HomeMy WebLinkAbout2017-09-13 Planning & transportation commission Summary 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
Action Meeting Agenda: September 13, 2017 2
Council Chambers 3
250 Hamilton Avenue 4
6:00 PM 5
6
Call to Order / Roll Call 7
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6:04pm 9
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Chair Alcheck: Ok ladies and gentlemen, I would like to invite us to begin. 11
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Yolanda Cervantes, Administrative Assistant: Chair Alcheck, Commissioner Gardias, 13
Commissioner Lauing, Commissioner Monk, Commissioner Rosenblum, Commissioner Summa, 14
and Vice-Chair Waldfogel. Everyone is present. 15
16
Chair Alcheck: Thank you. 17
18
Oral Communications 19
The public may speak to any item not on the agenda. Three (3) minutes per speaker.1,2 20
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Chair Alcheck: I don't have any cards so I will assume that there are no Oral Communications. 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.
Agenda Changes, Additions, and Deletions 1
The Chair or Commission majority may modify the agenda order to improve meeting management. 2
3
Chair Alcheck: Are there any agenda changes, additions or deletions? 4
5
Commissioner Lauing: What you think about the possibility of continuing the specific item of 6
implementation plan just to give us more time to debate things tonight? To next meeting 7
which I think is scheduled to be our last meeting. Any input from staff? 8
9
Jonathan Lait, Assistant Director: So yeah, that's all part of your Item Number 3 on your agenda 10
so you can evaluate that as you're discussing that item. It's not a separate item to move around 11
or continue. It's up to the Commission as to how far you want to progress on discussing the 12
item that's been agendized. 13
14
Chair Alcheck: Ok, is it safe to assume that Item 3 is going to be continued in its… are we 15
essentially having a two meeting Item Number 3 so in essence so anything we don't get to 16
tonight in Item Number 3 is continued to the next meeting? 17
18
Mr. Lait: Yeah, that's correct. It’s my understanding, yes. 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.
Chair Alcheck: Are you comfortable with that? Ok, thank you Commissioner Lauing. A city, any 1
other comments on? 2
3
City Official Reports 4
1. Assistant Directors Report, Meeting Schedule and Assignments 5
6
Chair Alcheck: Ok, I’d like to invite Assistant Director Lait to make his report. 7
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Jonathan Lait, Assistant Director: Great, thanks. Just a couple of announcements; one, due to 9
the power outage that we had there's been some technical difficulties with our being able to 10
transmit this meeting live via live broadcast. It is being recorded however and will be 11
rebroadcast and available on the web as it's typically done. The I also want to recognize Sandy 12
Lee here. She's from the City Attorney’s Office filling in for Albert Yang this evening. 13
14
And next week going to the City Council you have a couple of items that the Planning 15
Commission has previously considered. One of them is going to be on consent, it's the 16
Conditional Use Permit (CUP) for the dentist office at 4157 El Camino Real. And then there's 17
also the Compadres Building which was continued from a previous City Council meeting that's 18
going to go on Monday. That's the 3877 El Camino Real and we have Doria Summa as the 19
representative for the Planning Commission and we would anticipate seeing you there. And 20
that's the extent of my comments. Thank you. 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 Alcheck: Ok, thank you. Before we get started I am I just want to knowledge that I'm 2
looking forward to sort of kicking off this two part process with respect to Agenda Item 3 and 3
I'm going to make a special effort to acknowledge the speaker's before they speak tonight. 4
When a Commissioner raises their hand sometimes I don't acknowledge the name. I’m going to 5
make a little bit extra effort tonight and in our next meeting because I think that it's very likely 6
that these minutes could be very instructive to City Council when they review our review. So it 7
seems a little bit more formal then that you know why. 8
9
Study Session 10
Public Comment is Permitted. Five (5) minutes per speaker.1,3 11
Action Items 12
Public Comment is Permitted. Applicants/Appellant Teams: Fifteen (15) minutes, plus three (3) minutes rebuttal. 13
All others: Five (5) minutes per speaker.1,3 14
1. PUBLIC HEARING / QUASI-JUDICIAL. Highway 101 Pedestrian/Bicycle Overpass and 15
Adobe Creek Reach Trail Project [17PLN-00212]: Recommendation on Applicant’s 16
Request for Approval of a Site and Design Review to Allow Construction of a Multi-17
Use Pedestrian and Bicycle Overpass Structure Over Highway 101 Near San Antonio 18
Road; Construction of the Adobe Creek Bridge and Adobe Creek Reach Trail; and, 19
Reconfiguration of the Adjacent Parking Lot at 3600 West Bayshore Road. 20
Environmental Assessment: An Initial Study/Mitigated Negative Declaration was 21
Circulated for Public Comment On September 1, 2017 and Circulation Ends on 22
October 2, 2017. Zoning Districts: PF(D), PF, ROLM, and GM. For More Information 23
Contact the Project Planner Claire Hodgkins at claire.hodgkins@cityofpaloalto.org. 24
25
Chair Alcheck: Ok, with that I'd like to invite staff to begin Agenda Item Number 2. 26
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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.
Claire Hodgkins, Project Planner: Thank you. Good evening, Commissioners. Claire Hodgkins, 1
Project Planner. Tonight we're discussing the Highway 101 bicycle and pedestrian overpass 2
and Adobe Creek Reach Trail. The proposed project crosses Highway 101 between the East 3
Oregon Expressway and San Antonio Road overcrossings and it also connects out to East 4
Meadow Drive. Purpose of the project to provide a year round bicycle/pedestrian connection 5
between commercial/residential uses west of Highway 101 and the walking and biking trails 6
east of Highway 101. It also completes the Adobe Creek Reach Trail which leads out to bicycle 7
boulevards. 8
9
Just a quick summary of the process through previous meetings and hearings Council has 10
already selected the alignment of the bridge, the type of structure, and the budget for the 11
bridge. As you know staff conducted study sessions with the Architectural Review Board (ARB) 12
and the Planning and Transportation Commission (PTC) in May of this year. And our current 13
schedule assumes that tonight we would get a recommendation from the PTC and assumes that 14
in October we would go to ARB and in November we would be going to Council for a final 15
decision on the project. 16
17
Quick summary of key project changes, staff outlined key project changes that were made to 18
based on PTC comments in the staff report. Specifically you had commented on the following 19
areas where changes were made which is the Adobe Creek Reach Trail paving, lighting 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.
improvements, amenity refinements, and especially user safety refinements. I know our Public 1
Works Engineering Team will discussing these key changes in their presentation so I'm going to 2
leave it to them to kind of summarize those a little bit further. So staff recommends that the 3
PTC take the following actions: consider the Mitigated Negative Declaration (MND) and 4
mitigation monitoring and reporting plan for the project and recommend approval of the Site 5
and Design Application to City Council based on findings and subject to conditions of approval 6
in the Record of Land Use Action and that's it for me. 7
8
Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you. At this time I'd like to open it up. I also don't have any… oh, I do 9
have a speaker card. Bear with me. I’d like to invite Claire Elliott to speak for five minutes. 10
That’s fine, let me just set the timer for you and you can begin. Go ahead. 11
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Claire Elliot: My name is Claire Elliott and I am a resident of the Ventura neighborhood and I'm 13
also an ecologist with Grassroots Ecology formerly Acterra Stewardship. And we do a lot of 14
habitat restoration and creating habitat in urban parks in Palo Alto as partners with the City. 15
And I’m also a bicyclist. Not as often as I should be, but I ride the trail underneath the 101 and 16
I'm going to be delighted to have a bridge that we can use year round because riding San 17
Antonio is very scary. And I applaud the process and the progress in getting that in. 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.
I have provided comments to the City staff about the revegetation of the area where the bridge 1
will land and that's my major interest in being here today is that the Natural Element 2
component of the Comprehensive Plan says that we're going to protect our resources and 3
habitat in our natural areas and this is a damaged natural area that needs some help and since 4
there's some access, more access coming into the area it’d be nice to have it look more 5
aesthetically appealing. And right now my understanding is that the budget is going to allow for 6
some hydro seeding. There's been years of weedy plants growing there because of the 7
disturbance of the area and so that those plants will need to be removed several years in a row 8
or at least a couple which I think we have, but there needs to be budget for that so that any 9
seeding is going to just be overwhelmed by the amount of weed seed that's there. The main 10
thing though is have a budget for actually placing plants and not just hydro seeding and having 11
them be locally specific native plants. 12
13
And then really important and this is something that I see overall in City efforts is that a lot of 14
money goes towards building or installing things and then the maintenance. We don't have 15
enough budget in this City in general for maintenance of our City parks and for making sure that 16
the people we hire to do that maintenance are trained in how to maintain natural spaces 17
because a lot of people don't recognize the plants that are locally indigenous here as 18
landscaping plants because they're not being used enough for that purpose. So that's the most 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.
