only, which is far too many, only one death on El Camino and I 6
wonder what will happen if we then signal that this is supposedly a safe place but we hear if a 7
different speaker said it and was accurate that 80 percent of the lanes are not going to be 8
buffered because we have driveways. And while it would be wonderful if we could eliminate 9
the driveways, we simply cannot do that. I’m very concerned about what happens when we 10
create a situation. I don’t know and unfortunately I don’t think we have the data to indicate to 11
us how much more bike traffic would there be and therefore, I would imagine, how many more 12
accidents will there be. I’m not quite sure, honestly, where I stand on this. 13
14
And also, what I would say is that if we do this, we really need to focus on the mitigation as 15
much as we can, especially at intersections and I’m not quite sure how we get that funding 16
given the timeline that’s involved here. And so part of me says this bike lane at least in the 17
short term is going to end at the border of Palo Alto and Menlo Park. And if all we’re getting 18
right now is paint and we’re throwing folks into an unsafe environment, maybe and I hate 19
delaying this because I want a bike lane down El Camino, it is – but maybe we wait until we can 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
get the funding to make things safer so we’re not putting people in the path of really fast 1
moving cars. Because it’s 35 miles per hour theoretically but we all know that it’s often 40 or 45 2
miles per hour. And our safe-systems approach says that one of the biggest things is separating, 3
slowing down the kinetic energy and separating really fast moving vehicles from pedestrians 4
and bicyclists who could be most injured. It’s not a – I don’t quite know what to say because I 5
don’t know what the tradeoff is exactly but we are at risk of causing a greater problem while 6
we try to solve a problem. And finally, we need to think hard about mitigation for the 41 7
dwellings that will be removed. I know that El Camino is not meant as housing but the reality is 8
it is being used as housing and so we need to take care of our community. Thanks. 9
10
Chair Eberle: Thank you. Thank you, Caltrans. And thank you for all of the comments, for all the 11
public comments. It’s been really enlightening to hear from all these people. I think that this is a 12
great opportunity for Palo Alto. The paving is going to be done, from my understanding, no 13
matter what. This is an opportunity to make biking safer and I think it is used for biking. Yes, 14
maybe this is not ideal but it is a step in the right direction. And I think you would be really sad 15
if we just repaved and didn’t do anything about it, especially given the fact that bike safety is on 16
everybody’s mind lately. And that it is one of the things the City of Palo Alto should strive for is 17
to have more bikers. And of course, I do understand the commissioner’s concern about actually 18
being safe, that’s why I did like the Albany design. I wonder if we could have a sidewalk, maybe 19
not the two, the lanes going both ways, but sidewalk, lane, and then more of a division 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
between the bike lane and the street like the Albany example, like actual some kind of curb, a 1
bigger separation between the bike lane and the street. I know I have never biked on El Camino 2
and I’d be super scared to do it. I mean, to me, it seems really frightening right now. 3
4
I do like the idea of picturing the city of Palo Alto like a city in Europe, like Amsterdam where 5
people are biking all over the place, feeling safe, going to businesses. One of the commenters 6
talked about the possibility that people will go to the businesses more often, they’ll stop at a 7
restaurant, they’ll stop at a coffee shop, and they’ll find these businesses because they’re biking 8
along, they’re not just driving by it. I think that that’s a future that we could have and that we 9
should strive for. And I do think the quality of life and bike safety can go hand in hand and that 10
we do have a better quality of life if we are exercising, we are biking around town. 11
12
I do have the same concerns about the driveways. I don’t – I’d be interested to know how many 13
driveways are there and if there’s any way to change where you go into those driveways. I don’t 14
know what the data is for the number of driveways on El Camino, so that would be interesting 15
to look at and see what we could do to make those safer. I did talk about my concern about the 16
bus and the bikes but I was happy to hear that there have been no accidents between buses 17
and bikes. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
And my last comment is about the RV dwellers. I appreciated Evelyne’s comments about some 1
of those children biking on El Camino and I do find that the RVs make it more of a hazard for the 2
bikers but it’s [inaudible 242:17] the City to find a place for them to go. I don’t know if there’s 3
any space on El Camino that can become a lot, like some of the churches have the Safe Parking 4
program. Maybe we can create another program. Maybe there’s somewhere in Palo Alto that 5
can be opened up for the RV dwellers to move to. I do think that the City needs to figure out 6
what to do about that so people are not just being displaced. Thank you. 7
8
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. Bike lanes, they’re great. They’re great for the bikers. They’re 9
great for the drivers. They reduce traffic, so people who aren’t biking still benefit. And they 10
benefit everyone who breathes air. Less pollution, that a good thing. That said, this bike lane 11
project has some issues, some concerns. You have so many driveways. You have the buses 12
going into the bike line and going out of the bike lane. You have fast traffic nearby with these 13
thin little plastic poles between you and the traffic. And you also have the business impacts. 14
And we don’t know all those, whether those issues can we at best can mitigate them. We can’t 15
necessarily solve all these issues. 16
17
We mentioned about if it’s all about safety. Well, if it’s all about safety, then actually you would 18
probably want to route everyone to Park Boulevard because if we do the best job for safety on 19
El Camino, it’s still going to be a lot more dangerous than Park. And if you look at all the crash 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
and the number of people injured on El Camino, compare that to how many people have been 1
injured on Park Boulevard, hardly any. And so if this really is just about safety, we should really 2
be doing our best with signage or whatever to get people off El Camino and get them over to 3
Park. 4
5
I’m worried about these thin, plastic poles giving people a false sense of security and that 6
bicyclists will think, oh, it’s safe because I have this barrier. Well, the barrier is not going to 7
withstand a car going through it. And so there really are a lot of issues here that make me 8
uncomfortable. And I should have caveat, I use Park Boulevard a lot and so it’s like a member of 9
my family, so I kind of feel like this is a little sibling rivalry maybe. And so when I go to the 10
Stanford game, whenever I go up to Stanford Basketball or Football, I always bike because I 11
don’t want to mess with traffic and I can go from my house to the Stanford campus with two 12
stoplights. If I go on El Camino, it’s going to take 10 and so there’s no way that that’s faster. And 13
so I’m going to, even if they convert these bike lanes on El Camino, I still when I go to Stanford 14
games I’m going up Park Boulevard. It’s going to be faster. It’s going to be more pleasant. It’s 15
going to be shaded. It’s – there’s – I don’t see any benefit to – for me for biking on El Camino. 16
And so this has some benefits. 17
18
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
I have a question about timing. We desperately need re-pavement. How much do we save by 1
paving and striping at the same time as opposed to repaving it and then coming in six months 2
later and after we’ve, yeah, after we’ve mitigated? Can I ask the... 3
4
Chair Summa: Yeah. 5
6
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. 7
8
Nick Saleh: Definitely, there is a big savings from financial savings and timings because if you’re 9
going to just pave and you’re going to restore it as-is today, then you’re going to go back in to 10
do a new bike, everything will be throwaway from a financial aspect of it. Other than the 11
additional impact to the – you’re going to [inaudible 246:20] the new pavement if you’re going 12
to come back after two years. I’m telling you the actual. I’m not trying to – but that’s a fact. 13
When it comes to go back and revisit this one in case nothing would take place, this is what it 14
take. And you need to have a project, you need to have another project with all the costs 15
associated with it, support, and [inaudible 246:46]. 16
17
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah. I appreciate that you want to do everything in one fell swoop 18
but this is a big change. This is the first time it’s come to PTC. We’re making Council make a 19
decision April 1 about the parking and we haven’t had the business – the Chamber of 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commerce still hasn’t completed their outreach. And it seems like we’re rushing things and I’m 1
always worried about rushing things and not making informed decisions. 2
3
Nick Saleh: I understand. 4
5
Commissioner Reckdahl: I mean, I don’t know. By the way, so I love bike lanes. They’re an asset 6
to the community but we have issues to solve and some of them we can perhaps mitigate, 7
others we won’t. I think that there’s a lot of hope going on here that everything is going to work 8
out and I hope it does because this could have had potential for really helping out the 9
community but also there could be a lot of unintended consequences here. Thank you. 10
11
Commissioner Smith: A few thoughts, I’m always confused in Palo Alto. I mean, we’re a city that 12
won’t cut down trees or we won’t build housing. And we want to be a green city, so we’re 13
giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to organizations to change over to electricity and use 14
charging stations. And one of the big things, I’ve been here 10 years, is biking. We want to be 15
like an Amsterdam-like city. We want to be this green city. We have people that are riding. The 16
State is about to spend money to give it and we come to this point and instead of going to the 17
values that we have laid out by policies over the last 10 years of me being here, we’re like, well, 18
I don’t know; I can’t think. It’s interesting. I would love us to see as we, to address some things, 19
how are cities like Amsterdam and New York City, which has twice the amount of traffic, higher 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
speed – I grew up in New York. Queens Boulevard has bike lanes. If you’ve ever been on 1
Queens Boulevard, you know that the speed is 50 and nobody actually follows any rules on 2
Queens Boulevard and somehow they managed to put a bike lane on Queens Boulevard. 3
4
At the end of the day, what I believe happens when you build bike lanes on major intersections, 5
one of the biggest issues we have in Palo Alto is a flight of businesses. When you start putting 6
bike lanes and other commuter-friendly things on main intersections, you will start generating 7
more opportunity for economic activity. You also, if you connect to regional bike options, you 8
now have equity. You now create equity because essential workers that are taking the VTA bus, 9
the 22 up the road, can now ride whether there’s one or two cities, so it’s an equity issue. It’s 10
not just about the people in Palo Alto. It’s about the people that work in Palo Alto and they 11
want to ride their bike to work because that is the cheapest way they can do it. And when we 12
start saying, well, we don’t want to do bike lanes, again, they’re just going to ride there and 13
eventually they’re going to get hit. 14
15
I think as we think about it, we espouse a lot of values in our planning and our direction but this 16
is the opportunity to line up some of those values. And I’m not saying there aren’t questions to 17
be worked out and details to hammer out but I think we really need to say not what are the 18
issues but how do we get to the best possible pragmatic solution. It’s not going to be perfect for 19
everybody but what is the best pragmatic solution for us (a) to create equity for those that are 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
riding. Has anybody taken the 22 bus? Anybody here taken the 22 bus? Imagine if the 22 bus, 1
imagine if people can actually ride up there. And if you live in Palo Alto, you realize with the 2
increase in electric bikes and families taking electric bikes, if all the people rode on Park, the 3
people on Park would be in here lighting it up. Park is not that big. It’s two lanes and it’s barely 4
two lanes for people, and the bikes already cause a lot of people to have issues going up and 5
down that street. I think we really need to take advantage of this. And I know we have some 6
due diligence to do but let’s not kill it in the process. 7
8
Chair Summa: Oh. Just before you go, I think Mr. Maung had something he wanted to add, if 9
you can do so briefly. It was maybe in answer to Commissioner Reckdahl. 10
11
Aung Maung: Thank you. The question about the cost saving if we don’t do the bike lane with 12
this project, as Nick kind of mentioned, I just want to emphasize that if we don’t install the bike 13
lane, the challenge is more on the time. We won’t be able to – even if we are able to secure the 14
funding, it will take us like four years to develop the project to install a bike lane in the future. 15
Madam, thank you. 16
17
Chair Summa: Thank you. Okay. Commissioner Akin? 18
19
Commissioner Akin: Was it you? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Reckdahl: You’re saying if we don’t do it now, the earliest we could have it 2
installed is four years from now? 3
4
Aung Maung: Yeah, even that is if we are able to identify the funding for it. 5
6
Commissioner Reckdahl: This is a funding issue that your pot would be empty and you would 7
have to wait for that pot to be filled up again? 8
9
Aung Maung: It will – a combination of funding, project, going through the project development 10
phases. Every time Caltrans need to – every time Caltrans develop and deliver a project, we 11
need to follow the California Transportation Committee timeline and the policy requirements, 12
so that is typically how long it takes for us to develop and deliver the project. 13
14
Nick Saleh: Can I just clarify one thing? Is that okay? 15
16
Chair Summa: Quickly, please. 17
18
Nick Saleh: Okay. The thing is this particular funding for the project came for a safety 19
improvement, so there’s – it wouldn’t compete for the funding. It came because to enhance the 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
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improvement. If this is no, for some reason there was no project, we’d need to have to start, go 1
back to the drawing. The safety issue would remain and then I think, I’m not saying, I’m not 2
giving any indication that it’s okay for Caltrans just to close our eyes. We need to do something. 3
This is the funding. Then, if we wouldn’t deliver for any scenarios, we have to go back to the 4
drawing board and try to figure out the funding and the schedule and the impact that goes to it. 5