important thing and I'm hoping that the Planning Commission can advise staff to look for 1
budget to make sure the maintenance goes on and the planting as well in that area. Thank you. 2
3
Chair Alcheck: Thank you. Ok, I'm going to open it up to the Commission. Please light up the 4
board and I will… 5
6
Ms. Hodgkins: Sorry, we would recommend that Public Works Engineering has a presentation 7
as well. 8
9
Chair Alcheck: Oh, I'm sorry. 10
11
Chair Alcheck: It’s ok, yeah. 12
13
Chair Alcheck: Sorry, my mistake. 14
15
Megha Bansal, Project Engineer: Good evening, my name is Megha Bansal, I'm a Project 16
Engineer with Public Works Department. I would like to introduce our consultant Roy Schnabel 17
from Biggs Cardosa Associates. Tonight we will focus our discussion on refinements in design 18
that we made based on input received from the PTC back in May of this year, but I would like to 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.
take a moment to go over the key project elements and then Roy will discuss the refinements in 1
the design. 2
3
So as you can see on this slide the project includes principal span structures consisting of self 4
[unintelligible] steel trusses across Highway 101 and East and West Bayshore roads with 5
concrete approaches and 12 wide pathway. To the west of Highway 101 Adobe Creek Reach 6
Trail connects two new trailheads and there is Adobe Creek bridge at the confluence of Adobe 7
and Barron Creeks. There is also a pedestrian access ramp that is incorporated in the western 8
approach structure. To the east of Highway 101 we have an overlook included with the [east 9
up road] structure and a new trail head at the connection of bridge that is actually a 10
[roundabout] that connects the bridge to San Francisco Bay Trail. The project also includes 11
some landscaping, habit restoration, lighting, signage and amenities. And Roy will go over in 12
detail on those. With that I turn it over to Roy. 13
14
Roy Schnabel, Biggs Cardosa Associates: I wanted to highlight some of the decision making 15
points as that’s where some of the signage and areas of signage that will be incorporated into 16
this project. First the pedestrian access structure as you guys recall this was in lieu of putting a 17
staircase we extended the sidewalk and extended the sidewalk over across the Adobe Creek 18
and Barron Creek confluence to allow for an extension of the sidewalk and equal access 19
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliant equal access to the other side which currently 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.
does not exist. It also allows us to retain the bike lane which was being shared by the 1
pedestrians and creates a better safer sort of controlled sidewalk situation. 2
3
For this area the decision making points are going to be the areas where a lot of the signage is 4
going to be located for this pedestrian access structure. We anticipate placing dismount signs 5
for the bicyclists both at the beginning at the end of the access ramp. Next slide. At the Adobe 6
Creek trailhead a lot of this is being controlled by our coordination with the Water District and 7
our coordination they asked us to reduce the number of amenities that were in that area and 8
so we've done that. One of the additional revisions per the recommendation of this 9
Commission is the we are going to now pave the trail. So that now is included in this project. 10
11
At Meadow Drive at the other end we are going to place a raised sidewalk and some chicanes 12
consistent with another City project which connects to this area so we're putting something 13
that's consistent with that project and reflects similar elements. And then at the other end at 14
the Baylands we have a roundabout and this is very similar to what we showed previously. It 15
has been coordinated with Palo Alto Bicycle Advisory Committee (PABAC), City staff and 16
basically these are all the areas where we're probably well we will have wayfinding signage and 17
directional signage. 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.
The project included a baseline railing concept which was approved by Council and that 1
included steel railings with chain link vinyl clad. We have been asked by the ARB to review 2
some alternatives so we've done that so we're reviewing some railing alternatives which 3
include welded weaved wire mesh and welded wire mesh as an alternative to the chain link and 4
so we're reviewing that and looking to put that as railing [adds additive] alternatives. 5
6
The overlook is consistent with what we presented before with several changes. The benches it 7
was requested the benches have armrests and backs. The benches are going to be designed by 8
the artists that's part of this project and they've been informed about the need for armrests 9
and back rests and those are currently in design. We have also added of an area for bike 10
storage which includes some bike racks so that there is a defined place to locate bikes for 11
people who want to, bicyclists who want to use, utilize this area. It has required a little bit of an 12
extension of the overlook and localized areas to accommodate some of these features. 13
14
Landscaping; the area in the parking lot at 3600 West Bayshore is where the majority if not all 15
of the impacts still to the trees are being contained. We are going to replace per the City 16
ordinance and code, tree code, the canopy areas for the trees that we’re impacting; however, 17
this area cannot fulfill replacement of the entire trees that we’re impacting in this area. We're 18
planning to replace based on conversations with the City Landscape Architect, the City’s Urban 19
Forester and with, in collaboration with some of the stakeholders involved in this project to 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.
plant native species in this area. We're also planning to locate some additional trees and plants 1
on the Bay Trail on the Baylands side adjacent to the Bay Trail in the area that we're also doing 2
habitat restoration for the non-native species that are being impacted by our construction 3
operations. The plan as you heard from Claire is to do a hydro seeding and some localized 4
planting in that area. 5
6
With regards to the lighting, the lighting is still consistent with what we presented previously. 7
It's a combination of rail mounted lighting and pole lighting. The pole lighting is only on the 8
west side to avoid perching situations on the other side. The change the one change to the 9
pole lights is that we went to a head mounted light in lieu of the other lighting fixture that we 10
had based on recommendations from ARB to match some of the context and vocabulary of the 11
existing or of the proposed structure so we've done that. We’d also be utilizing the same form 12
for the two street lights that are also being impacted by this project and being replaced by this 13
project so it'll have the same sort of vocabulary as these lights. 14
15
With regards to signage the left is what was recommended by staff based on conversations. 16
We are going to limit the signage to destination, distance, and direction and not put duration. 17
We're also planning some toppings that are project specific and identify this as a trail, multi-use 18
trail. With regards to the etiquette signage the etiquette signage will be sporadically placed 19
along the trail and the signs that are shown here are recommendations from staff in 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.
collaboration with PABAC. They are currently creating some shared path signage that will be 1
standardized and so we don't have the formal ones yet, but this is the general direction that the 2
etiquette signs are basically following. 3
4
With regards to the amenities it's also similar to what we presented previously. There is a 5
reduction based on what the Water District wants on the Adobe Creek trailhead area. The only 6
other change is the bike racks. The specialized bike rack that we had shown previously was 7
revised to something that was utilized in other areas in the City and that the City Maintenance 8
preferred so that we could standardize some of the bike racks. So this is the bike rack revision. 9
10
Ms. Bansal: And real quick on the schedule we have completed 35 percent design. Currently 11
initial study is in circulation. After tonight's hearing we have tentatively scheduled park 12
improvement ordinance meeting with (PRC) in September followed by ARB hearing in October 13
and California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) adoption by Council in November. Caltrans 14
[unintelligible] approval and right of way and final design will follow CEQA approval. At this 15
point a site and design review and CEQA approval is on critical path on our schedule to take us 16
to construction beginning of 2019 and completion by 2020. So that concludes our 17
presentation. Thank you. 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.
Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you. Alright at this time I would invite Commissioners to weigh in. 1
Please use your lights, switch the metal switch up. And I will begin to call you. Ok, start with 2
Commissioner Gardias. 3
4
Commissioner Gardias: Thank you. Thank you for your presentation. Thanks for coming and 5
showing us the progress today. I am very pleased with the change that indicates that there will 6
be access along the Adobe Creek. This is the change that was not present on the prior drawings 7
so or maybe I didn't notice so if you could just share the history because it's a positive 8
improvement. I have always been lobbying for opening those closed access roads to Palo Alto 9
citizens and it’s maybe one percent success, but it's a gigantic step forward so I hope that we 10
can open the remainder of them. So if you could share your experience how it happened in 11
Santa Clara Water District agreed to do so. 12
13
Ms. Hodgkins: I'll just start briefly and turn it over. Planning staff was not at the meetings, but 14
Public Works Engineering was at all of the meetings with Santa Clara Valley Water District. I 15
think it was always the intent that we were, we hoped to open that trail obviously and it 16
requires some negotiations with Santa Clara Valley Water District. And they weren’t shown; it 17
wasn't shown completely on the previous plan set so you're correct. We had spoken about it 18
orally, but it wasn't on the actual plans in the initial study session, but with that I'll turn it to Roy 19
if you have anything to add to 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
Mr. Schnabel: Yeah, so part of the discussions with the Water District has been to utilize the 2
trail and open it throughout year round and they have they had agreed to do that in the very 3
early conversations and we had we had shown that in the previous study session. The thing 4
that's different is that we didn't have the paving. It was still the crushed gravel that was there 5
so we've added based on the recommendations we've added that to the project. And so now 6
it's going to be a paved trail all the way continues through from Meadow to West Bayshore so. 7
8
Commissioner Gardias: Very good. Congratulations on this positive from my perspective 9
improvement. And minor detail when it butts against East Meadow Drive. Is there any fencing 10
planned? I can imagine that there is a bike and when I was thinking about this access road I 11
notice that pretty much that those access shoulders they are wider on one side and narrower 12
on the other side. They pretty much they change sides at every intersection and I cannot see 13
this on these plans, but I can imagine that maybe on the other side if you continued along the 14
creek there would be a wider road on the other side as opposed to on the same side of the 15
creek, but I'm saying this because with prospective thinking and maybe hope that they will be 16
at other side open at some point in the future there should be some barrier at the end of this 17
bike corridor so the bike cannot enter the road rapidly unobstructed and then pretty much 18
crash into a car or vice versa. 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.