Just I want to clarify a few things. 6
7
Male: When you say go back to the drawing board, you mean financially or do you mean 8
engineering? 9
10
Nick Saleh: Everything. I mean, it become a new project and you have to reinitiate the new 11
project. You have to clear that environmentally. You have to clear that whatever goes with it. 12
And average – I mean, the City can. Actually, I don’t know whether the City have the same 13
process that Caltrans have but that could be a City project and the funding would be the City 14
funding. That’s another option. 15
16
Commissioner Akin: I should disclose that I had a conversation with the Silicon Valley Bike 17
Coalition members, some of whom spoke earlier today, a couple days ago. I just want to 18
[inaudible 254:55]. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Female: It’s not an action item, so it’s okay. 1
2
Commissioner Akin: Now you know anyway. I expected to be able to support this fairly easily 3
and I found that I’ve had more and more misgivings as it’s gone along. I’m particularly worried 4
that if this does as it’s designed and increases the use of El Camino as a major bike route that 5
we’re going to lose a lot of people to right hooks and driveways and intersections. And I am also 6
worried about the gap between Embarcadero and Quarry. I had talked to people and a lot of 7
them are simply going to take the vehicular lanes to skip crossing at Embarcadero and going 8
through Stanford, so we’re going to see some higher risk there. And I think this is indicative of 9
pushing the project through with a reactive approach to safety rather than a proactive one. 10
11
We looked at where we’ve seen some injuries. We tried to determine to some degree of 12
accuracy what the causes were and then designed to meet those constraints. That may not be 13
enough. And accordingly, we’re going to need some mitigations to at least make it possible to 14
adjust in the future and I’d like to suggest a couple. One, as Commissioner Hechtman stole my 15
thunder earlier, if you slow down El Camino, people are going to move elsewhere and 16
elsewhere around here means Alma. And Alma is already hazardous for cyclists, particularly for 17
young cyclists going to Palo Alto High School. We can’t prevent that from happening within the 18
scope of the projects we’re talking about here but what we can do is get a baseline to 19
understand how many people are moving on which roads and in which directions. I strongly 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
suggest that we get – that Caltrans do a baseline on El Camino and that Palo Alto do a baseline 1
on Alma at the very least at Charleston and a couple of other key intersections that are likely to 2
be through routes between those two major paths. Then we’ll have, with the baselines, we’ll 3
have the information we need to do follow-up studies to figure out the new problems before 4
anyone gets hurt or killed after these changes. 5
6
On a more wonky aspect of that, Caltrans needs to commit to a set of metrics that define 7
success for this project and perhaps you have internally. I don’t know exactly what those are 8
but is your goal to increase bike throughput on El Camino? Is your goal to eliminate major injury 9
and death accidents? Just what are the goals? Because you need to measure to determine how 10
well you’re accomplishing them. 11
12
Two more specific things: The parking spaces on El Camino near Park Avenue, those were a 13
critical part of the compromise that’s at the heart of the Evergreen Park Residential Preference 14
Parking program. If you’re going to honor the promises made to those neighborhoods, then you 15
have to find a solution for taking away the parking from the businesses that are there. My 16
suggestion is that you set the maximum number of nonresident permits for the Evergreen Park 17
RPP to the number actually issued last year so it can’t be gained this year, minus the number of 18
parking places that are removed on El Camino in front of those businesses. That’s the most 19
ethical solution I’ve been able to come up with for how to protect what you’ve promised to the 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
neighborhoods and still allow the businesses there to function. That’s my suggestion for 1
mitigation there. 2
3
And finally, the Business Insider article which was mentioned by I believe our final commenter is 4
a very interesting article to read. And if you read it, you will find that business-wise there are 5
winners and there are losers, so you’re picking them by making this change, so just be aware 6
that there will be tradeoffs. Thank you. That should do it. 7
8
Commissioner Stimmler: Thank you. I really appreciate all of the expertise that my fellow 9
commissioners and the PTC Commission have shared with us. I certainly don’t bring that level of 10
expertise and I think you raised many great points. When I first moved to Palo Alto, my then 11
fiancé and I lived on El Camino Real. And one day, I stood with a man while he died. It was in 12
2012, so not included in these statistics but he was hit by a bicycle – he was hit on a bicycle. 13
Actually, I don’t know if he died but it seemed that that was what was happening. I think that 14
the City has an opportunity to remove parking and put a bike lane where that parking is. I think 15
that would help for the cyclists who are going down El Camino right now. I don’t think that’s 16
going to hurt. I think for the distracted woman who hit him and was standing next to me 17
sobbing and screaming, she probably would have noticed a bicycle if there had been a green 18
lane and barriers right there. It was also a turn lane, which we know is really complicated, so 19
maybe the turn lanes aren’t quite as safe as they could be. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
But again, I just think taking out those cars, putting in a bright green lane, putting in plastic 2
barriers and letting bikes go down there would just be safer. And I think we’re missing an 3
opportunity if it’s going to take at least four years and we know that’s the best-case scenario to 4
do anything about this. It doesn’t mean that we can’t [inaudible 261:40]. I jogged down Park 5
Avenue every day and loved it. That was my secret, my secret street, so don’t – let’s not let the 6
word get out. 7
8
Male: [Inaudible 261:48]. 9
10
Commissioner Stimmler: There are no sidewalks I had to worry about. It was just one 11
straightway, so maybe we could. I think the City has a lot it can do. It can – we could encourage 12
bicyclists to go down Park when they can go down Park but that’s not going to solve everything 13
because there are so many businesses, there are so many important things on El Camino. It is a 14
central thoroughfare. It is not the one we’re going to put on any posters about Palo Alto 15
because it’s ugly. It’s a mess. It’s got parking and bikes and electric bikes and buses. It’s got all 16
the junk in our City kind of ends up on El Camino, frankly. Again, I watched it for years going 17
past my window. And I think we have an opportunity to make it a cleaner, neater, safer street 18
right now, which is pretty incredible. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
And I think the City has a lot of work we got to do. We’re going to create a lot of problems in 1
this process. We’ve got to house the folks who have been living on El Camino who don’t have 2
homes. We have businesses who are going to lose out terribly. There are going to be folks who 3
are like, no, I can park in front of the other dry cleaner now, I’m just going to go there instead. 4
We got to think about what we can do for those folks. And we got employees who have been 5
using that as a place to park and I think we shouldn’t forget that a lot of the folks who work on 6
El Camino don’t live in Palo Alto and will need ways to get to work and places to park when they 7
get there. There are some really serious problems that the City is going to have to address. And 8
when we ask Caltrans about them, they say, well, the City, the City should do this. And so we 9
got a lot of work do to but I think we have a really strong opportunity to make El Camino a nicer 10
street to live on, to bike on, to walk on, to do business on, and to drive on as well, so let’s do it. 11
12
Chair Summa: Thank you. And Commissioner... 13
14
Male: [Inaudible 264:43]. 15
16
Chair Summa: I know. Commissioner Lu up in the north, please go ahead. 17
18
Commissioner Lu: Thank you. I do want to say that I’m really moved by Commissioner 19
Stimmler’s experience and I really agree that safety is urgent by itself. As a quick preface, I’m 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
also uneasy about the speed at which we’re asked to make this decision but I realize that there 1
were mistakes and miscommunications upstream and this is kind of what we’re stuck with. I’ll 2
also say that I’m not a bike fundamentalist. I ride my bicycle but I do believe that it’s possible 3
for a bad bike lane to be worse than nothing. That said, I support this project overall and this is 4
the right first step toward a safer, equitable, and sustainable future for El Camino. 5
6
I’ll qualify my support and personally push for two things. Firstly, Caltrans really needs to show 7
that they’re receptive to design feedback. I understand that there are a lot of factors outside of 8
Caltrans’ control but there is still a lot that Caltrans actually can improve on and I want to see 9
some indication that Caltrans is seriously considering specific changes to specific parts of its 10
design diagram. There are some sharrows that are pretty bad and potentially avoidable. The 11
lack of signage isn’t great. Some of the route decisions are really questionable, like how we 12
dump cyclists from a protected bike lane near Sand Hills and Palo Alto Ave into Menlo Park into 13
the middle of an unprotected section of El Camino instead of doing some thoughtful work and 14
trying to end the bike lane gracefully instead of dumping people into the middle of a lane in 15
Menlo Park. And yeah, I think when this comes to Council I would love to see specific examples 16
of improvements that we are actually considering for the designs as proposed. Secondly, I think 17
our City Council I would really urge to do the work and prioritize further improvements to the 18
intersections, to signage, to driveway permitting, to considering a road diet, to being really 19
considerate with our RV residents and finding the best mitigations we can for them. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Zooming out a little bit, I do want to return to Commissioner Templeton’s point about learning 2
from the good work that Mountain View and Los Altos did. I looked in detail at the plans for 3
both Mountain View and Los Altos, and many of the limitations and safety issues that we see 4
here are still present in those other plans. Despite that, though, the Mountain View’s City 5
Council approved these bike lanes twice unanimously. The Los Altos City Council had a split 6
vote; they voted 3-2 to remove parking. And the Mountain View Bike and Pedestrian Advisory 7
Commission and the Los Altos Complete Streets Commission were both unanimous in 8
supporting the removal of parking and implementation of basically these same bike lanes. 9
While we don’t have the benefit of years of public engagement like they did, I think that is a 10
strong signal that we can build off of and we can take in our own decision making. 11
12
Just to recap, I think the net impact to existing uses can be mitigated both for RV residents and 13
small businesses. I think the net impact on ridership is going to be really positive. I think there 14
are lot of use cases for a bike lane on El Camino that are different from bike lanes on Park, 15
people who bring their bikes on the bus, people who live on El Camino or maybe have multiple 16
destinations along El Camino and don’t want to circuitously detour. I do believe with the 17
evidence we have now that there is ridership, that the ridership will grow, and that it will really 18
serve the community. And finally, I think the net impact on safety will be positive. There are, 19
like I said, there are still these glaring issues that I hope Caltrans can really show that they’re 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
serious about fixing but the net impact, considering the accidents that we’ve seen, considering 1
the fatal accident that we saw in Mountain View a couple of years ago of a teenage cyclist 2
riding along El Camino in a crosswalk, there is in my mind an overwhelming evidence that we 3
can get meaningful safety improvements with at least the best parts of the design that we have 4
already in front of us. I’d like to thank Caltrans. I’d like to thank the City staff and public 5
commenters. And I overall support this project. 6
7
Chair Summa: Excellent. Now it’s down to me and I’m going to be really brief because all of you 8
have made excellent points. And this is a change of huge magnitude with a lot of moving parts 9
and I don’t think we’re going to solve all the problems. And someone pointed out that some of 10
the problems that will be created were commitments that were made to neighborhoods before 11
through RPPs and currently I don’t see it as being a problem for the clients of businesses on El 12
Camino because RPPs are designed to support two-hour parking for that reason, to support 13
nearby businesses. 14
15
But I don’t want to get into the weeds because you’ve heard so much but I am very – to say 16
that this has been rushed I think is a real understatement. And I don’t think there was enough. I 17
think there was a lot of missing data. We don’t have data on current bike use and we don’t 18
have projections for what the bike use will be. I think the idea that there should have been 19
more specificity of the design, the problems of what Commissioner Akin dubbed the gap is very 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
troubling. I don’t see how we’re going to solve all these problems at all, much less so quickly 1
but everybody agrees that more bike lanes are better. I don’t know. With only 80 percent 2
buffering, I don’t know that this will be safer until it becomes a bike highway, until there are a 3
lot of bikers. And I don’t know how many people are currently biking on El Camino. I live a block 4
from El Camino and California Avenue. And California Avenue and El Camino we’re using a lot of 5
the slides as examples and it’s – I don’t see that many people biking and when I do, I think, 6
geez, don’t these – don’t they want to go over to Park Boulevard and be safer? I want to see us 7
make improvements on Park Boulevard also for bikes because I do think it’s a safer option. 8
9
And so I don’t know how we can at this point so quickly get to a place where we’re going to 10
have a good outcome. I think that the vehicle dwellers should have been included in 11
stakeholder meetings and should not be forgotten in the process. We do have overnight 12
parking on Geng Road for vehicle dwellers but there’s not enough. And we’re going to have 13
transitional housing sometime soon, it probably won’t be enough. And I know that people who 14
currently own an RV are not going to give it up to go live in transitional housing where they’re 15
expected to leave in I forget what the duration of stay is estimated there. And these are real 16
problems and tradeoffs to make. And without an understanding of how, a metric for success as 17
Commissioner Akin said, to evaluate what we did right and what we did wrong, without 18
specifics on designs and without baseline data to determine, reminds me a little bit of high-19
speed rail in this one sense in that there was no projection of usership, in that case, ridership. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
I think that – I hope there won’t be more accidents because that’s a pretty terrifying thing to 2
me. I’ve seen two kids get hit at the end of my block on El Camino, so a block away. Those 3
happened to be the kids’ fault because they’re middle-school-aged boys. But I want to make 4
sure that if we do this, it’s going to make things better and safer. And I think it will be a long 5
time until that is really busy with bikes. 6
7
And we have to solve the problem of where to put all the cars. If you look at the block of El 8
Camino between Churchill, the Paly block, which is an extra super long block, and Embarcadero, 9
it is packed with cars all the time. I don’t know who those people are and why they’re parking 10
there. And there’s other parts of Palo Alto, I think someone mentioned it, near El Camino Way 11
that are always – El Camino Way is always parked because El Camino Way has such a parking 12
problem on it. 13
14
Like I always say, we have to make sure when we do these things that we have really 15
considered the outcomes so that we’re really doing something good instead of looking and 16
feeling like we’re doing something good. I would like to end it there because we’re really 17
behind now but I want to thank Caltrans for coming and sticking with us and answering so many 18
questions. I think we had a lot of questions that weren’t answered as well, so if you can solve 19
some of these, answer some of these questions and solve some of these problems before you 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
come back before this is finalized, I think that would be a good thing. I want to thank our staff 1
for trying to keep up with this rushed situation and what I understand was a lack of 2
communication that made it difficult to take advantage of the situation and plan for it. And I 3
want to thank all of our many speakers and the excellent work of both commissions. And with 4
that, I think we should take a little break before we get back to our next item. Thank you to the 5
HRC. 6
7
4. Study Session to Receive Presentation Regarding Strategies and Policy 8
Recommendations 9
10
Chair Summa: We have almost our last item, our last study session of the evening, and this is on 11
retail strategies. I know that we have our consultants here and they’re going to make a 12
presentation. 13
14
Amy French: Yes. And before we get to our consultant who is here and I’m going to upload their 15
presentation, I wanted to just make a note that our – the Council Ad Hoc Committee is going to 16
have their first meeting on the 20th at 9 AM. I have an agenda on the screen. I can pull this up 17
later but these are the items they’re covering. And I’m going to switch to the applicant’s 18
presentation. And Dan is here to present and we’ll have a hard stop at 10:00 for our consultant. 19
Thank you. 20
21
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Summa: Okay. Thank you so much. Is our consultant here? 1
2
Amy French: Yes. 3
4
Chair Summa: We can go ahead then. 5
6
Amy French: Dan, are you ready? I mentioned there was a bio break happening, so. 7
8
Dan Wery: Sorry. I was – had the mute on as usual. Sorry, guys. Good evening. It’s been a long 9
night. You guys got a lot of energy and resilience there, stamina. Good. Thanks so much and 10
thanks Amy for doing the slides. So we’ve got about 15 slides. The last half of them are the ones 11
we really want to get to, which is really focusing on the zoning strategies. But so real quick, 12
we’ll just go through the first few. 13
14
The goal of the project and our job is to look at zoning strategies to help retain, strengthen, and 15
facilitate retail in the key areas of Palo Alto. And then, what’s the problem? We had this 16
discussion last time is what’s – we need to identify the problem before we start to solve it and 17
the real problem is we’ve got extensive and persistent vacancies and that’s exhibited by loss of 18
vibrancy, reduced activity, fewer retail options and services, and businesses also leaving Palo 19
Alto. 20
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1
We’ll get into these a little bit in more detail but what are the probable causes and contributing 2
factors? No secrets there but the main result is retail space exceeds the market demand and 3
we’ve got some information that comes a little bit later on that. The reason for that is the ever 4
increasing portion of e-commerce as a total percentage of the overall retail trade. It’s up 5
around 16 percent or so and it’s increasing and accelerating. We also have reduced office 6
workers as a result of COVID and hybrid work schedules. Those are primary customers for our 7
retail areas and so that’s had a dramatic effect on the demand for brick-and-mortar spaces. And 8
then there’s competition. There’s always competition. It’s a competitive market and Palo Alto is 9
no exception. You’ve got competition within Palo Alto and outside of Palo Alto and we can go 10
into that. And what has been pretty clear from the beginning is that your regulations may be a 11
significant contributing factor. There’s – coming from stakeholders, from staff, our review, it’s 12
clear that the code is very complicated, hard to understand, it’s hard to implement, and that 13
creates a complicated and difficult environment to navigate if you’re an applicant or a property 14
owner and it’s even difficult for staff. And then there’s aspects of it that, this is a subjective 15
term, but too restrictive. Those are comments that we heard over and over again in all of the 16
stakeholder reviews and so we think there’s opportunities to fix that. 17
18
A couple slides here just to kind of illustrate this is the e-commerce growth. You can see that 19
blue line that’s kind of making a wave, accelerating. It peaked during COVID. It dipped again and 20
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now it’s on its way back up if you look at that kind of continued trend line if you take out that 1
little spike there. Meanwhile, department stores and clothing stores as retail sales are 2
continuing to flat line and collapse, so just kind of representative. 3
4
In terms of the supply and competition: Retail oversupply is estimated over 460,000 square feet 5
of vacant retail in the area and the natural demand kind of from natural growth over a 10-year 6
period is about another 110,000 square feet. That current vacancy represents four times the 7
amount of the 10-year projected growth in demand for retail space, so it kind of gives you an 8
order of magnitude, there’s a problem there. Then we’ve got the loss of office workers and that 9
alone since COVID and even with the recovery is equal to about 110,000 or demand for about 10
110,000 square feet of retail space. That’s coincidentally about the same amount that’s 11
projected over the natural growth of 10 years. Again, kind of some significant headwinds there. 12
13
And then competition: Stanford Mall, very successful, they’re able to control and regulate and 14
market and brand as a single unit and provide all those uses. So that’s – they’ve got a strategic 15
advantage there. Then you’ve got big box retailers that provide a lot of service needs but 16
they’re just outside of Palo Alto but those are competing with all your commercial markets 17
within Palo Alto. And then you’ve got neighboring communities which also provide some 18
competition. Next slide. 19
20
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What’s part of the problem? Regulations, again from stakeholder consensus, too complicated, 1
they’re hard to understand and implement and that’s at all levels, even staff agrees. And I think 2
that was some of the comments we heard from applicants and business representatives is that 3
it’s so complicated, it’s hard to get a straight answer or a consistent answer. And just having 4
worked with your code for the last two years, it is complicated. It’s really hard to get straight 5
and know it and so it must be very difficult even for seasoned experts to implement, so you 6
know it’s going to be hard for applicants and property owners. Some examples of that, there’s 7
multiple layers of exceptions and exclusions and applicability. Rarely can you go to one spot in 8
the code and get the answer you’re looking for. Typically, there’s a lot of double negatives 9
within any given provision and then it refers to three or four other locations or it overlaps or is 10
redundant or, again, affected by other sections of the code, so it’s hard to get a clear, straight 11
answer without really digging through every corner of code. There’s also internal conflicts and 12
inconsistencies. 13
14
And as we’re trying to get to know your code, we built our own kind of comparative use tables 15
just to try to get them straight in our heads. And I think that’s one thing that actually we 16
recommended would be a good thing to do right away is if you had to start cleaning up your 17
code, start with those use tables. You’ll learn a lot by trying to put them all in a grid, in a table. 18
It’s too restrictive. It’s – there’s – it’s inflexible and some of that inflexibility may be 19
counterproductive that it’s having the effects that are the opposite of what you really want. 20
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You may actually be deterring new retail uses and investment particularly, for example, if 1
somebody is afraid. They’re aware of your retail protection ordinance and all the restrictions. 2
Once they go retail, you can’t go back; it’s very difficult. That may discourage people from 3
investing in retail and getting trapped with retail, not having options to switch out if it fails and 4
particularly in a soft retail market that would be a high-risk activity, so that may have had 5
counterproductive activity. And then we know the RPO and the other provisions limit retail-6
supporting uses. Your code says you can’t replace retail unless it’s retail or retail-like. 7
Sometimes it’s just absolute. Sometimes you can do it but you need to go through a CUP or 8
other hurdles or you need to prove that your use is suffering an economic hardship, for 9
example. It’s difficult. It’s a lot of reasons and it’s built to say no as opposed to a code that’s 10
encouraging, promotes yes. 11
12
Why retail vacancies persist? This was question that’s come up over and over. We sent you a 13
study that came out in May and November, it was May and then updated in November, out of 14
Harvard. But basically, it comes down to a few things. Landlords are willing to wait, i.e., sit on a 15
vacant property in the hopes of a better market and getting a better return. And that can be 16
just in general (a) we think the market is going to turn up and if we wait a little longer, we’ll get 17
a better rent or we’ll get that better individual tenant, we’re going to get the best tenant. And 18
sometimes you don’t get all the tenants at one time, so you think, okay, I’m talking to one. That 19
may be my only option. Maybe I’ll wait a little while till I get a better option. And so that can 20
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lead to extended vacancies. And some of the other factors associated with that are, as I just 1
said, limited choice of tenants at any given time. You might have one, you might have two, 2
maybe you hope for a third. You want a competitive market. And again, it’s tough right now 3
because there’s a lot of vacancies. It’s a buyer’s market, not a seller. 4
5
And then the key factor there is the length of retail leases. They tend to average, more than half 6
average over 10 years. And the reason for that is there’s typically very large tenant 7
improvement costs and those are often provided as budgets to new tenants, so a landlord 8
would give a budget to make those tenant improvements. If you think about ground-floor retail 9
and presentation, there’s a lot that goes into those as opposed to just an office or a residence, 10
you just need the four walls and some outlets and a window. You don’t need a lot of 11
presentation quality improvements. And so those lead to longer leases to amortize those costs 12
over the term of the lease and that’s one of the reasons we see these vacancies. People are 13
waiting for the long-term commitment. Next slide, please. 14
15
Real quick, we kind of wanted to get into the vacancy trends. Sorry I’m rushing guys but 16
hopefully we’ll get to the good stuff. Just kind of real quick, we did give you some tables and 17
charts and didn’t give you a lot of explanation but I’ll try to hit the highlights. Generally, what 18
you’re experiencing in Palo Alto is generally consistent with the national trends. Again, the e-19
commerce, the office workers not being there that have led to real pressures on your brick-and-20
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mortar retail spaces, and not all markets, some markets are doing really well, some are not. 1
There’s kind of winners and losers regionally based on a lot of different factors based on, again, 2
the strength of those other markets that support retail. Some areas have actually done quite 3
well and those areas tend to be the ones that have a thriving office market and they have a lot 4
of customers there. Downtown and total Palo Alto, all the areas that we studied are at a 10-5
year high in terms of vacancies. The kind of nadir, the low point was around 2014, 2015. And it 6
was increasing pretty obviously even before COVID. Between 2014, 2015, and 2020, vacancies 7
were creeping up noticeably. 8
9
The differences that we’ve seen between the areas that we looked at, the smaller 10
neighborhood-serving areas have stayed relatively low in terms of their vacancy rates and 11
they’ve been more steady, so there’s been less fluctuation in the vacancy rates. And that’s 12
generally, you read the literature, kind of expected and the reason is that their customer base is 13
more consistent. These tend to be more the convenience in neighborhood and neighborhood-14
serving areas, so they’ve got that built-n customer base, it’s the residents that live nearby 15
primarily and office workers that service those areas. The larger-market areas, downtown and 16
Cal Ave, those are more oriented and supported by the office workers, so we’ve seen greater 17
changes there. And those are larger markets because of those office workers but when they’re 18
not there, there’s more to lose. 19
20
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The highest vacancy rates happen to be in the highest rent areas, again downtown, Town & 1
Country, Cal Ave, and SM is Santa Monica. We looked at Santa Monica as well and they had the 2
highest per square foot rates. They also had more fluctuation in their vacancy rates and rental 3
rates, and had some of the biggest impacts, particularly with COVID. Rent rates are increasing 4
slowly, steadily, despite the increasing vacancies and that gets back to that long-term 5
commitment. They tend to kind of lock in. If you think about it, you got a 10-year lease. You’re 6
probably going to have modest escalators year over year and so you lock in these long, steady 7
rates and then subsequent markets are going to kind of key into those as well. 8
9
Overall, hitting the strategies, this is the good part. We got about eight different strategies that 10
kind of discuss – five main categories, I’m sorry. There’s allow more retail, formula retail on Cal 11
Ave. That was something that seemed to be a significant focus and there seems to be some 12