Ms. Hodgkins: Yeah, I believe we have bollards at the end that are required for that very 1
purpose. 2
3
Commissioner Gardias: There is something, yeah? 4
5
Ms. Hodgkins: Yeah. 6
7
Mr. Schnabel: The bollards are for two purposes. One is to slow down the bicyclists through 8
that connection, but they're also to prevent vehicles from entering and accessing. So the Water 9
District is requiring that we provide some sort of preventive measure for vehicles to enter into 10
that. 11
12
Commissioner Gardias: I’m not talking about this. I'm not talking about the bollards. I'm talking 13
about the physical fencing or some barrier so if somebody rides a bike along this opened 14
pathway doesn't cross the street immediately, but is forced to stop. Because there is no 15
crossing there, right? And then I think that the view may be obstructed because there is a 16
fencing… a commercial building or office building fencing on one side and some trees if I 17
remember correctly. So I don't believe that visibility is clear so I'm afraid that the bike would… 18
somebody would be writing a bike, could be a kid, and then pretty much cuts through the road 19
and there is a car coming from the other side and then pretty much doesn't see the kid. 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
Ms. Hodgkins: Right, yeah. So two things; that is the purpose of the bollards though that we 2
are putting on there in addition to stopping vehicles it's intended to slow down bicyclists as 3
they exit out. And also the project does include a new crosswalk across there. 4
5
Mr. Schnabel: It's going to be a raised crosswalk. 6
7
Ms. Hodgkins: Raised crosswalk which basically is intended to slow down. 8
9
Commissioner Gardias: Ok, but the crosswalk is at the same, it's extension of the same 10
(interrupted) 11
12
Mr. Schnabel: Side route. 13
14
Commissioner Gardias: Route. Ok, so I don't believe that this is the right solution. I would 15
suggest the crosswalk is shifted towards the middle of the bridge just to pretty much to enforce 16
stopping of the bikes. 17
18
Chair Alcheck: I’m sorry Commissioner Gardias, do you mind Commissioner Summa and I are 19
trying to figure out which intersection you're talking about and make sure we also understand. 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 Gardias: It’s intersection of this, this is on Page 7.1 with the drawings and then if 2
you can see the red line indicates that paved access road along the creek and then you see the 3
green lines along East Meadow Drive. So I'm talking about the intersection of this newly 4
opened bike plus pedestrian route at with East Meadow Drive. Story. 5
6
Mr. Schnabel: So as I understand you're asking for an offset of the chicanes (interrupted) 7
8
Commissioner Gardias: That's correct. 9
10
Mr. Schnabel: Crosswalks (interrupted) 11
12
Commissioner Gardias: Yes. 13
14
Mr. Schnabel: To slow down (interrupted) 15
16
Commissioner Gardias: Yes. 17
18
Mr. Schnabel: The bicyclists and pedestrians even more. 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.
Commissioner Gardias: Exactly, yes. 1
2
Ms. Hodgkins: Yeah, I mean we can certainly look into that option. Yeah, thank you. 3
4
Commissioner Gardias: Sure. Thank you very much. I continue at the next round. 5
6
Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you Commissioner Gardias. The next light I have is Commissioner 7
Summa. 8
9
Commissioner Summa: So thank you everyone for the presentation. Also I'm I think the public 10
is very happy that we're going to get this bridge and I think it will be well used. I appreciate 11
Commissioner Gardias’ concern. I hadn't thought of it, but if but if there's a way to make that 12
safer I think that's a good idea. I know that one member of the public also might have been 13
referring to the same situation in a letter we had in the packet. 14
15
So I had a earlier I had a preference for there not being any pole lights and just lights down low, 16
but I guess staff looked at that pretty thoroughly and they feel that the pole lights are necessary 17
for safety reasons. Is that correct? 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.
Ms. Hodgkins: That's correct. I think that there was a general feeling that at least in some 1
locations the taller pole lights were more appropriate particularly in locations where there were 2
there wasn’t railing on both sides to provide sufficient light to make it feel safe for people. 3
4
Commissioner Summa: Ok, and the other observation I had and this was reinforced by our 5
speaker Ms. Elliot is that it would be to enhance the plantings on either end most especially 6
with native plants. It just seems a little bare both of the entry points. So any room that you 7
have that obviously we don't want to take away room from the pedestrians and bicyclists, but 8
any place that you can put more vegetation, trees, shrubs, whatever and also if you could look 9
into her concern that the hydro seeding will be ineffectual if there's not years of weeding 10
proceeding it and maintenance afterwards. I also observe that sometimes we with the best 11
intentions we plant things in City places and they're not very well maintained and of course 12
there's exceptions to that rule. And I have a strong preference personally for native plants 13
there and other than that I think it's a great project and I'm glad to see that it's going to be 14
started pretty soon. So thank you. 15
16
Chair Alcheck: Thank you, Commissioner Summa. The next light I have is Commissioner Lauing. 17
18
Commissioner Lauing: Thanks very much. Sensitive to our specific purview still I’d like to ask a 19
few questions. I do note that you reference that in March 28, 2016, Parks Commission saw this 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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and I was on Parks Commission at that time and that's what you say there, but it was about six 1
years before that that we first got introduced to how are we going to get people to cross over 2
there. So I’ve had a long history with it so for me it's really exciting that we're getting closer. 3
We’re getting closer and people can actually get to the Baylands safely on a bike or by walking. 4
What ended up being the overall budget? And I think that was made up of both grants and 5
other funds and a separate grant from Google? 6
7
Ms. Bansal: Yes, so the total project budget is $14 million. 8
9
Commissioner Lauing: $14? 10
11
Ms. Bansal: $14. 12
13
Commissioner Lauing: And how much of that was a grant in addition to Google? 14
15
Ms. Bansal: So it includes Santa Clara... 16
17
Commissioner Lauing: $3 million-ish as I recall? 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.
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Ms. Bansal: Yeah, that is $4 million. Let me, I have a… yeah, so that includes Santa Clara County 1
that creation fund $4 million and then a federal grant, One Bay Area Grant’s $4.35 million, 2
City’s General Fund $4.65 million, and Google contribution $1 million. 3
4
Commissioner Lauing: Ok. There is one reference in here if I can actually find it or you mention 5
short term on Page 18 of the packet, minimal short term traffic impacts associated with 6
construction which obviously is in our purview. What will that actually look like and for how 7
long? Meaning will that effectively create should I call that a non-bridge there? Will it be a 8
blockage where people can't get across? I’m just trying to visualize what the construction is 9
going to look like even though you say it's minimal. It's not going to be only two weeks so I'm 10
just trying to get a feeling with that's going to look like. 11
12
Ms. Hodgkins: So are you asking how long construction is going to take basically or how long we 13
might expect kind of peak construction? 14
15
Commissioner Lauing: How long and… that’s fine and is it going to take up a half a mile or 10 16
feet and we just order of magnitude kind of... What are our citizens going to look at and have 17
to drive by and bike by during the timeframe? 18
19
Ms. Hodgkins: Yeah, I… 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,
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1
Commissioner Lauing: I didn’t mean that to be such a hard question. 2
3
Mr. Schnabel: So specifically first with regards to the freeway there will probably still be some 4
night closures for the erection. 5
6
Commissioner Lauing: Ok. 7
8
Mr. Schnabel: We're probably going to take the shoulders for construction of the [bents] that 9
are adjacent to the freeway right at the border of the Bayshore Roads, frontage roads, and the 10
freeway. That will also impact the Bayshore Roads during construction of that and we’ll likely 11
create a one lane situation which will be the current strategy is to do a one-way signalized 12
traffic for that duration. That's probably a two to three month duration for the construction of 13
those foundations. Once the erection of the [vain] spans, the steel spans occurs there should 14
be very little traffic impacts to Bayshore and the freeways except for the construction traffic. 15
16
Commissioner Lauing: Ok. So the process that's been used on Bayshore before there Geng 17
Road and so on was that kind of signal light? 18
19
Ms. Hodgkins: 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.