support for it, so we’ll get into that. We got slides for each of these to kind of get into some 13
examples. Allow non-retail on ground floor or former retail spaces. There’s other uses that 14
don’t fit the current definition of retail or retail-like and there are other uses that are permitted 15
but there are certain restrictions, so we’re going to look at those more closely. One of the 16
options is to maybe focus the RPO to the core areas and part of that is trying to right-size. 17
Again, we got 460,000 square feet of vacant square retail space in the area. That’s a lot to 18
absorb and so the market needs to adjust and right now your regulations don’t allow you to 19
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really adjust. If you got vacancies, the RPO requires them to effectively remain and if there’s 1
not a market to replace them with retail, you’re going to have these vacancies persist. 2
3
One of the things we can do is also lower the relief standards. There are some provisions to find 4
exceptions or relief from the RPO and the R and the G, well, the RPO and the R combined 5
district have relief provisions; however, they’re very tough and arguably impossible to meet. 6
There are some alternatives there and we’ll get into that. 7
8
And then a big broad one is simplify the code. Make it user friendly and that means for 9
everybody, that’s not just applicants, that’s staff as well. There’s a lot of opportunities there. 10
Your code is pretty old and what happens is they just get more and more complicated with 11
time. That’s just the natural course of things. Okay. Sorry. Throat is getting dry. It’s been a long 12
day. 13
14
Zoning strategies: The first one is what can we do with formula retail? We wanted to give you 15
some examples. One of the differences is maybe limit to just restaurants or certain franchises. 16
Right now, the Palo Alto code is all formula retail, anybody that has 10 similar type uses, 17
franchises if you will. That would be fast food. That would be restaurants, coffee shops. Any 18
retailer, you’re going to require a conditional use permit to – for them to come in. One example 19
might be to, for instance, Coronado restricts fast food separately from other uses, so they have 20
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different standards. Santa Monica also limits their formula to just fast food restaurants. They 1
don’t apply it to other uses. They have a restriction but it’s limited to fast food. That might be 2
an option and you could open up some of those other uses, again coffee shops and other type 3
of retailers, for instance. That might bring a little vitality. One of the advantages of formulas is 4
sometimes they got a little more money, they got a little pizzazz, they become the hot thing, 5
and they can actually drive business not only to themselves but also bring more foot traffic to 6
the area and support the other uses. It’s the, as one of my professors said years ago, the 7
economy is a glomeration. All these uses work together. That’s one of the options there. 8
9
I will note in Coronado some of the particular ways that they do it, so formula fast food requires 10
a minor special use permit. They limit to two fast food to any particular site and a maximum of 11
10 for the district. And Coronado, they’re really talking about that’s the kind of hotel district 12
from like the hotel down Orange Avenue. One option is to change your franchise thresholds. 13
Palo Alto is now any 10 similar-type uses or brands or franchises within the nation goes for any 14
business. Again, Santa Monica, they have a higher standard, it’s 150 would be the threshold 15
before it would count as a franchise or formula and it’s limited to just restaurants. Coronado is 16
closer to what Palo Alto does, it’s 15 restaurants or any other business. Again, they’ve got two 17
tiers. They’ve got formula fast food and formula businesses. I said retail but businesses but their 18
standard is 15 that share a name or logo or brand, etc. That’s one way you could potentially be 19
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provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
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a little bit more flexible and maybe allow a few uses to come in and hopefully generate some 1
more activity and support those other uses as well, add a little more vitality. 2
3
Another thing that can be done with or without those combinations for formula could be allow 4
some by right, again based on perhaps – or without a CUP. You could do – you maybe have 5
some thresholds there for size, by number, or concentration of area. For example, in Bristol, 6
Rhode Island, anything over 2500 square feet is prohibited in their downtown but they do allow 7
less than 2500 square feet with a CUP. The idea there is you got a number. You got a threshold 8
there based on size. In San Francisco, they have a formula retail ordinance they’ve had for quite 9
a while and they allow – they actually prohibit it in some districts and then they require a CUP 10
in other districts. Again, some of the mechanisms you can do there. One of the things that they 11
do in San Francisco also is formula retail anything greater than 20,000 square feet requires an 12
economic impact study. It’s a big use, you’re going to have to show that this is going to kind of 13
fit with the broader community and you get a full analysis of what [inaudible 306:28]. Grocery 14
stores are excepted. And then, another example is in Idaho they have a simple mechanism. 15
They just say basically if you’re going to have formula retail, we limit formula to 10 percent of 16
that category of businesses or like businesses. If you got clothing stores or restaurants, for 17
example, a maximum of 10 percent would be allowed to be formula, so they always – it would 18
always be kept as a minority use and I kind of like that approach. 19
20
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Okay. We can go through them and then maybe we can come back. I wanted to make sure I 1
explain these to you in our limited time and then we’ll probably end up talking some more 2
during maybe at the ad-hoc committee and at a subsequent meeting. Another one is to allow 3
non-retail on the ground floor, GF, ground floor. One is to allow, another example is – I didn’t 4
cite the examples but it was brought up in the Street Sense. It was brought up in Santa Monica 5
and other communities that we talked to. They allow it where it’s not street-facing, so it can be 6
behind the street-facing use, it can be on the side street. That makes sense. That’s consistent 7
with the stakeholder input that we had. One of the complaints was that this is applied to side 8
streets where there really isn’t even a demand for typical Main Street type street-front retail, 9
so you could be more flexible there. 10
11
Another option there is to, now that we’re very aware and you got measurement of your 12
vacancies and you can track that relatively easily, you can use that as one of your thresholds. 13
When vacancies exceed a standard, you can be more flexible. And so the example here is 14
vacancies exceed 5 percent in a district for more than six months, that actually was a standard 15
you used to have I understand and that would – you were able to give – grant relief to that. I’m 16
not sure when that changed but that’s a Palo Alto former code provision. 17
18
Other examples are, again kind of using the other factors such as size, proximity, or 19
concentration. Some examples that we can do would be to, for example, depends if you look at 20
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what you’re permitting. If you’re allowing minimum 25 percent ground floor must be 1
commercial, you actually have standards like that now in your mixed-use development 2
standards and so you can do that for other uses. And the idea is, again, you can set a parameter 3
and say, hey, we’re going to allow a certain amount or we’re going to require a certain amount. 4
In certain areas for mixed-use buildings or sites, you have a requirement now to require at least 5
25 percent for commercial and balance could be something else. That gives you kind of a 6
parameter and a point of reference or a kind of starting point. Max 15 percent of the total floor 7
area, you got a provision now in the Town & Country Zone, the zone that covers Town & 8
Country for – it limits offices to 15 percent of the total floor area, so a slightly different twist on 9
that. 10
11
You can also do frontage. One example is in San Francisco they have kind of a tiered system but 12
the assumption is 30 percent. If you end up with more than 30 percent, they use this for their 13
formula retail but you could use it for other non-retail uses, the presumption is if you have 14
more than 30 percent within a 300-foot radius of the actual like building frontage or frontage 15
facing the street that that’s going to be a limit. And so they’ve actually got a range of 20 to 30 16
depending when you get into the details. Another example is in the mixed-use specific plan in 17
Thousand Oaks. It covers Thousand Oaks Boulevard. They have a maximum 50 percent 18
noncommercial or nonretail or a minimum 50 percent retail, you can measure is either way. 19
And that’s limited to buildings over 100 feet of frontage, so small buildings they provide an 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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exception for. There’s a lot of different little kind of tools and mechanisms you could use. And 1
our job is not to come up with a precise one here but to get you enough to get some ideas and 2
some ideas of what you think might work well in Palo Alto, what might be palatable. 3
4
One of the other things that you’ve got are a number of restrictions on fitness and exercise 5
facilities [inaudible 311:34] over 1800 square feet are either prohibited or trigger a conditional 6
use permit depending on which zone you’re in. The industry standard is just under 3000 square 7
feet for these types of uses and so maybe you could allow 2500 or 3000 square feet without a 8
conditional use permit. That brings a lot of vitality to the street. I was at a bakery the other day 9
and while we were sitting there, 15, 20 people came through and were buying pastries at the 10
local bakery and they all came from the Pilates studio directly across the street, so after class 11
was done generated a lot of business. And so that would be a very easy fix, something to do. 12
13
Another one would be the maximum size per use without a conditional use permit. There’s a 14
number of different provisions in, for example, Palo Alto code amongst other where you have 15
straight-up limitations and you’ve – I had notes. I don’t have my speaker notes up. But 16
restaurants 5000 square feet, offices 3000 square feet, commercial recreation 5000 square 17
feet, for example. So you can pick and choose, depending on the particular uses. That might be 18
a way to go. You can kind of customize it. 19
20
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the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
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And then one idea was even just kind of the separation, is not – avoiding that concentration, so 1
maybe have separation distances and so you might want to limit the number per block or 2
within a given perimeter of each other. That’s similar to the third bullet there where you have 3
30 percent of the maximum frontage, building frontage within a 300-foot radius, so again, 4
trying to limit it. I will note that one other option was and I didn’t point it out with the formula 5
retail in Coronado, they limit the I’m trying to think if it’s the restaurants or the businesses, I 6
think it’s the restaurants to a 50-foot frontage. They require them to be small format and fit 7
into the kind of standard rhythm of typical retail spaces and 25 and 50-foot are very typical. 8
9
Okay. Moving along, these are some of the juicier ones. Allow other viable active uses. There 10
were a number of different uses that came up in the discussions particularly with the 11
stakeholders, things that they wanted to try. They’re similar, why not allow pet grooming, for 12
example. You also got restrictions on beauty shops, nail salons, barbershops, small learning 13
centers, and daycare. Those are your personal service businesses. Those will generate foot 14
traffic, bring people there, keep them there, and then hopefully people go and do some other 15
errands and support your other uses. Those are important, complementary uses. Retail zones 16
are not just retail. You could argue that they’re, in many ways, the minority. They need these 17
other uses. You need that variety to generate uses throughout the day and change the patterns 18
and draw people in and out. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
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Medical office with a retail component, lifestyle, and health services, so that was something 1
that had come up several times. There are some examples that we had, some very specific 2
examples where it was an optometrist that was a licensed optometrist was not allowed 3
because they have a medical license but you could have unlicensed, somebody selling glasses 4
and providing very much the same services in the very much same format would be allowed 5
because they’re not a licensed doctor. That doesn’t seem really equitable, so some options 6
there. Okay. 7
8
Limit RPO applicability. Again, this gets back to the idea of kind of right-sizing. RPO is citywide, 9
so all retail is protected and restricted from changing to nonretail uses. The options for getting 10
out of that are extremely burdensome and tough to do nonretail. Once you go to retail, you’re 11
kind of you’re stuck there and that can have that deterrent effect of people wanting to invest. 12
Yeah, I’d like to do retail now but I’m not going to get into this business and then be limited to 13
only retail. One of the ideas is let the market adjust. And so one of the ideas is, some of the 14
suggestions from stakeholders were just rescind it, remove it entirely. I think there’s other 15
smaller steps and that might be remove the citywide applicability and focus on the areas that 16
you really want, so perhaps in the core areas and let the noncore areas evolve over time. And it 17
doesn’t mean that they have to leave. The zoning still allows retail, still allows other uses but 18
the market can adjust over time. And if it becomes a strong market, great, if the market is there 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
those uses will remain. But if the market is weak – you’d probably prefer to direct those toward 1
your Cal Ave and your downtown streets and maybe some of the other El Camino nodes. 2
3
One of the ideas is what are your priority areas. Where, if you had to concentrate, where do 4
you want to keep it? What’s most important to you? And again, just to be aware of the possible 5
effects, retail would remain to be allowed if you were to remove the RPO requirement. It’s 6
allowed. It’s not required. That’s the difference. It’ll allow the market to balance, reduce retail 7
over time with demand or increase with demand, and allows former retail to convert to other 8
uses over time in non-RPO areas obviously. And then, it’s possible that by removing that 9
restriction you may attract new retail investment because there’s more flexibility, it’s less risky. 10
They’ve got options. If the retail doesn’t work out, they know they can put other commercial 11