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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
Commissioner Lauing: It’s getting through to East Palo Alto during that time frame was… it was 2
very long. 3
4
Mr. Schnabel: Yeah, it's just what we've tried to do is minimize that and mitigate that utilizing 5
constructing, the construction techniques that have advanced over the past 10 to 15 years. 6
And we're utilizing systems that are much smaller with regards to foundation footprints. So 7
basically both the technology and the amount of impacts are mitigated from what's been done 8
over the last 10 years or so. 9
10
Ms. Hodgkins: So just to clarify too the time periods for the lane closures on East Bayshore 11
Road would be minimized. It wouldn't just be all day every day for three months. We would be 12
reducing it so that it's not impacting commute hour traffic and it was specific we specifically 13
chose to do it in that way so that instead of closing East Bayshore Road which would have 14
basically we would have had to reroute traffic through residential neighborhoods which 15
obviously would have been much more impactful to residents. 16
17
Commissioner: Ok. 18
19
Ms. Hodgkins: Oh, no. Did that answer your question? 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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1
Commissioner Lauing: Yeah. Thank you. Back over on the actual mitigation toward the end 2
where you talk about existing trees with a circumference so on and existing visitation should be 3
retained as much as possible. I'm not as familiar with the exact vegetation there as I am with 4
the golf course which we also renovated in the Parks Commission, but we took out in Parks 5
something like 600 trees and it was very important to communicate to the public that that was 6
actually a good thing for two reasons. One is that a lot of them were non-native. They were 7
invasive so they really shouldn't be there. And secondly the restoration there was natural 8
Baylands habitat and so on. So that sounds like that's exactly what you're doing here. When 9
you have to put stuff back in you're not putting up non-native trees just because there was a 10
tree there, but you're saying no, this is the Baylands and we should be putting stuff in here that 11
fits. 12
13
Ms. Hodgkins: Correct, yeah. I definitely would agree with the conclusion that overall it's an 14
improvement in terms of habitat restoration for the area and much more native species than 15
are existing there today. 16
17
Commissioner Lauing: The reason I’m bringing this up is sometimes we tend to count dead 18
trees and that's really not the metric. So that's why I'm raising it so that we should have public 19
communication on that so that they understand it. And then just overall I want to comment 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 I really appreciate you commenting when we make comments and they're not going to 1
happen that you gave us the reasoning for it from ARB or the Council or whatever. So that's 2
really helpful and much appreciated. Thank you. 3
4
Chair Alcheck: Thank you, Commissioner Lauing. Next is Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] 5
Waldfogel. 6
7
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: Whoops. Thank you and thank you to Claire, Megha, and Roy for the 8
presentations. Appreciate it. So after many, many years on this project, not sure does it go 9
back to 2010? 10
11
Commissioner Lauing: I think so. That was pre-project, but that was kind of planning time. 12
13
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: Pre-project. Ok, so many years. I think we should collectively breathe a 14
sigh of relief that something is moving forward, but the same time I think we should just paused 15
for a second and ask ourselves why after all of this time, all this effort, this is the design that 16
we're ending up with. I think I said this at the last meeting as well that honestly this design is 17
what a village builds over a stream. It's not what a city builds over a major highway, a prefab 18
trestle. And why is this a problem? It's a problem because in the Comp Plan we set goals for 19
good design and it's disappointing when I don't see great design in front of us. We're 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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connecting the urban boundary to the Baylands and I think that the design really needs to 1
reflect that connection. And the problem is how do we demand that private developers bring 2
their A game to design which is something we try to do in the Comp Plan when we don't do the 3
same thing to ourselves in City projects? I mean I think this is a problem. 4
5
I mean the east side makes a lot of sense in the Baylands context. I mean it's really an 6
appropriate design for that context, but the west side on the urban side doesn't really make a 7
lot of sense. And it makes this makes me really pessimistic about other City designs that I think 8
that we’ll see going forward. I mean about the parking structure designs are going to bring A 9
game designs forward or not? Grade crossings, will we bring our A team our A vision? Because 10
I think what we're signaling with this design is that the only thing that matters is cost. I mean 11
we've cost engineered this to the point that we're basically building a trestle. I mean I think 12
some people may applaud that, but I think that if we have City ambitions that we really need to 13
have a bigger vision than this for the kinds of designs that we bring forward. And I really hope 14
that the project doesn't get value engineered anymore from this point. I mean things like the 15
ARB recommended fence improvement actually seems like an important move, a vinyl fence 16
versus a steel fence seems like a significant difference in materiality and in user experience for 17
the bridge. 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.
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So if we were taking a specific vote on the design for this I would definitely have to take a pass 1
on voting for that. I mean if the question that we're voting on tonight is whether this meets 2
other Environmental Impact Report (EIR) criteria the answer is yeah, I think it does. I mean I 3
think that this project has been worked to the point that it that it absolutely does, but I mean 4
that said I'm still inclined to abstain tonight and I really hope that the ARB takes another look at 5
this when they see this in October because I would just really like to see us bring our A game 6
when we take on major civic projects. 7
8
Chair Alcheck: Thank you, Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] Waldfogel. Next is Commissioner 9
Rosenblum. 10
11
Commissioner Rosenblum: I also thank you for bringing this and I'm so excited to see the 12
project move forward. I can't believe it's been this long. I was I used to be a Googler. I lived on 13
East Meadow and so this was when it was closed, when the underpass was closed it was very 14
painful. When it was open it was delightful, but even that it was delightful it was not a great 15
solution. And so this is going to be wonderful. 16
17
I have the same concerns that Commissioner Lauing has after seeing this project. I have our 18
PTC findings which are listed as in short: construction operation in a manner that should be 19
orderly, harmonious, and compatible etcetera; to assure the desirability of investment or the 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.
conduct of business, research, educational activities; to ensure the sound principles of 1
environmental design and ecological balance will be observed; to ensure that the use shall be in 2
accord with the Palo Alto Comprehensive Plan. I think on all of these findings I think we have to 3
say yes, it has met these criteria and in fact in our previous meeting we're down to very small 4
items. My concern is the same as Commissioner Lauing’s which is once this gets going the 5
degree of disruption to both the neighboring streets and the existing underpass so to the extent 6
that you have construction that is supposed to start in early 2019 through Spring 2020 that so 7
lose a year of service for that the underpass and I know it's only open for half the year so we 8
lose half a year of service for example is still a loss. And so just my only concern with this is 9
degree of disruption and if it actually extends any farther the alternative to what we have there 10
is quite dangerous and pretty bad. 11
12
I have one last request though and again my experience as a Googler using this it took me three 13
or four tries before I found out kind of an optimal way to go. In fact the first time I got 14
completely lost and I couldn't figure out how to get there. And I would tell my colleagues once I 15
kind of cracked the code you should really do this, this is great and none of them wanted to go 16
through the exploration of figuring out. And it is not obvious. There's like some places you 17
have to jump over like little bits of Shoreline Park and get onto sidewalks. Its… I would work or 18
my request is that given that Google is involved this should be fairly straightforward, but work 19
with Mountain View and the other side when you come across the other side there should 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.
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corporate signage. So it should tell you if you're going to Intuit here's how you go. If you're 1
going to Google here's how you go. If you're going to whatever LinkedIn if it still exists there. 2
3
So the major employers it would be very helpful to have a guide on the other side how to get 4
there because I really hope we encourage the people that are currently in their cars going to 5
work that they find that this is a really delightful and easy alternative. But my fear again I was 6
the power user there. It took me a while and that's not solved by having a bridge. The 7
wayfinding on the other side was poor. So my request is that the signage which I note the 8
designs are quite clear, but I don’t see a category for sort of corporate wayfinding and I'm 9
hoping that becomes a major category of users. Well I guess I should ask is that something 10
that's a possibility? Is that something that you're in favor of/can be done? 11
12
Ms. Hodgkins: I think we'd have to think about specific wayfinding to specific companies. I 13
don't see any reason that it wouldn't be, but yeah we can certainly reach out to them and see if 14
that's an opportunity. I think we have considered wayfinding to other more major locations like 15
Shoreline Amphitheatre and whatnot. If you want to add something? 16
17
Mr. Schnabel: Yeah, I think for the scope of this project it's kind of hard because we're such a… 18
as you said it's a bigger issue than just the bridge. I think that needs to be tackled from a global 19
standpoint and we've talked to staff about wayfinding and they were sort of taking care 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.
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wayfinding outside of the area. We were sort of taking care of the individual wayfinding for 1
this, but I think that's probably something that you should discuss with the Transportation staff 2
to sort of how that (interrupted) 3
4
Ms. Hodgkins: Yeah, I don’t (interrupted) 5
6
Commissioner Rosenblum: I strongly suggest this. I mean we’re talking about some of these 7
campuses may have 10,000 people sitting at one of these campuses and there's like six of them 8
over there. So it's a major source of people and I do think this is a major barrier. I think there is 9
some reticence to use this when it takes some time to figure out where you're going. 10
11
Ms. Hodgkins: Yeah, of course. I will definitely be talking to Transportation staff and we’ll work 12
with other agencies and jurisdictions to see what we can do for that. 13
14
Commissioner Rosenblum: Thank you. I have nothing further. I think that you've met the 15
findings that the PTC is required to find. 16
17
Chair Alcheck: Ok. Thank you. Commissioner Rosenblum. I have Commissioner Gardias. 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.