uses in there, so something to consider. 12
13
This one I brought up before, easier relief. Right now, the RPO requires – an economic hardship 14
standard is an unconstitutional taking. That’s the highest level you could obviously go. I think 15
it’s unnecessary. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that in any other code, frankly. And so that’s an 16
option. You can lower that. There is a provision for alternative active uses, Number 2. That 17
makes a reasonable standard. It’s basically a practical difficulty. The demonstration for that 18
Number 3, there’s a lot of subjective terms in there, requires things like 10 years of history, a 19
pretty high bar that if you really want to deny something, you could deny something. It makes it 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
really easy to deny and reject something. It makes it really hard to allow a relief from this use. 1
We think that that’s an opportunity and the easy fix. I don’t know how many things have been 2
actually denied or even tried to go through this. I suspect that most people would look at this 3
code and not even bother and it may even be discouraging people from coming into Palo Alto if 4
they were smart and they looked at the code and they went, oh my gosh, what am I getting into 5
here, this is full of booby-traps. 6
7
And lastly is to simplify the zoning code. Make it easier for staff, applicants, and the public. It’s 8
really hard to navigate and get it right. And every time you get it right, you find another 9
provision. It’s full of double negatives and exceptions and exclusions. It’s really complicated and 10
that has an effect. It has effect on your staff, it has effect on [inaudible 319:37] generates a 11
culture in and of itself if you try to administer that code. It’s got an impression, right? And it’s 12
going to come off and people are going to get a feeling of no. In fact, one of the comments we 13
had is there’s a culture of no and this code is very much about no. 14
15
And so there’s a lot of opportunity for cleaning it up. In general, there’s lots of opportunity just 16
to make it easier to understand. It can be organized. Standardize the procedures and the 17
format. Again, it’s developed over time and there’s a lot of inconsistency. Simple intent and 18
purpose statements and there’s a good number of those in there but again, organizing the 19
whole thing. Objective standards, there’s a lot of subjective standards in there. And that’s, 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
actually, it’s a requirement now to eliminate those, particularly with housing requirements. 1
Simple processes; just make it easy. Clear comparative use tables. That’s the one I was saying to 2
staff. If you started anywhere, I would start there. That’s going to give you – it’s relatively easy 3
to do. It’s a good exercise. You’ll learn a lot about your code just by trying to put it into a table 4
and then it makes it easy to understand what the differences are between the various zones 5
and the various uses, so I think that’s a really good tool you could do first. 6
7
Formal interpretations, they happen and they should be recorded. Some codes have a system 8
for that where they at least they get saved somewhere and then they’re reused and ultimately 9
you take those interpretations and you update your code and codify them over time. 10
11
And eliminate the confusing, the redundancy, the duplication, the conflicts, the double 12
negatives. Just number one here, 7.1, one thing that we’re looking at is the CN Zone has a use 13
table then there’s a midtown use table. The midtown implementing zone is the CN, so you got 14
two use tables but they’re different based on the geography; opportunity to combine them. 15
Then there’s also a ground-floor use table that goes with that zone. Then it’s redundant with 16
your GF combining district that also overlaps with the CN in midtown. There’s a lot going on 17
there. And so every time you think you got an answer, you need to go look at three or four 18
other locations. That’s just one example and there’s many. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Multiple conflicts where the GF or the R combining district allows a use that’s not listed in the 1
underlying district: We did our kind of comparative tables. We’re noting that certain uses are 2
silent in the base zone. I’m trying to think of one of them. One was like I think it was real estate 3
office or something like that. It’s not clear if that’s allowed or not. It’s presumed to be 4
prohibited if it’s not listed but then it’s allowed as a CUP in the GF or the R district. And it kind 5
of makes you go, well, if it’s allowed with a CUP in this focused area that we’re most concerned 6
about, shouldn’t it be allowed more broadly without a CUP in the base zone? There’s some 7
weird things there and maybe there’s an answer, maybe there’s an interpretation but it’s – 8
there’s a lot of things like that that kind of set up some question marks and make it difficult. 9
And we talked about fitness studios. There’s also a similar provision where it talks about studios 10
over 1800 square feet and requiring a CUP but it doesn’t really say what about the ones under 11
1800 square feet, so it creates these kind of gaps and holes. 12
13
That’s a lot. We could go back and talk about these but it’s after 10:00. We were supposed to 14
have a hard stop at originally we were going to stop at 9. We didn’t start till 9:30. I appreciate 15
you guys listening, your patience, and your endurance going through this but I’m happy to take 16
some questions. But we did want to cover the upcoming meetings. We did work out, kind of 17
anticipating that you’ve got a busy schedule, building in some more ad hoc committee meetings 18
where we’ve got a little more flexibility, so we’ve got one scheduled I think for the 26th, right 19
before the March 27 PTC meeting. We can come back and talk about these in more detail at 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
both of those meetings. And then, we tentatively scheduled again to come back in April for ad 1
hoc and then hopefully make recommendations in May, and then getting to City Council in 2
June. Thank you for being patient with me. Appreciate it. Want to ask some questions? 3
4
Chair Summa: Thank you for that. Do my colleagues have any quick questions? Our consultant 5
has offered to answer a few. 6
7
Commissioner Reckdahl: Let the other people go first, non-ad hoc people, since we get to talk 8
to him. 9
10
Vice-Chair Chang: I know. I just want to make a process suggestion. 11
12
Chair Summa: Go ahead. 13
14
Vice-Chair Chang: I just wanted to make a quick process suggestion. I know the consultant 15
needs to go and I mean my own list here is like nine questions long. Admittedly, I’m on ad hoc, 16
so I can ask him questions later on but if Commissioner Lu and Commissioner Hechtman who 17
are not on the ad hoc have questions, maybe they can send them to Ms. French and then that 18
way, like if they’re in a similar boat as I am with a long list of questions, maybe they can send 19
them to Ms. French. But if they’re short questions, then I think maybe we can address those. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Hechtman: I don’t actually need to ask questions of the consultant tonight but I 2
am interested in dialoguing with the ad hoc committee. And I just want to make sure when the 3
consultant leaves tonight, are we going to keep going so we can hear from them? The ad hoc 4
committee has met, right? 5
6
Female: Yes. 7
8
Commissioner Hechtman: Right. And so I was thinking that part of tonight is the report we got 9
but part is also to hear some initial dialogue from the ad hoc. Is that going to happen or not? 10
11
Chair Summa: I believe that is scheduled to happen. Yes. 12
13
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. All right. 14
15
Chair Summa: Ad hoc. 16
17
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. So I don’t have questions for the consultant. 18
19
Chair Summa: Okay. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Hechtman: But we can see if Commissioner Lu does. 2
3
Chair Summa: Thank you for that. Commissioner, is that you? 4
5
Commissioner Reckdahl: Oh. Yeah. 6
7
Chair Summa: Yeah. Go ahead. 8
9
Commissioner Reckdahl: After. I’ll give George a shot first. 10
11
Chair Summa: George’s hand is not up. 12
13
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. Then I will go. 14
15
Chair Summa: I don’t want to wake him. 16
17
Commissioner Reckdahl: Dan, do you have the packet that we are – the staff report that we 18
had? Otherwise, we can bring it up. Can you bring up Packet Page 195, Amy? 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Vice-Chair Chang: It’s Slide 9 of the original presentation... 1
2
Commissioner Reckdahl: Oh. Yeah. 3
4
Vice-Chair Chang: ...that you had. It says Retail Trends Vacancy Rates. 5
6
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yep. That’s what I want. When I look at present day, present day is 7
where all these lines kind of go flat but the... 8
9
Dan Wery: Yeah. 10
11
Commissioner Reckdahl: ...top line still has some jiggles going forward. Is that a typo or is that 12
are you projecting wiggles in the future? 13
14
Dan Wery: Good question. And that is not my wiggles and jiggles. This is from a service that we 15
use called Costar and so they’re tracking that. They’re showing they expect some changes to 16
occur, so it’s not just a flat line, hey, we ended at 15 percent and we’re going to project it out 17
flat line. Some of these areas they do show flat, some increasing slightly but they expect some 18
volatility, that top bar. If you look at – is it up? Oh. I don’t think that’s the one you wanted is it? 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Reckdahl: No. It... 1
2
Dan Wery: You’re looking at the vacancy rates, Amy. It’s the one [inaudible 328:21]... 3
4
Commissioner Reckdahl: It’s Packet Page 195. 5
6
Dan Wery: ...if you want. There you go. Yeah. 7
8
Commissioner Reckdahl: Do you know how they extrapolate going out or is it some black box 9
that you [inaudible 328:31]? 10
11
Dan Wery: It’s a little bit of a black box, yeah. We’d have to ask but they didn’t explain it. Most 12
of it is reported, so up to the first quarter or last quarter of 2023, those are actual data points. 13
And then it’s kind of funny but it is kind of funny how they expect it to specifically bounce in 14
kind of through 2024 basically. Particularly, I’m looking at that top bar in particular, which is 15
Santa Monica. And one thing that I think in the literature and what’s happening in the markets 16
is a lot of the loans that people took out to build these spaces are coming due and that’s – so 17
it’s another real estate bubble and so that’s putting extra pressure on the market. Aside from 18
the e-commerce and the loss of markets and retail, a lot of people are somewhat upside-down 19
on these properties, not all of them but some of them are upside-down where they’re worth 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
less than they owe. And so I’m suspecting that they’re looking at they may know something 1
that we don’t in terms of when some of these loans and things are coming due. 2
3
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. And can you now move up to the three more slides, let’s see, 4
four more. Let’s see. On Packet Page 200, which is Slide 14. 5
6
Dan Wery: Yeah. Rent per square foot. Yeah. 7
8
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah. 9
10
Dan Wery: Oh. You just... 11
12
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. Yep. There we go. Okay. So if you showed me these two plots, I 13
would say they’re not the same time period, they’re not because we have vacancies 14
dramatically rising but yet rents are still going up. 15
16
Dan Wery: Yep. 17
18
Commissioner Reckdahl: And I understand that they will hold off looking for the best tenant but 19
at some point doesn’t supply and demand kick in? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Dan Wery: Yeah. You think it would and I think that’s why I was talking about why do these 2
vacancies persist and to the same point, why do these rents persist. And I think it is that long-3
term investment that people lock into these rates and I think owners are very reluctant to 4
backslide and kind of ratchet down and set a new lower mark. They’d rather kind of keep it 5
where it is and go as vacancies until they get somebody. All of these have a very similar trend 6
line. If you look at that rate between where they are and where they end up, despite a few of 7
the bumps, very consistent angles. They’re all different rental rates but those trends are very 8
consistent. Those slopes are very consistent. They get a little bumpier when there’s more 9
variation. As you get up in the higher rent areas, there’s more variation. Again, the top bar is 10
Santa Monica. That’s the most expensive by per square foot. When you see that, they were 11
much more variation. 12
13
Vice-Chair Chang: Can I just – because our packet page covers, the little packet page number 14
covers up the legend. 15
16
Dan Wery: Oh. 17
18
Vice-Chair Chang: What’s the brown line and what’s the black line again? 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
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Dan Wery: Yeah. I’ll orient you. The, I’ll go top to bottom, so the top dark gray is Santa Monica. 1
That’s kind of the Third Street Promenade District, around that area. The blue line is downtown. 2
3
Commissioner Reckdahl: Downtown Palo Alto. 4
5
Dan Wery: Yeah. The gray line is Town & Country. They’ve got very high rates. They’re right 6
there with downtown. And then that kind of brick red is Santa Monica’s Main Street, so they’re 7
kind of right in the middle of everybody. And then the green line I guess is the next one down. 8
That’s midtown. 9
10
Surabhi Barbhaya: Yeah. 11
12
Dan Wery: The orange line is Cal Ave. The red line is El Camino Real near I guess it says south 13
but it’s really more east toward Los Altos. The pink line, magenta is Los Altos. That’s their CRS 14
Zone. And the brown line, where did it go? The last line is the – I think that’s El Camino near Cal 15
Ave. 16
17
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah. When I look at the differential, they all move together but also 18
the spacing seems to be fairly constant and so... 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Dan Wery: Yeah. You do... 1
2
Commissioner Reckdahl: ...I understand why people... 3
4
Dan Wery: You do see a correction. Interestingly enough, I think there’s a correction kind of 5
post COVID. You see everybody has got a little dip and wiggle in 2023. And I think that what I 6
was saying before was there’s a lot of loans coming due and I think that this is kind of my 7
[inaudible 333:35]. I haven’t heard that precisely tied into that but I’ve been reading about 8
there’s a lot of insolvency in the market and a lot of loans are coming due and there’s a big 9
trend called extend and pretend and the idea is we’re going to extend our loan and pretend 10
that everything is okay and I’m going to still pay my mortgage at the same rates based on the 11
same assumptions that I’m earning and I’m getting the same rents and I have the same number 12
of clients and tenants when that’s not the reality. And that was done during the great 13
recession. And actually, I think it worked out pretty well because things did recover and so the 14
extend and pretend for a time period worked out well. There was all sorts of financial 15
incentives and assistance and the market did rebound dramatically and so people were able to 16