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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 Gardias: Thank you very much for the second round. So in terms of the signage I 1
talked about this like a one year ago. So I mean if in terms of the of having a signage to Google I 2
would agree, but it would have to come with a hefty price tag like a million dollars per signage. 3
Something like this because it is different than the City related signage. And before we 4
invented the signages that were just pointing us to two other locations there were natural 5
signages like for example Asher's living room or Mendy's Inn something like this. There was 6
naturally developed signage that was posted on the posts and trees throughout the country. 7
And then at a certain point of time it was replaced by us with pretty much just removing those 8
and then replacing with our standardized boards that don't mean much to the citizens. I’d 9
rather see signage that reflects pointing to the to the interesting locations within the Palo Alto 10
like for example Eichler’s Swimming Club, something like this that means something to us since 11
this is under jurisdiction. But if others would like to have their post on the signage or add their 12
signage that would be fine, but I think that I would ask very much to pay for it because it's a 13
would be related to the corporate advertisement from my perspective. 14
15
Jonathan Lait, Assistant Director: So yeah, I appreciate your comments tonight. I appreciate 16
Commissioner Rosenblum's comments as well. I mean this is I think the interest there is to find 17
some way to if it's possible find some way to provide, make it easier, and encourage more 18
people to bike instead of drive to different campuses. And there may be all kinds of discreet 19
signage that can be employed, but even before we get there we’d want to have a conversation 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.
with other municipalities, talk to our Transportation Department, we’d actually reach out to 1
other interested stakeholders in the area to have a conversation about that to see if it's 2
something that can be done in a discreet way. So but your comments are understood and we’ll 3
also consider that as we move forward. 4
5
Commissioner Gardias: Very good, thank you. But I would like to add a second comment about 6
this what Vice-Chair Waldfogel was talking about that the design of the bridge. I'm already I 7
slept with it so I'm not going to comment on this so I and I you can look up the minutes I shared 8
my disappointment with the design back then. But what I would recommend, I would 9
recommend that you go and you visit Palo Alto Unity Church that is located by the by the 10
overflow creek and look at the barrier how it was designed. This is quasi a Frank Lloyd Wright 11
design. I think it was must have been done by one of the Taliesin architects or somebody that 12
followed Frank Lloyd Wright. And then pretty much when you look at the when you go to the 13
church there is a bridge that crosses the creek. It's like pretty much maybe like 20-30 yards 14
away from Middlefield or? Yeah, maybe Middlefield. And then if you come closer that bridge 15
has a railing that's also designed following Frank Lloyd Wright patterns and then it opens. So 16
pretty much it's flexible that it opens on both sides, has leaves like doors, and then pretty 17
much it allows that the traffic along creek to pass through if the gate is open. So I would be 18
looking in your design and maybe in the barrier that would stop the bicyclists from crossing 19
suddenly the street some consistency of a higher class if possible. If we cannot just do this with 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.
the bridge I would just maybe start proposing something maybe consistent with that railing, 1
just go there and take a look at this, and then a think about this what's going to happen in 10 2
years if we're going to open many of the major access roads along the creeks it would be nice 3
to have uniform thinking, uniform fencing, uniform design across those roads. 4
5
And my last question and my last comment is rather a question because I remember like year 6
and a half ago we talked about the bicycle route along the Fabian Road. Yeah, so what 7
happened because I remembered that back then there was a the project was showing that 8
there will be from the bridge and maybe this was one of the options, right, so help me with my 9
memory. So I remembered that from the bridge the trail would be going directly to Fabian 10
Road as opposed to going along the creek. Which for me is an improvement, but I'm wondering 11
how this affects the design that we looked at before? 12
13
Ms. Hodgkins: I believe there's two options you can continue onto Fabian or you can continue 14
onto West Bayshore Road and then continue on to Fabian again, but the Adobe Creek access 15
trail provides an alternate option to Fabian to going around to Fabian Road that based on 16
comments from the PTC and from the public is much safer. 17
18
Commissioner Gardias: Oh, sure. Ok, I simply didn’t remember how it was. So it was one of the 19
options. Thank you very much. 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 Alcheck: Ok, I have one more light from Commissioner Rosenblum. 2
3
Commissioner Rosenblum: Yeah, I just want to respond to Commissioner Gardias just in case 4
there is confusion around my comment also to staff. It's certainly not corporate advertising or 5
at least that's not what I'm proposing. I think that the purpose of building the bridge is to 6
encourage cycling and to get people out of their cars if possible. If you drive to Shoreline or any 7
of those exits it's pretty obvious that a lot of the traffic is driven by the corporate campuses in 8
that area and what we've built here is a really nice alternative. We recently studied the 9
Stanford general use plan and even though I was recused from that meeting I read the report 10
and one of the issues is trying to get people out of the cars that actually live pretty close. It's 11
difficult they don't really run shuttles all through Mountain View and Palo Alto. So it’s people 12
that live within a couple miles it's actually quite difficult to get them out of their cars. And 13
indeed Google doesn't run shuttle buses through Palo Alto. 14
15
And so my purpose was you have several thousand employees that live on this side of 101 and 16
have to get to the other side of 101 every day and most of them get in their car. And so my 17
purpose to that comment was If you make it easier for them to cross the bridge and bike, same 18
thing with the other corporate campuses then why not do that? So it's a net benefit. And sure 19
I mean if we want to put, sell signage I personally again I think that this conflicts with our goal 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 the beautiful city and having the Nascar look of sponsored by Intel and Google, whatever. 1
But I'm not a marketer, it's up to others. But that was my purpose; my purpose was to try to 2
increase usage of the road or of the bridge and the costs we're talking about $14 million I don't 3
know what the average lifetime of these things is, but if it's say twenty years and you have 500 4
users per day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year you're still talking about $4 per use and 5
500 per day is a lot if you think about just the daylight hours that we’re using this. And so I 6
really want a lot of people to use this. The whole purpose of this I think is to get people out of 7
their cars and across that bridge and I think that getting these corporations on board with 8
teaching their employees we can I think that would go a long way. So anyway that was the 9
purpose of it not the advertising aspect. 10
11
Commissioner Gardias: Yeah if you don't mind just me responding. I mean this is I totally 12
(Interrupted) 13
14
Chair Alcheck: Just a sec, just a sec, just a second. Thank you, Commissioner Rosenblum. 15
Commissioner Gardias. 16
17
Commissioner Gardias: Thank you. So I totally acknowledge their effort, right? They granted us 18
$1 million and they are just doing great work. So it's not about this, right? I think that they will 19
find a way to their corporate offices. What I'm saying is that pretty much this is that we should 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.
just make sure that this City has its own character, unique character and for this reason I think 1
that with an acknowledgement of their effort I just think that we should just focus the City on 2
our internal values and internal orientation points as opposed to of the on the others knowing 3
that they will find their way I'm sure. There will be some other technology that they will 4
developed very quickly. 5
6
Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you, Commissioner Gardias. I just want to remind everybody let's 7
really rely on our lights tonight. I have a light from Commissioner Summa. 8
9
Commissioner Summa: Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to say something about the design 10
process because I haven't been on the Planning Commission for the years it was discussed. And 11
I really appreciate Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] Waldfogel and Commissioner Gardias’ 12
concerns about character of the City and quality of design. I'm I was also disappointed after the 13
very long process we had and the design competition and whatnot, but I… and so I do 14
appreciate those comments very much. I guess at this point I think that this is kind of the 15
bridge we have so despite my disappointment with the design and the process I think I will be 16
able to support it, but I just so I just wanted to share that. 17
18
Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you, Commissioner Summa. I want to thank everyone for their input 19
and their feedback. I’ll just respond that I think this bridge represents sort of two very different 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.
uses. It's a recreational bridge in some regard, but it's also a commuter tool. I think that 1
Commissioner Rosenblum’s ask tonight is very representative of his passion for Transportation 2
Demand Management (TDM) advocacy. This idea that maybe I would assume that 3
Commissioner Rosenblum would be in favor of signage on many of our streets that said 4
something like hey, what about biking to work today? And I imagine that a recreational user 5
who came over the bridge and saw a sign that said Google, one mile, this way would think twice 6
oh, you know that's interesting and then mention it to their neighbor. You know what? You 7
can just take that bridge and it's a very quick ride… I think that that idea of sort of getting sort 8
of advertising that this is both a commuter tool and also recreational tool is important. And so I 9
think those two purposes need to sort of be balanced. So I would I think that's a great 10
recommendation. 11
12
With respect to the design I sat on this Commission when we made our vote for the design that 13
we liked the most as part of a design competition. And that was sort of a thrilling process. It 14
was very much fun actually. But I think that this result is very emblematic of the challenge of 15
sort of satisfying everyone that when we went through that design process we had many 16
members of our community who suggested that there are far better things to spend our money 17
on. And that is a challenge that we approach with almost every project in this City and every 18
applicant on the private side has to approach with their projects is how do they sort of budget 19
all of the desires they might have. So I think we have we're here we’re I from my perspective 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.
what we have in front of us is not perfect, but it is good enough and hopefully whatever funds 1
that we saved on this design will sort of meet the needs that the City has in other respects. 2
3
So I turn to the Commission now. If anybody would like to make a Motion with respect to this 4
agenda item I would appreciate it. Commissioner Rosenblum. 5
6
MOTION 7
8
Commissioner Rosenblum: Yeah, I'd like to make a Motion that we find this project consistent 9
with our PTC required findings. I don't know if we need to name each of the findings staff or 10
the Motion say that we find this consistent with the findings under our purview? 11
12
Ms. Hodgkins: I think you could say as recommended by staff because staff did include findings 13
and rationale. 14
15
Commissioner Rosenblum: Ok, yeah. Then I recommend the PTC find that this proposal is 16
consistent with staff’s recommendation. 17
18
Chair Alcheck: Can I get a second? 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.