kind of continue on and pay off a lot of their mortgages; a lot of people didn’t. 17
18
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Reckdahl: When you compare, for example, Downtown Palo Alto with Los Altos, 1
it’s 50 percent larger rent. Is that because Downtown Palo Alto is that much more lucrative or is 2
there some expectation and it’s not necessarily more lucrative? 3
4
Dan Wery: It’s all relative. It’s the laws of real estate. It’s all about location, location, location. 5
Those have had higher rents, they were higher, better markets because they could command 6
more rent because they had a greater market share. You had a better environment. You had a 7
long four-block main street. You had a really strong, thriving office market. You had lots of 8
customers. There’s a lot of different reasons for that but basically each one represents its 9
relative strength in the broad market. 10
11
Commissioner Reckdahl: What’s your experience, how widespread is rent-setting software or 12
you buy a service that tells you how much to rent your [inaudible 335:31]? 13
14
Dan Wery: That I don’t know. I wouldn’t go there but you could ask some of your property 15
managers would probably have some better answers for you. 16
17
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. 18
19
Dan Wery: Yeah. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Reckdahl: That’s all I have. 2
3
Dan Wery: Great questions. 4
5
Chair Summa: Does anyone else have... 6
7
Commissioner Reckdahl: I guess I have one more comment... 8
9
Chair Summa: Okay. 10
11
Commissioner Reckdahl: ...is that we have this statement that we have too much office space 12
and that we should, I mean too much commercial space and consider having alternate uses. 13
And so if you reduce the amount of retail this would – these curves would go even higher. And 14
when I look at the top plot, the blue line of downtown, if we made that become even steeper 15
because we cut back on the amount of retail, I’m afraid that we’d be pricing out even more and 16
would the vacancy problem actually go worse. They would now be able to hold off even more. 17
18
Dan Wery: I think what you don’t see in here is you don’t – again, these are – these rates are 19
spread over – these let’s say average 10 years. A lot of them are over 10 years. It’s like average 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
is like 60 percent are over 10-year leases, 10 years or more, so that’s locking in rates. Those 1
could be empty. I mean, that’s what’s happening in the office market. People are paying their 2
rent but there may not be people there and you can sustain that for a while and then 3
something is going to happen ultimately, so that’s the kind of extend and pretend. People are 4
hoping that they’re going to fill that space and get tenants back in there at a comparable rate 5
but yeah, ultimately, it may have to change. I don’t know if it’s going to go down. I think there is 6
a lot of weakness in there, so it’s going to be hard for people to ask for higher rents if the 7
market keeps getting weaker. There will be some corrections. And you can see in those higher 8
rents you see those bumps and jiggles are more pronounced the more expensive areas, 9
particularly that Santa Monica one is pretty... 10
11
Commissioner Reckdahl: What is strange to me is that when you compare these lines, the ones 12
with the highest rents are the ones with the highest vacancies. Again, it’s like supply and 13
demand is not kicking in. 14
15
Dan Wery: Yeah. 16
17
Vice-Chair Chang: For comparison, can I ask a question about the – you just mentioned that 18
there’s long leases. We’ve heard this before for retail and there’s also the retail buildout or 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
restaurant buildout as the case may be. But what’s the average kind of – what about office, 1
because we also hear about long timelines for office. 2
3
Dan Wery: Yeah. The offices tend to range average between five and seven-year leases, so 4
they’re shorter. Their tenant improvement costs are much less than retail. 5
6
Vice-Chair Chang: It’s helpful just because we hear all the time Stanford Research Park and 7
we’ve got like a 25-year lease. And obviously it’s different in downtown probably. 8
9
Dan Wery: Yeah. Your market may be a little different and I don’t know if we’ve got access to 10
that data, what it averages for Palo Alto but that’s an industry standard is... 11
12
Vice-Chair Chang: I mean, I think that’s one of the critical things for us because I also know that 13
we are off-the-charts unique in terms of our jobs-housing imbalance and therefore our zip code 14
it’s very attractive to have an office here and so we’ve been beating back office with the goal of 15
having some retail or having some housing because always we’re told by developers that they 16
want office. And so I guess my question to you is given that we know that we are an outlier 17
specific to how desirable our office space is, some of the recommendations that you proposed 18
about allowing alternative uses I think our concern is that if they were long leases or if they 19
were an office use that, my gosh, we could end up with nothing else here. And so I just wanted 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
to know if there are other jurisdictions that you’ve worked in because there are some really 1
interesting ideas from other jurisdictions that you just shared with us, are there other ones that 2
you’ve worked with that have been in a similar situation where the office space is just so 3
desirable? 4
5
Dan Wery: Yeah. In fact, some, it may not be a direct answer to you but some of the areas have, 6
like I said, some of the retail in some areas is doing really well and it happens to be where the 7
office market is thriving and really doing well. Palo Alto, however, your office market has also 8
experienced very similar patterns in terms of vacancies; they’re way up. And I got a chart, if I 9
can share my screen. Let’s see if I can do that. See if I can get it really quick. [Inaudible 340:46] 10
this. 11
12
Commissioner Reckdahl: One question, Dan, for that previous plot that showed the rents, was 13
that per month or per year? 14
15
Dan Wery: The rents are I think those are quarterly, reported quarterly. 16
17
Commissioner Reckdahl: So [inaudible 341:04]. 18
19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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Dan Wery: [Inaudible 341:04] so they, and if you look at the individuals, there’s a chart and 1
behind that is they do vary quite a bit. Actually, there’s quite a bit of range. 2
3
Commissioner Reckdahl: But the... 4
5
Dan Wery: Actually, I’m sorry. That was a different one. 6
7
Commissioner Reckdahl: ...vertical axis... 8
9
Dan Wery: The one I’m thinking of is a different chart for [inaudible 341:20]. 10
11
Commissioner Reckdahl: ...when I see $60, does that mean $60 per month rent or $60 per year 12
rent? 13
14
Dan Wery: Per square foot, I believe that it’s probably rental, it’s monthly I’m assuming. 15
16
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. That’s... 17
18
Dan Wery: Yeah. Let’s see if I got the right chart here. 19
20
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Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah. 1
2
Dan Wery: Oops. I missed it, my other sheet. I grabbed the wrong one. Hang on. I don’t know if 3
I grabbed the wrong document. 4
5
Amy French: Dan, is this Packet 199? It’s got a table of – no. 6
7
Dan Wery: It’s a different one. I wanted to show you the office one and I just grabbed the 8
wrong one. Sorry. Hang on. Okay. Here we go. And I just wanted to show you that the vacancy 9
rates and total floor area in Palo Alto has gone way up. And where is it? This is it. Share. Okay. 10
Are you seeing my screen? 11
12
Male: Yeah. 13
14
Female: Yes. We see it. 15
16
Dan Wery: Okay. I can put it in presentation mode maybe that would be a little better. There it 17
goes. There you go, a little bit bigger. This is Palo Alto, well, it’s all the same communities and 18
areas that we looked at. Downtown is the blue line on top here. And you can see, again, the 19
general trend is we had vacancies under 100,000 square feet for everybody it’s down low and 20
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then with COVID way up, took a little recovery in late 2021, and then it keeps heading up again. 1
If I get my laser, I can... 2
3
Vice-Chair Chan: I’m laughing because everything to the right of the dotted line is like fake. 4
Right? I mean it’s a projection but how do we not know... 5
6
Dan Wery: Yeah. Well... 7
8
Vice-Chair Chan: ...how do we not – how do we know that it’s not going to keep going up? 9
10
Dan Wery: It’s the dotted line is I was kind of keying that in because this, the first solid line is 11
kind of 2020 when COVID hit or just before it hit, so I was just trying to kind of bookend that. 12
What I was trying to note here with the dotted lines on some of my slides was really kind of an 13
anomaly. There were some significant changes happening in 20-, late 2023, and so I was just 14
kind of booking that to see. And it’s similar to the retail. The trend lines are all up, pretty 15
dramatic during COVID, some recovery. Some have come back down, like Cal Ave peaked in late 16
2022 and has kind of bumped along but it’s down right now. It’s good. And then, it’s up a little 17
bit the end of 2023 and then you could see the projection they’re kind of thinking it’s going to 18
continue up. I think, generally, these larger markets Costar is projecting that they’re going to 19
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remain up or kind of be a slow incline for a while and I think that’s just as things work through 1
the market, working through those gaps. 2
3
I don’t know their magic box between them but you do see a lot of – there’s some volatility. We 4
saw a lot of changes going on here. And Office Trends, it says Rent Per SF. That title is wrong. 5
Sorry. This is total square foot, not rent per square foot. And then what’s the other one? These 6
are the vacancy rates. You can see they’re kind of up and down, up and down, up and down. I 7
didn’t do the trend lines on this one to make it a little cleaner but you can see again like the 8
retail ones it was kind of lower. Their low point in vacancy rate was 2015, 2017, and then 9
started to head up right before COVID, so there’s some softness in there, and then really hit 10
with COVID and then obviously you see kind of the craziness. It is interesting, this last year 11
there’s a lot of changes going on, so some are heading up and some are heading down. There 12
are some things happening here and I can’t totally explain that but the point is there’s quite a 13
bit of total – sorry, I’m going the wrong direction – total floor area. Right now, we’re sitting at 14
360,000 square feet or more in the downtown area, a lot. Then you’ve got another what, 125 or 15
so, 130 in Cal Ave of vacant office. That’s a lot to absorb. So I don’t think that’s your threat right 16
now. 17
18
And again, ground-floor spaces are not really where offices want to be. They’re also more 19
expensive in terms of tenant improvements typically because you’ve got that glass in the front, 20
_______________________
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more presentation space. Offices aren’t really – it’s not their most desirable place to be. And we 1
know it hasn’t been, it’s not the reason for your retail vacancies because you’ve got vacancies 2
even with the RPO that prevents or with the other code that prevents office from taking over, 3
so we know that’s not crowding out retail or hasn’t. So maybe that was a threat in 2015 but I 4
don’t think it’s – it doesn’t look like it’s going to be a threat for any foreseeable future. 5
6
Commissioner Reckdahl: I’m still confused by the previous plot that was showing like $44 per 7
square foot per month because... 8
9
Vice-Chair Chang: Can I just suggest? I think that it’s late. They’re supposed to go. 10
11
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. 12
13
Vice-Chair Chang: We could take it offline and then go ask them all their questions [inaudible 14
346:58]. 15
16
Dan Wery: We’re way past our bedtimes. Yes. Anyway but yeah, this is the rent per square foot 17
for retail. Retail [inaudible 347:07]. 18
19
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah but the offices [inaudible 347:10]. 20
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1
Dan Wery: The offices are a similar pattern, though. They have similar patterns. They’re higher. 2
That’s what I remember. I don’t have that chart handy with me, though. 3
4
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. We’ll talk during the ad hoc. 5
6
Dan Wery: Okay. 7
8
Chair Summa: Okay. Thank you very much. And I know our consultants want to go, so I think 9
we’ll bring it back to... 10
11
Male: So that’s a hard stop at 10:34, so. 12
13
Female: Thanks a lot, Dan... 14
15
Male: Thank you for staying with us. I really appreciate it. 16
17
Female: ...and Surabhi. 18
19
Male: A lot of good insights. 20
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1
Dan Wery: Great. 2
3
Chair Summa: Thank you very much. 4
5
Dan Wery: Thank you. 6
7
Female: Good night. 8
9
Chair Summa: And... 10
11
Dan Wery: [Inaudible 347:46]. 12
13
Chair Summa: ...so goodnight to our consultants and we will bring it back to the commission for 14
discussion. What? 15
16
Vice-Chair Chang: [Inaudible 347:59]. 17
18
Amy French: Oh. George has his hand up now. Oh. He did. 19
20
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Commissioner Lu: I just wanted to make a quick note. Those numbers are almost certainly 1
dollars per square foot per year. Those kind of line up with my understanding of what a typical 2
rent is and I think it’s also quite often that retail rents are calculated per year, so. 3
4
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. That makes more sense because typically office rent in Palo Alto 5
is around $9/square foot per month and retail would not be five times that, so. 6
7
Chair Summa: Okay. I just want to double check and make sure we don’t have any public 8
speakers. 9
10
Veronica Dao: No. I have no public comments. 11
12
Chair Summa: Okay. Thank you very much. Okay. Back to us, how would you like to proceed? 13
Because I... 14
15
Vice-Chair Chang: Why doesn’t the ad hoc just give a quick update? We... 16
17
Chair Summa: And then you don’t want to discuss this anymore? 18
19
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Vice-Chair Chang: Well, I think we can discuss it but I think it would be helpful to Commissioners 1
Lu and Hechtman if they understood just how little we have actually accomplished so that you 2
know. 3
4
Chair Summa: And Summa. 5
6
Vice-Chair Chang: And Summa, yes, and Summa. 7
8
Chair Summa: I also think that the new slides that we saw were very different than what we 9
had before and we didn’t have an opportunity to really absorb them with – and they had more 10
specific suggestions. If you would like to move to the ad hoc report, we’ll take that now. 11
12
Commissioner Reckdahl: I took some notes and just some interesting things. Part of this, part of 13
the discussion is the same thing we talked about here is that supply and demand doesn’t seem 14
to be kicking in and that really bothered me. They gave us a paper that showed that landlords 15
really want a long-term, the best long-term tenant they can, and if they have to leave their spot 16
open for two years, three years while they’re looking for it, that’s good because their leases are 17