SECOND 1
2
Commissioner Lauing: Second. 3
4
Chair Alcheck: Thank you, Commissioner Lauing. Would either of you like to speak to your 5
Motion? 6
7
Commissioner Rosenblum: Just very briefly. 8
9
Chair Alcheck: Commissioner Rosenblum, go ahead. 10
11
Commissioner Rosenblum: I think that everyone has already said or given their position they 12
think within the narrow purview of the PTC that this has met our hurdle and that the objections 13
that I've heard have been more around design, ARB issues, and are more around suggestions 14
for other things to do and study. But in terms of the purview that we have I’ve heard from 15
other Commissioners I believe that the elements of the EIR, etcetera that we are asked to look 16
at and are outlined in the report were met. 17
18
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.
Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you. Seeing no other lights I'm going to put this to a vote; all those in 1
favor of supporting the Motion on the floor please raise your hand and say aye. All those 2
opposed? Ok and abstentions? Alright, we have six in favor and one abstention, Commissioner 3
[Note Vice-Chair] Waldfogel abstains. Great, thank you very much. With that I'm going to close 4
Agenda Item Number 2. Let's take a 10 minute break as we prepare for our discussion on 5
Agenda Item 3. Thank you. 6
7
MOTION PASSED (6-0-1, Vice-Chair Waldfogel abstained) 8
Commission Action: Motion to support staff’s recommendation made by Commissioner 9
Rosenblum, seconded by Commissioner Lauing; motion passed 6-0-1 (Vice-chair 10
Waldfogel abstained) 11
12
3. PUBLIC HEARING Planning and Transportation Commission Review and 13
Recommendation Regarding the June 30, 2017 Draft of the Comprehensive Plan 14
Update, with a Focus on the Draft Transportation and Land Use Elements 15
16
Chair Alcheck: The second half of our meeting tonight. Let’s get ready… no. Alright, staff would 17
you like to begin? 18
19
Hillary Gitelman, Planning Director: Yes, thank you; Chair and Commissioners Hilary Gilman the 20
Planning Director, Elaine and Elena are with me tonight to take you through the next discussion 21
on the Comprehensive Plan update. We have a super brief PowerPoint and I hope you have in 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.
front of you the collated ranking of the issues that we asked for your input on. We'll go over 1
that as soon as we run through the slides, right? 2
3
Elaine Costello, Management Partners: Ok, yeah. We're ready to… my name is Elaine Costello, 4
I've been working on the Comp Plan and the we are here tonight to recommend the highest 5
priority comments and changes and to review the Land Use Implementation Table for the Comp 6
Plan. This is our fifth Planning and Transportation Commission (PTC) meeting on the Comp Plan 7
and tonight's focus is something that the Commission decided on at, took a Motion on at your 8
previous meeting that to increase the impact of your report to the Council that you would 9
review the comments and changes and you have. Thank you all. Everybody reviewed the 10
comments and prioritized them. And you would indicate your 10 most important PTC 11
comments and changes. There was a little bit of variation on how many we got, but it was not a 12
problem. So we then took I did want to say that we are also asking you tonight to recommend 13
the entire list of PTC comments for inclusion in the PTC report to the Council so they have the 14
benefit of everybody's comments even the ones that did not get a lot of votes and then to also 15
talk about the Land Use section of the Implementation Plan Table. 16
17
So when we got your comments and tables we went upstairs and collated them and figured out 18
which ones had two or more votes. And 19 of the comments had two or more votes; 5 of them 19
actually had four votes as priority items and another 8 had three votes. So you have sort 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.
some emerged as important issues and now what we're asking the Commission to do tonight is 1
to figure out which of these you want to transmit to the Council and what context you want to 2
put that into. And so that on the September 27th we can make the… that will be the final 3
meeting and the Commission can make your recommendation to the Council on these elements 4
and the final Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and that you can decide how you want to set 5
this list of priorities into that report. 6
7
So without any questions… and what we did we just took an Excel spreadsheet to be on it and 8
we just input everybody's and then we totaled them and that's how we came up with this list 9
here. We didn't edit. We didn't change, we didn't we just took what you wrote as your 10
comments and added them up. 11
12
Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you. With that I'd like us all to turn our attention to this consolidated 13
PTC input spreadsheet. We are going to begin with Item 1 and move down the list. And we 14
don't, I don't have a specific indication here of which Commissioners felt strongly about this 15
issue enough to nominate it for our discussion tonight, but what I would like to suggest is that 16
as we approach each of these items those Commissioners that do feel strongly make, turn their 17
light on and participate in this discussion about the item early on as opposed to later in the 18
time that we spent on each of these items. 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.
The goal as staff mentioned is to determine how if there is a consensus here to communicate a 1
message about this topic to City Council and to what extent what that message should be. I 2
don't think there needs to be a unanimous view here expressed to Council. I think that there 3
could be opposing views expressed to Council on each of these items depending on how the 4
Commission discusses them and the most important thing is that we are clear and we've made 5
our sort of view heard on the item. So again two elements here; Number 1, do we wish to 6
communicate this item to Council and if so what is it exactly that we are communicating to 7
them on this item? Ok, I see one light from Commissioner… 8
9
Commissioner Lauing: I just want to clarify the procedure just a bit. 10
11
Chair Alcheck: Commissioner Lauing. 12
13
Commissioner Lauing: Just wanted to clarify the procedure. So we're not going to try to narrow 14
down this list of 19 right now, we're just going to dive in. Is that correct? 15
16
Chair Alcheck: So thank you Commissioner Lauing. What we're going to do is we're going to 17
begin at the top of the list and I'm using the number of nominations as in essence a narrowing 18
down. So all of us nominated 10 items; I imagine that several items did not receive more than 19
one vote. In and of itself that narrowed down our collective list. I believe there's only 19 items 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.
total. What I would suggest we do is that we begin with the top of the list and as we progress 1
through the evening it’s 7:23 right now maybe a little after nine o’clock we'll evaluate where we 2
are in our list and determine whether it's worth continuing to the numbers that got less 3
nominations. 4
5
Commissioner Lauing: Is there any… should we put any limits on the amount of debate per item 6
because if it's an hour per item then we'll be here for 19 hours. 7
8
Chair Alcheck: Thank you, Commissioner Lauing. That’s a good question. I'll reiterate that I 9
think the goal for each of these discussions is Number 1 to determine whether there's 10
consensus to communicate to Council that this issue… to determine whether there is consensus 11
that this is an issue we should communicate to Council our position on and second what the 12
Commission how they view that issue. I think that if there is a sense that there is broad 13
consensus among Commissioners when they speak we can make a concise Motion saying here 14
is how we feel on this topic and how it should be communicated to Council. I think if we in our 15
round of discussion determine that if that there is a not a significant consensus, but it is worth 16
communicating the split views of the Commission then we can simply do that. I don't know 17
that any of these items really should receive an hour of time of debate. I don't think we should 18
be using tonight's time to really go head to head on an item to convince our fellow 19
Commissioners. I think the idea really is are there groups of consensus or a larger consensus 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.
the issue? And at the very least what I would suggest we do is that we least try to go through 1
the items that received four nominations and it's a little trial by error. See where we are in a 2
little bit of time and see if that process is effective if that's ok. Alright, I have the first light is 3
Commissioner Summa (interrupted) 4
5
Commissioner Gardias: Can I speak in a formal matter if you don't mind? 6
7
Chair Alcheck: I just want to make sure that we I really want to encourage people to follow this 8
protocol that I'm suggesting which is to light up the board. So I have a light from Commissioner 9
Summa who has waited patiently and I will call on each of you in order of the light that I see 10
and we can continue this discussion. Thank you. Commissioner Summa. 11
12
Commissioner Summa: Thank you. I have a few questions for staff about the list. One is that 13
the item Packet Page 77 which is the minutes I the item about soft clarifying the software 14
Downtown and not having it be for the Errata list of Errata. I don't think that you caught part of 15
my concern about that and that was that if we have software Downtown there should be a limit 16
on the size of the company. So I thought that part of my comments and that's in the minutes 17
on Page 77 was missing. 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 on Page 5 at the bottom of Page 5 under Land Use Element Goal L-1 that is not in 1
italics, but is that the first part it starts revised Goal L-1 dimension demographic diversity. Was, 2
is that the first… Yes, so… It's Page (interrupted) 3
4
Ms. Costello: Alright, is that in a Packet Page? I'm sorry. 5
6
Commissioner Summa: It's Page 6 of Attachment A. It's Page 6, Packet Page 6 in Attachment A. 7
8
Ms. Costello: So it's Packet Page 84. 9
10
Commissioner Summa: That's possible, yes. 11
12
Ms. Costello: Ok, great. I’m just I'm looking at one thing. 13
14
Commissioner Summa: Yeah, sorry. I wrote down Page 6. So at the bottom I think that's a new 15
comment, maybe? 16
17
Ms. Costello: Yes, it is. 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 Summa: Ok. So it's a it's the beginning of the comment that's italicized on the 1
next page and continued. Because I didn't see it in the earlier… 2
3
Ms. Costello: We put… we did at the last, excuse me, at the last meeting we mentioned that 4
people could send in written comments until Tuesday. 5
6
Commissioner Summa: Right, right. 7
8
Ms. Costello: And so the written comments that came in we put in italics. 9
10
Commissioner Summa: Right, but my question is it's not in italics so I was confused if it was part 11
of the on the next page, Page 7, the that comment. Because it's not… I was just confused 12
because it's not in italics. I think it is the top of Page 7 is a continuation. Is that correct? 13
14
Ms. Costello: No. I think they were two separate comments. Sometimes we get comments that 15
are, but I think the bottom of Page 6 was a new comment. But you know what? We'll check. 16
17
Commissioner Summa: Yeah that's what I was saying because it was (interrupted) 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.
Ms. Costello: I'm sorry. The car the bottom of I’m… excuse me. The bottom of Page 6 was an 1
existing comment. We will double check, but (interrupted) 2
3
Commissioner Summa: Ok, because I didn't have it in the previous August 9th list of comments 4
that's why I asked. 5
6
Ms. Costello: It may have been, it may have also been a verbal comment that was made at the 7
(interrupted) 8
9
Commissioner Summa: Ok. 10
11
Ms. Costello: August 30th meeting. So what we took was verbal comment, written comments 12
that we had received, verbal comments that we got at the meeting on August 30th and then, 13
but people had heard those so we did not show those in italics. 14
15
Commissioner Summa: Ok. 16
17
Ms. Costello: What we did show in italics was written comments that we received after the 18
meeting so people would know what they had not heard or seen before. 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 Summa: Ok, thank you. And then at the on August 9th at the bottom there were 1
two comments that weren't carried over and they are from the August 9th written version of 2
the comments. I can give it to you, it's probably just easier. 3
4
Ms. Costello: Yeah, that would be fine. 5
6
Commissioner Summa: Because they weren’t carried over to this. I don't think it's, I don't think 7
we have to redo it because of it, but they should get in the final version. 8
9
Ms. Costello: Absolutely. That's very helpful because we are trying to find any errors that we’ve 10
made as we get to the end here. 11
12
Commissioner Summa: Ok, I'll give it to you at the end. 13
14
Ms. Costello: Oh, perfect. 15
16
Commissioner Summa: It's just easier than talking about it. Thank you. 17
18
Chair Alcheck: Excuse me, so let me just quickly interject because I want to make sure are either 19
of the items that weren’t carried over items that you nominated? 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 Summa: I think they both were. 2
3
Chair Alcheck: Items you nominated? 4
5
Commissioner Summa: No, not items I nominated. No. 6
7
Chair Alcheck: Ok, I just want to make sure because if (interrupted) 8
9
Commissioner Summa: They were just old items that didn’t get carried over. It's not I don't 10
think it's significant for tonight's discussion. 11
12
Chair Alcheck: Fantastic. So then in that case let's move on. I have a light from Commissioner 13
Gardias. Again anybody of those the individuals who nominated this I would like to see your 14
lights up so that we can begin a discussion on this topic. Commissioner Gardias. 15
16
Commissioner Gardias: Actually I was going to speak about the formal matter, not about the 17
topic. So which I think it proceeds in any discussion. 18
19
Chair Alcheck: I'm happy to hear you on this topic. 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 Gardias: Very good. So thank you. So I disagree with the way that that you 2
proposed to conduct this meeting because I believe that it sounded to me like that some of 3
those that received many votes may be during the discussion talked out of being presented to 4
the Council. That's how I understood we would be proceeding and I think that pretty much if 5
there is an agreement of four Commissioners I for me it's a clear signal that those four read the 6
text and they are ready to support this specific either Motion or recommendation to the 7
Council. 8
9
Commissioner Monk: I don't view it that (interrupted) 10
11
Chair Alcheck: Hold on, hold on, hold on. Are you done? Ok, thank you. I don't disagree with 12
that notion. I'm going to give you a quick example of where there are some components of this 13
process where there might be sort of two competing comments within the Land Use Element 14
and, but to respond to what you're directly saying for example with number one this is a fairly 15
straightforward statement and it has four votes. I think the question now is is does it have 16
seven? It may not have risen to the top of the list for all seven of us, but maybe all seven of us 17
can get behind it in which case right now while we review Item Number 1 I want to determine 18
where Commissioners stand on this topic aside from the four and if I have more than seven 19
then I think we can make a Motion to include it and its specific language. There might be 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.
example a Motion made by one of the members who nominated this to include this specific 1
language in our communication and someone may want to add an amendment or maybe adjust 2
the language to see if we can get greater consensus and then of course there could be an item 3
here where three of the seven don't feel the same way in which case I just want to make sure 4
we get on record that there is a different view and we communicate that as well to City Council. 5
6
I think one of the objectives here isn't for City Council to only hear what the majority of 7
Commissioners feel. I think the idea here is that this letter will, this communication will 8
represent the viewpoints of the Commissioners in their review of the Comp Plan. And so I'm 9
trying to be very much I think the process that we've designed is intended to be mindful of 10
what could be various opinions on this topic. So I have a light from Commissioner [Note-Vice-11
Chair] Waldfogel and please. 12
13
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: Ok, is were you've done with that? Ok, let me get started on Item 14
Number 1 then which is expanding our stock of family oriented housing. So I this is something 15
that I think we need to prioritize more in the Comp Plan. I mean family oriented housing is 16
something that’s defined Palo Alto over the years and we need to continue our notion of 17
neighborhoods that are walkable to commercial districts which is something I think we’ll pick 18
up an Item Number 2 more thoroughly. But I don't think we really capture this because there 19
are really only a couple places where we can do this at any scale. I mean I'd actually 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.