so long that they do not want to have a bad tenant. They want to – so they’re really being picky. 18
And so that’s part of the reason is that maybe that it’s just the standard case of them being 19
picky and a lot of landlords being picky at the same time and no one’s – it’s a game of chicken 20
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kind of. If I think that I can get this money by waiting another year, I’m not going to – but if you 1
think that everyone is going to undercut you, then you may start cutting it. But no one is cutting 2
rents right now, at least on average it is not. 3
4
Vice-Chair Chang: But essentially what we discussed in the ad hoc was sort of level setting on 5
what our goals are, how difficult it is actually to get additional data. And so I think there was 6
kind of consensus among the ad hoc committee members that we’re just going to really try and 7
focus on low-hanging fruit. Our understanding from staff is that staff’s goal is to by June have a 8
set of potential strategies that we present to Council sort of in the vein of these five things that 9
Mr. Wery just presented to us. If we can get – I think that there’s also some interest on the ad 10
hoc of potentially maybe being even more concrete than just buckets of five or six buckets or 11
whatever strategies. But that I think that there was general understanding that the data is 12
difficult to get. And yet there are problems that we know that we do have, so let’s just focus 13
now on zeroing on which ones of those we think that we should, we as a City should really 14
move on. 15
16
And the consultants and staff asked us what should we be presenting to the PTC, which is why 17
we asked for this additional data. Because we, the PTC, had not seen the Cal Ave information 18
and that was useful. Similarly, we had that question about rents and supply and demand, which 19
is why they gave us this paper. And then finally, this wasn’t the ad hoc but this was in the pre-20
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meeting on Tuesday for this meeting, Chair Summa and I suggested that it would be very 1
helpful to give examples of rather than just broadly saying relax formula retail, to give us a 2
sense of what that could mean so that to provide some more color so we, since we don’t have 3
actual data of retailers saying you should do this, then knowing what other cities have done 4
might give us ideas of things that we could possibly consider. Does anybody have additions to 5
that? 6
7
Commissioner Akin: Yeah. I’d go along with all of that. Some of what you saw in Dan’s 8
presentation tonight is a response to the questions that we were struggling with in the ad hoc. 9
The level of complexity is a little higher than I would have expected given the questions that we 10
asked but the direction is better. I think we can – we’re beginning to get more useful guidance 11
out of this than we had before. 12
13
Commissioner Reckdahl: And then one of the questions that Dan particularly is not a fan of the 14
RPO. And so we were talking about, well, supposed that you want to cut back on it, what do 15
you do. And one of the things he was saying is, well, maybe El Camino you pull back on that and 16
say we’re going to let the market dictate but downtown you may still want that to be retail if 17
that’s because you want the critical mass. And so areas where you don’t think you quite have 18
critical mass, do you pull back and let the market determine whether you have retail or not? 19
That if you try to balance it over the city that may be a better approach but the people who live 20
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near El Camino now may not have any retail. But so how important is that critical mass or do 1
you pull it in on the edges of downtown and say we’re going to shrink downtown or do you just 2
say leave it as-is? There’s different options. And right now, we don’t have good data to say 3
what to do. And that’s one of the problems is that you don’t want to just be kind of making 4
these knee-jerk decisions... 5
6
Commissioner Akin: We have to, yeah, we have to be able... 7
8
Commissioner Reckdahl: ...of guessing, of my intuition says that we should do this as opposed 9
to having some type of data or some type of like some other city had this problem, they did this 10
and it helped. That would give you some more guidance as opposed to just using your intuition 11
of what you think is going to work out. 12
13
Commissioner Akin: We have to be a little careful about focusing too much on RPO. Because if 14
you look at the charts, you can see exactly the same trends in say Santa Monica as here and, of 15
course, they don’t have an RPO, so this is an indication that it’s the other factors that are more 16
important. And as a counterexample there’s Los Altos, which doesn’t have an RPO and also 17
doesn’t produce the same – show the same trends. What we’re trying to do is get at what those 18
other factors are rather than just immediately attacking the RPO. 19
20
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Vice-Chair Chang: What I would say is that we are now all, as like staff, consultants, and the ad 1
hoc, more aligned on where we’re headed and where I think there may still be a little bit more 2
of a gap is specifically on the RPO. I think that for all the reasons that Commissioner Akin just 3
elucidated, we, the ad hoc at least, we’re a little bit more leery of making large tweaks to the 4
RPO because there is already so many other low-hanging fruit, like relaxing formula retail in 5
various ways that might not have as long-ranging consequences in the form of like long leases 6
that we can – what if you get a tenant in someplace, you can’t boot them. That always makes 7
us a little bit nervous. Whereas if the goal is just to make things more attractive to retailers, 8
reducing RPO doesn’t necessarily directly do that, so I think that’s kind of where we’re leaning 9
but that’s as far as we got. We had one 1 hour and 15 minute meeting and that was it. 10
11
Chair Summa: Well, I would like to observe that I think that’s a lot of progress, to be honest, 12
because I think it’s really honing in on where there’s opportunity and where there may not be 13
opportunity. I think that’s good for 1½ hours, personally. 14
15
Vice-Chair Chang: But I think we would like to hear more from the three of you here who are 16
not in the ad hoc as to whether you kind of concur with the direction that we’re heading or 17
whether you have any concerns about that or what you would like to know more about so that 18
as we noodle on things over the next two weeks and do more investigation, we know where to 19
head. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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1
Chair Summa: Commissioner Lu? 2
3
Commissioner Lu: Yeah. I agree that there’s a lot of progress. And I was really impressed and 4
pleased by a bunch of the work from Dan and the consultant team and, yeah, just appreciate 5
the work that both Dan and also the ad hoc did in kind of getting a pretty interesting list of 6
concrete strategies in front of us. Maybe just a couple of questions, was there any 7
consideration of vacancy taxes? 8
9
Commissioner Akin: Yeah. In fact, that’s an interesting discussion in the Harvard paper that Dan 10
passed along to us. And the short answer is he’s almost convinced me the tradeoffs are you – 11
it’s difficult to set the level correctly and what you get is not immediately reduce retail vacancy 12
but improved vacancy rates and a different kind of tenant, so you get more churn, you get 13
lower-end tenants. You get those tenants that the property managers otherwise would have 14
ruled out. And that’s not necessarily a bad tradeoff but we just need to understand it a little 15
better. 16
17
Commissioner Lu: Yeah. 18
19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Reckdahl: I think if you’re sitting at 10 percent vacancy, then it may not be a 1
good thing because you really want long-term but if you’re getting to the point where you 2
might be losing critical mass, there’s so many empty spaces that no one wants to go down 3
there anymore, you may be better off filling that with a second-tier retailer than having an 4
empty storefront. 5
6
Commissioner Lu: I thought there was great discussion of how these, all these other policies 7
played out in different contexts and what it looked like. And I’d be curious for at least like a 8
cursory look at different vacancy tax implementations. Yeah, I realize setting the rates is hard 9
and tenant dynamics are really strange but there must be some case studies out there that I 10
personally would be interested in looking at. But yeah, it might be something to time box if it’s 11
something that we don’t think is likely to help us. The only other question that I had was can 12
someone kind of qualitatively talk about the plan for outreach to businesses and landlords and 13
so on? There’s a bit of a discussion in the packet but it wasn’t super concrete to me the full 14
scope of what we do in the near future. Yeah. Any comments on outreach I would be curious 15
about. 16
17
Vice-Chair Chang: What was the last word you said? 18
19
Male: Outreach. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Vice-Chair Chang: Outreach. Oh. 2
3
Commissioner Lu: Any comment... 4
5
Vice-Chair Chang: Well, the outreach, so essentially staff said, we’ve tried, we are super 6
stretched, as we well know. They’re working on Housing Element and many other things, so 7
they asked the three of us how much time do we have to do it. That’s where it stands. 8
9
Commissioner Lu: Okay. 10
11
Vice-Chair Chang: And unfortunately, when I asked Chair Summa which contacts do you have, 12
they were exactly the contacts that already have given us their feedback in the Cal Ave studies, 13
so I don’t think talking to them again would give us any new information per se unless we have 14
new questions to ask. 15
16
Commissioner Lu: Yeah. Got it. Yeah. I was struck by some of the conversation around the 17
stakeholders that we were hearing from around I forget which exact aspect of the retail 18
preservation but how there’s a mention about how stakeholders were almost entirely against 19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
this form of retail preservation and to me it sounded like the stakeholders were probably all 1
landlords, which is fine. I think they’re really important to talk to but it wasn’t... 2
3
Vice-Chair Chang: Right. We... 4
5
Commissioner Lu: ...full picture. 6
7
Vice-Chair Chang: ...three ad hoc committee members intend to talk to some businesses; 8
however, it depends on how much time we have, and we have yet to come up with a joint 9
questionnaire, so we’re going to try. And if you have any particular contact, specific contacts of 10
people, then that would be helpful. 11
12
Commissioner Lu: Yeah. Okay. 13
14
Commissioner Akin: You reminded me of something else that came up earlier. We talk about 15
the competition of the tenants for the attention of the landlords. What we haven’t talked about 16
very much is the competition among the landlords, which downtown is actually pretty limited. 17
There aren’t very many large property owners active downtown, so this means, I guess, there 18
are fewer opportunities for the tenants to choose. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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Vice-Chair Chang: So, sorry, you were saying there’s not very many large landlords downtown. 1
In other words, there’s a concentration of a few who hold a lot is your point? 2
3
Commissioner Akin: That’s... 4
5
Vice-Chair Chang: Because the other interpretation of that would be that there’s lots of tiny... 6
7
Commissioner Akin: Oh. 8
9
Vice-Chair Chang: ...landlords. 10
11
Commissioner Akin: Oh. 12
13
Vice-Chair Chang: And I just wanted to make clear which one it was. 14
15
Commissioner Akin: Oh. I’m sorry. It didn’t occur to me. It’s getting late. There are large 16
landlords, there are just not very of them and they account for a large fraction of the 17
properties. 18
19
Male: Do you want to talk? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Male: Yeah. [Inaudible 363:47]. 2
3
Chair Summa: Yeah. Oh. Go ahead. 4
5
Female: [Inaudible 363:51]. 6
7
Male: Yeah. 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: Commissioner Lu, are you done? 10
11
Commissioner Lu: Yes. Thank you. 12
13
Commissioner Hechtman: Sure. Okay. As I understand the work of the ad hoc committee in its 14
first meeting and incidentally thank the three of you who decided to take this on, to take it on, 15
because it’s a lot of work in a short amount of time even if you’re not interviewing individual 16
business owners, which is like piling on. But it sounds like your first meeting was really an 17
opportunity to, as a group, sort of get your arms around the task, dialogue with the consultants 18
about some additional information that you needed as a base to help you understand 19
baselines, and that they’ve at least started to provide that in some of the documents that we 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
saw tonight in the report, which it may have been the first time you saw those too. Okay. All 1
right. That’s really helpful. That is. People are starting to row in the right direction in the same 2
rhythm, you and the consultants, and so I think that’s a natural part of the process. I guess the 3
thing that’s really occurring to me is almost a broader picture and that’s sort of like setting 4
expectations. Ms. French, when was the RPO adopted? What year was it? 2015? 5
6
Female: I think it’s 2015. 7
8
Amy French: I want to say 2015. 9
10
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. That’s what I thought. Okay. 11
12
Female: Yeah. 13
14
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 2015, so it was before I was on the commission and really 15
wasn’t paying attention to local politics at the time. But since I’ve joined the commission, the 16
RPO it’s like sacred, right? It’s like this untouchable thing that is saving the fabric of Palo Alto. 17
And what I’m kind of curious about is and we’ve seen that reflected in some of the things at 18
least to my perspective that the Commission has been involved in since I’ve been here, I’m 19
remembering when we were asked to make recommendations on sort of softening some of the 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
requirements at Town & Country to see if we could up the – improve the – lower the vacancy 1
rate, increase the tenant mix. There was another opportunity I think we had where we were 2
asked to opine on medical retail I think it was, right? And one of those, one I thought was 3
maybe broader, like could have been applicable on Cal Ave. But I don’t know that either of 4
those efforts went anywhere. I know that Town & Country ultimately didn’t. They I think pretty 5
much stayed where they had been and my observation was it seemed like we were still kind of 6
cleaving to the RPO. 7
8
And so as we start this exercise directed by the Council, what I’m wondering is sort of what’s 9
changed. Is this an exercise that could lead to modification of the RPO or is this an exercise 10
that’s going to try to change everything without changing – change as much as we can without 11
touching the RPO? And I’ve heard a number of, perhaps at least two of the three members of 12
the ad hoc tonight suggest maybe that the improvement to our local economy in the retail 13
sense is not about modifying the RPO, it’s these other things because we’re starting to see 14
some of the statistics from places that don’t have the RPO are tracking what we’re doing. It’s 15
making me wonder if there was in the Council direction that has created this process was there 16
some indication that the RPO was fair game or that the, alternatively, that what can we do to 17
make things better without affecting the RPO? Can we have a sense of that? 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Amy French: I don’t recall seeing in – there’s a motion from Council when they saw the Street 1
Sense and I don’t recall them saying don’t touch the RPO. It’s an interesting framing of this 2
because it’s kind of like the 50-foot-height limit, right? Are we going to go there? Is that okay to 3
go there? And why would we go there? But I don’t have the motion in front of me. 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. 6
7
Amy French: That might be something to talk about at the ad hoc before the next meeting. 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. And that’s really all. I’m just planting a seed because in sort of 10
deciding what your outcome, output is going to be, if there are some constraints that you need 11
to be aware of on the front end, again, because whatever recommendation this body sends to 12
the City Council, it’s going to be with the hope that they’ll take it and act on it. And so I don’t 13
want to do something that they think is, well, we’re out of our lane and then a lot of work, 14
twice as much or more by the ad hoc committee, isn’t fully realized. 15
16
Amy French: I’ll just say one more thing about that and that is at the ad hoc meeting, John the 17
director noted that when this thing was put on to the City, this restriction, there was not a lot of 18
research. No research like what we’re doing now to see if it should be modified, so that’s kind 19
of something to think about is we just slapped it on basically. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. 2
3
Amy French: Without – just as a kneejerk to oh-oh, what’s happening out there? 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. 6
7
Amy French: And now, we’re methodically and to a great level of detail trying to study it. 8
9
Vice-Chair Chang: Well, yes and no because the data that we have doesn’t actually point 10
specifically to it, unfortunately. But I did bring up in our ad hoc meeting exactly that, which is 11
I’m hearing from one council member who was also on the Council ad hoc that, oh no, we’re 12
not saying when we approved, when we accepted the Street Sense report, because I read the 13
motion. I didn’t watch the entire meeting but I did understand that there were some Council 14
Members who objected to certain pieces of the Street Sense report and others – like there 15
wasn’t necessarily wholesale agreement on every single recommendation. That’s not the 16
format in which the motion took, at least, so I think there’s a little bit of confusion at least 17
among certain Council Members about what that motion actually meant. And then we saw in 18
detail at the last Council meeting I attended that again there was like confusion around 19
interpretation of what the motion actually meant. It could be the motion to accept the Street 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Sense report is to accept the Street Sense report and implement all the recommendations that 1
were outlined therein or accept it just because, okay, we’re done reading it, like we’re 2
accepting it. 3
4
And so it’s a good question that you ask because that’s also what I’ve been asking, which is like 5
so am I supposed to look at hacking away at the RPO or not? Because if I’m not supposed to 6
and it’s not going to be accepted, why would I do it? But if that’s what we want to do, then 7
great, that’s what I’ll do. So yes, there is a little bit of question there and I brought that up and 8
Director Lait’s response was like, well, all I can do is look at the text of the motion. 9
10
Chair Summa: It was my observation, if you look at the text of the original motion, I concur with 11
you. And then the next, the last discussion that there was a lot of exactly the same confusion, 12
whether or not they were accepting the report because it was the last time they were going to 13
see that particular consultant. But I didn’t ever take it to mean that we would hack away at the 14
RPO nor did I mean that I thought it doesn’t mean we could make some adjustments. And I sort 15
of think that maybe what Bryna, Commissioner Chang means when she says let’s get the low-16
hanging fruit and it’s very good information now to know from the ad hoc that there doesn’t 17
appear to be correlation, at least in the other city studies, with vacancy rate and having the 18
RPO. I don’t think that it’s – it may be sacred for some people but I think if there are 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
adjustments that are correlated with solving problems, then that’s I think what we’re supposed 1
to be doing. 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. Then, I guess a couple of final observations I’d make is, first, 4
we do have a consultant who clearly thinks the RPO is an impediment. And that’s good 5
information. It’s not necessarily information that we will ultimately agree with but it’s good 6
information because this is an expert in these sorts of things saying that they think this is part 7
of the problem so – and I think we have to take that at face value. The other thing is if the soul 8
of the RPO is to protect our commercial space from being overrun by the office niche, then I 9
think we can make the RPO more flexible as long as we maintain that clear exclusion of the 10
thing we don’t want to take over the retail and then soften what can be there so that it’s not so 11
limited. And so maybe that’s – and a lot of the slides really went at that issue and so maybe 12
that’s the sort of fertile ground to focus on to sort of maintain the purpose of the RPO while 13
just creating more flexibility in the marketplace to have something that’s not office in our retail 14
areas. 15
16
Vice-Chair Chang: And that was the feedback I gave Dan and team was that when you just say 17
like look at the RPO, that freaks people out, so let’s talk about what do you really mean by that. 18
Because I think there’s a lot of room between removing it everywhere outside of these core 19
commercial areas and tweaking it heavily potentially in certain areas and maybe less heavily in 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
others. There’s a lot of gray area there and a lot of things that we can do and probably a lot of 1
things that almost everybody would agree on, so yeah. 2
3
Chair Summa: Does anyone else have anything to add to this tonight? And is the ad hoc happy 4
with sort of the feedback you got from the non-ad hoc? Because I think if there – or Ms. French, 5
do you have something to add? 6
7
Amy French: Oh. I was just thinking about my report is already due for the March 27 Planning 8
Commission. What am I going to write about this time, so if anyone has concrete on the entire 9
commission what they’re hoping the ad hoc committee can focus on and what you’re seeking 10
from staff for the next full commission meeting. 11
12
Chair Summa: Well, I do so appreciate that staff is always trying to manage the schedule of 13
others and it’s frustrating. I mean, we saw that in the other issues tonight. But I think, so I don’t 14
think I have time to respond to the new presentation this evening in real time. I have a lot of 15
notes and observations. I think we have to, I kind of think we do have to do this next time. 16
17
Amy French: I can send out or we will publish it online, the presentation that was given tonight 18
that Dan had worked on today during the day... 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Summa: Yes. 1
2
Amy French: ... to get ready for tonight so we can all have a little bit more time with all of that 3
detail. 4
5
Female: Yeah. 6
7
Amy French: And then, yeah, we’ll just keep on keeping on. 8
9
Chair Summa: You can. I think it’s fair to say that the consultant was very responsive and put 10
some meat on the bones so that we could begin a discussion but that we and so maybe we can, 11
maybe with the ad hoc you can determine which of those approaches might be the low-hanging 12
fruit that Bryna so wants to pluck. And can you report, can you put stuff from the ad hoc in the 13
staff report before it’s been reported out to us? 14
15
Amy French: Well, it’s – the next ad hoc is the day before the Planning Commission meeting... 16
17
Chair Summa: Oh. 18
19
Amy French: ...so no. [Inaudible 379:05]. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Summa: [Inaudible 379:06] then. 2
3
Vice-Chair Chang: I think my advice would be to essentially, at least in the report since we the 4
commissioners haven’t been able to react to everything that was presented to us tonight, that 5
the plan can be at least for now for us to have a discussion at the next PTC meeting about – of 6
all this large menu of things that was presented to us, what we think might be a better, like... 7
8
Amy French: Okay. 9
10
Vice-Chair Chang: ...a good avenue. And the ad hoc during our time we can actually discuss that 11
amongst ourselves and maybe start with a starting point... 12
13
Female: Yeah. 14
15
Vice-Chair Chang: ...give the rest of the commission something to react to, like some 16
prioritization or something. Unless the consultant has some other plan because we don’t know 17
what the consultant’s plan is either. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Amy French: Yeah. I’ll just make it my focus to have the report, have these bullets, maybe the 1
five, and then like to structure around that and have a conversation about that. 2
3
Chair Summa: Would it be helpful to get emails from us with like maybe our top three or does 4
that make it even more complicated? 5
6
Amy French: I mean that’s fine. If it would help, I can send out the presentation tonight or 7
tomorrow morning, whatever, so that you can have it easy in your inbox and then take some 8
time over the next several days to think about it. 9
10
Vice-Chair Chang: That might help us in input into the next ad hoc meeting too, right? 11
12
Amy French: Yeah. 13
14
Vice-Chair Chang: We can use what that information... 15
16
Amy French: Yes. 17
18
Vice-Chair Chang: ...as a starting point... 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Amy French: Yes. 1
2
Vice-Chair Chang: ...for where to focus our efforts. 3
4
Amy French: Yes. Because the packet isn’t published until next Wednesday, so I have so much 5
time. 6
7
Chair Summa: All right. I think given that we all kind of agree on an approach and I’m sorry that 8
you don’t have more time but that’s how it is, I would think we’re done with this conversation 9
and we can move on to our last item of the evening, which is approval of minutes. 10
11
Approval of Minutes 12
Public Comment is Permitted. Three (3) minutes per speaker. 13
14
5. November 8, 2023 Draft Summary & Verbatim Minutes 15
16
Commissioner Reckdahl: I so move. 17
18
Chair Summa: Draft November 8. What? 19
20
Male: [Inaudible 381:34]. 21
22
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Summa: Draft summary minutes. Do I have a motion and, yep, and a second? 1
2
Commissioner Reckdahl: Oh. Go ahead. 3
4
Chair Summa: Yep. 5
6
Commissioner Akin: Have you moved? 7
8
Commissioner Reckdahl: No. I’ll let you do it. 9
10
Commissioner Akin: Oh. I move we approve the minutes as revised. 11
12
Commissioner Reckdahl: I second that. 13
14
Chair Summa: Would you like to speak to your first and second? 15
16
Commissioner Akin: I don’t think I need to. 17
18
Chair Summa: All right. Then, if you could please call the roll, I mean the vote. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Reckdahl? 1
2
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yes. 3
4
Veronica Dao: Chair Summa? 5
6
Chair Summa: Yes. 7
8
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Lu? 9
10
Commissioner Lu: Yes. 11
12
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 13
14
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 15
16
Veronica Dao: Vice-Chair Chang? 17
18
Vice-Chair Chang: Yes. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Akin? 1
2
Commissioner Akin: Yes. 3
4
Veronica Dao: Motion carries 6-0. 5
6
Chair Summa: Thank you so much. And do we have any commissioner questions, comments, 7
etc.? 8
9
Commissioner Questions, Comments or Announcements 10
Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. My comment after witnessing what happened tonight is a suggestion 11
that perhaps we revise our bylaws. Agendize for a future meeting to revise our bylaws to be a 12
little bit more similar to City Council’s such that there’s a cutoff point for public comment so 13
that the Chair can make a better informed decision as to how long to allot for each speaker 14
because we saw the number of speakers I think triple after the decision was made to allot the 15
full three minutes. And so I’m thinking we should agendize that for a future. 16
17
Chair Summa: At least triple. And I’ll take a look at our bylaws and the Council’s and see if that’s 18
even in the Council’s or it’s just their practice. Yeah. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Albert Yang: Yeah. I don’t think it’s something that’s in the bylaws and it’s something we could 1
do. Yeah. 2
3
Vice-Chair Chang: Oh. 4
5
Chair Summa: Okay. Excellent. 6
7
Vice-Chair Chang: Fantastic. 8
9
Chair Summa: All right. We’ll keep that in mind because that was kind of – that made it very 10
difficult but any other comments? 11
12
Commissioner Reckdahl: The good news is we had a lot of public interested in what we’re doing 13
and that’s always good. 14
15
Chair Summa: That’s true. I always like the public interest. Okay. If there... 16
17
Commissioner Akin: Wait. 18
19
Chair Summa: Oh. Go ahead. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Akin: Still me. Just a few brief comments about the Planning Commissioners 2
Academy. It was an excellent experience thanks in large part to Ms. French. And there are a few 3
tchotchkes left in the breakroom, so if anybody wants some. More importantly, I think the 4
probably the single most valuable thing that I remember from the Academy was the update on 5
upcoming legislation, which was detailed, informative, and insightful. Probably the second-most 6
is that we have established a relationship with the Mountain View Planning Commission. And 7
so thanks again to Ms. French, we have a connection that might turn into a joint discussion of 8
the San Antonio corridor. For the details, I have downloaded all the presentations and written a 9
brief prioritization of them so that if you want to look at them you could look at them in what I 10
thought was most important order, which you can download from AllenAkin.com/PCA.zip. Just 11
unzip that, you’ll have all the presentations in a readme file that says which ones I thought were 12
worthwhile. 13
14
Male: [Inaudible 385:15]? 15
16
Commissioner Akin: PCA, Planning Commissioners Academy. 17
18
Vice-Chair Chang: Can you have staff email that all to us? 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Akin: Did I send that to you guys already? 1
2
Amy French: I’m not sure. 3
4
Veronica Dao: No. I didn’t get anything. 5
6
Commissioner Akin: I can certainly do that if I forgot to already but – which is quite possible. All 7
right. That’s it. Thank you. 8
9
Chair Summa: Okay. That sounds good. I’m sorry that we had to experience hate bomb this 10
evening and I hope it won’t ever happen again. We are adjourned. Thank you everyone. 11
12
Adjournment 13
11:11 PM 14
15
/mlc 16