us set some tangible goals and targets for adding family oriented housing at all income levels, 1
but really the only places where we can fit that in any scale are either in some of the 2
commercial center districts or in which are captured under L-4 and there's really no language 3
under Goal L-4 to capture I mean I'm missing where we're really talking much about housing in 4
the commercial center districts. And then in the employment districts, L-5 which I mentioned 5
at the last meeting we don't actually capture this category on the land use map and we need to 6
fix that. But we have some fairly vague language about possible residential use in the Research 7
Park, but we specifically exclude the possibility in L-5.4 from the East Bayshore and San Antonio 8
of possibly considering those as new residential neighborhoods. 9
10
So I guess what I'm advocating is a view that we could build out some large scale residential 11
neighborhoods if we actually think about the available land in these districts and we target that 12
development. Now if we do that we also have to be mindful that we have to do that in a… that 13
this impacts community services, that we need a language that captures what this does to 14
schools and how to pay for schools that we would need to service those areas. Some of you 15
may have noticed that Mountain View has just reported I think in the Post last week that 16
Mountain View has noticed that they may need some new schools. 17
18
Commissioner Summa: Double. 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 Waldfogel: Well, it's a good thing. I mean it's a good problem to have. Parks, other 1
types of community services, and even commercial districts adjacent to these neighborhoods 2
because we've always defined our neighborhoods as having as being walkable and walkable 3
means that they’re walkable to something, right? So they can't just be hermetic. So the 4
question is how can we capture some of this language? I mean how do we, what can we say 5
about the commercial centers and the employment districts to encourage or encourage 6
exploring development of larger scale neighborhoods whether it's a single-story or whether it's 7
townhouse or whether it's low-rise/mid-rise, whatever the format is, but I just don't see that 8
language in here that would let us do that kind of thing. So just any comments on why that 9
language isn't here? 10
11
Ms. Gitelman: I don't know what to say entirely. I think the housing policies that are in the 12
Housing Element aren't obviously included in this packet. We do identify sites for housing all 13
over the City, not the Research Park, but in a variety of areas in the Housing Element that is not 14
being currently updated. In the Land Use Element here we've grouped the housing related 15
policies in Goal L-2. There was that the Citizen Advisory Committee (CAC) however and I think 16
often at the Council a focus rather than on family housing on encouraging small units, 17
workforce housing, kind of new housing types that we see the city that doesn't have a great 18
stock up. So I think the Commission’s suggestion to add an emphasis on family housing and all 19
_______________________
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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of the issues attendant with that I think that is an idea that has not been raised previously and 1
that would be a good point for you to make in your report. 2
3
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: Great. Ok, I will see if anyone else has any other comments to add. 4
5
Chair Alcheck: Thank you, Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] Waldfogel. The next light is 6
Commissioner Rosenblum. 7
8
Commissioner Rosenblum: Yeah, just a quick response on this and then maybe a question to 9
Vice-Chair Waldfogel to clarify a little bit about your intent. When we reviewed the Housing 10
Element and thought about the Comprehensive Plan with relation to what Palo Alto needs for 11
housing through the lifetime of this plan the couple trends that struck me were first that Palo 12
Alto is losing its share of population between basically graduating college and starting a family. 13
So that group of people have diminished in terms of the proportion that they make up in Palo 14
Alto and we've gained a lot of elderly people so we’ve gained a lot of senior citizens over time. 15
And so a couple of the things that we're focused on in Housing Element was how do you make 16
housing more affordable overall? How do you make housing that accommodates our growing 17
senior population? And how do you make housing that's appropriate for this group people 18
we’re losing which are the young people starting out. And sometimes those three things all 19
intersect because very young people and very old are often either fixed income or no income or 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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low income and often need similar types of housing. And so I think that there was a lot of 1
emphasis on how do you build housing in a way that's denser i.e. that tends to be cheaper, 2
more affordable, often can be serviced by public transit, and so it's things that you can get away 3
without a car for example. 4
5
And so my question then to Vice-Chair is recognizing that a lot of Palo Alto is already family 6
friendly meaning it's R-1 neighborhoods, low rise, and it’s the vast majority of our land available 7
for housing. Do you mean more how do you make places that are family friendly i.e. walkable 8
community oriented places that have small neighborhood parks, etcetera? So more community 9
oriented or do you mean literally family? Like housing stock that has two to three bedrooms 10
that will be occupied by a family? And so I was confused what the intent was there. 11
12
Chair Alcheck: Thank you, Commissioner Rosenblum. Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] 13
Waldfogel? 14
15
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: Am I on? There we go. Thank you. Good questions. So in preparing for 16
this I looked at some of the census data on population trends. When this plan, when this Comp 17
Plan work began the biggest demographic bulge in the in that census data was probably about 18
22 years old that the biggest bulge right now is 28 years old. It's pretty easy to see the trend 19
_______________________
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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that that biggest bulge will be in their thirty's and forty's in prime family forming years over the 1
period when this plan is carried out. The largest population group right now is 28 years old. 2
3
Chair Alcheck: In Palo Alto? 4
5
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: That's the biggest demographic group in the United States. And that's 6
the group that we need to accommodate. We and in fact you see this I mean you we're seeing 7
(interrupted) 8
9
Commissioner Rosenblum: So I just quick clarifying question. Are you saying Palo Alto or the 10
United States (US)? 11
12
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: This is in the US. That's the group that we that's the group we need to 13
accommodate. I mean you actually see that there's a decline in the size of the cohort behind 14
that; that the current 17 year old cohort is smaller than that then the current 25 year old 15
cohort. I mean we've actually seen some things like reductions in college enrollments that 16
they're already predicting this. So it's really important for us to look forward in this plan, not to 17
look backward. We have to solve the 2030 problems, the 2025 problems, not the 2010 18
problems. And family housing is a looking forward issue it's not a looking backward issue. 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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Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] Waldfogel. I'll chime in here. This 1
was not one of the “PTC comments” that I nominated. One of the issues that I'm having with 2
this specific PTC comment as it's articulated here on this page is that I'm not sure what we're 3
really telling our Council here. One of the things that I heard from Commissioner [Note Vice-4
Chair] Waldfogel tonight was that the commercial districts are really the only places that can 5
accommodate growth and housing. So if there is consensus on this Commission that we want 6
to communicate to Council that they need to promote growth in housing in our commercial 7
districts then I think that's a very valid communication to the Council. So I would sort of 8
appreciate clarity from the individuals that are sort of supporting this specific statement to help 9
me understand... It the way it's written it's sort of seems like we're throwing our hands up. So 10
where do we have spaces to accommodate and how do we ensure neighborhoods receive full 11
investment in schools and our current neighborhoods are built out and don't provide 12
substantial spaces for new family orientated development. I think those statements are all 13
true. If our Comp Plan is going to address that problem then it should identify the areas where 14
there is space and I think you've done that and then it should aggressively promote 15
development of family oriented housing. 16
17
I will suggest that I think both of you are making sort of factually correct statements. I think 18
that the bulk of our community is made up of an ageing cohort and the largest demographic 19
that's growing in the nation as a whole may be this sort of millennial group, this 28 year old 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,
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aged group that Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] Waldfogel mentioned. If our… I don't know 1
that we need to specify tonight what type of housing we would encourage specifically whether 2
it would be more affordable senior housing to sort of accommodate the community members 3
that we have already or family oriented housing to accommodate the community members we 4
wish to have, but I guess my hope is that we could have some people comment on what exactly 5
they we should be communicating to City Council with respect to this particular comment and if 6
there is a goal or policy specifically that could be addressed that would be helpful for me too as 7
we proceed with this discussion. I have lights from Commissioner Gardias, oh excuse me, yeah, 8
Commissioner Gardias, Commissioner Lauing, and then Commissioner Summa. 9
10
Commissioner Gardias: Thank you. So when I think about the statement I find it natural with 11
City of Palo Alto and for this reason and I already spoke about this I think that Palo Alto’s stance 12
with a family and then there is a natural reason to pretty much to follow this policy and expand 13
our stock of family oriented housing across the areas over the other type of housing. So I think 14
that if there was going to be a policy I would propose this statement because we need to 15
somehow quantify where we would be seeking this growth in the in the family oriented 16
housing. 17
18
There were recent, we recently supported a few rental buildings and a couple of buildings with 19
the micro units and I totally agree that there should be units like this across the town, but I 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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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
think that we arbitrarily try to expand the stock of those micro units and rental units against 1
farther family oriented housing which I would think that family oriented housing is the place 2
the family can anchor itself, grow, and have kids. They could go to the local schools and be part 3
contribute to this community. That's how I see Palo Alto and I would be supporting this 4
statement from this perspective. 5
6
Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you Commissioner Gardias. Commissioner Lauing. 7
8
Commissioner Lauing: Yes, I don't think this one should be very controversial and I think we 9
should be able to get a commitment to family housing and more stock. I think that family 10
housing and families are obviously a very important value and that's what the Comp Plan is 11
about to Palo Alto. Not exclusively, but we have spent a lot of time appropriately talking about 12
smaller units where people can have entry level and make sure we don't skip those 13
demographics. But at some point I didn’t know the statistic that was quoted by Vice-Chair 14
Waldfogel, but at some point they start to make babies and they can't stay in those little units 15
anymore. It's that simple and we don't want them to have to move out again after we just 16
provided for them to get here we'd like to have them to have a place to raise a family. That 17
doesn't mean a half acre and a three car garage, but it means something other than micro 18
units. So I think it's perfectly appropriate to have something itemized probably in two point, in 19
L-2 talking about the ongoing need for family housing as well as the other ones. 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,
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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 Alcheck: Ok, thank you Commissioner Lauing. Commissioner Summa. 2
3
Commissioner Summa: Thank you. So I agree with some of the comments I've heard and I think 4
that I also saw this as not just increasing the stock, but maintaining the family neighborhoods 5
and maintaining a family neighborhoods that have the services that family need which is 6
walkable short trips to services and personal services and retail and also schools. I mean I am 7
just struck personally and anecdotally about the people I see moving into my neighborhood and 8
they’re new families with kids and they're from all over. And obviously as Council Member 9
Filseth used to always say we do two things in Palo Alto, we raise great kids and we raise 10
startups. 11
12
So I think that is an essential core to what Palo Alto is as a community is raising families and 13
having good schools and all these services and walkable neighborhoods. So I saw this 14
statement as being kind of like apple pie and it already has a majority of Commissioners 15
supporting it. So I think it's to it's importance I think it's already clear since it has majority 16
support and it's a it's pretty much an apple pie statement I think and I don't think it precludes 17
other types of housing in other situations. Thanks. 18
19
Chair Alcheck: Thank you, Commissioner Summa. Commissioner Rosenblum. 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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1
Commissioner Rosenblum: Yeah, just quickly I just took a look at the Housing Element just to 2
make sure that we're saying things that are consistent. So I understand Commissioner [Note 3
Vice-Chair] Waldfogel is talking about national trends. There is a table in the beginning of our 4
Housing Element so I think it's Page 11 that tracks our growth since 1980 and so every ten years 5
from US Census data through 2010. And it is interesting that the group that declines, the only 6
group that declines in Palo Alto is childbearing years from 1980 to 2010 declined 15 percent, 7
from 2000 to 2010 declined 7 percent. The group that is growing in Palo Alto most rapidly 8
there are kids which does imply that people are forming families so there's and I'll explain the 9
difference I think in the data why there's that inconsistency in a moment and seniors. The 10
reason why this group from 18, the childbearing group, 18 to 44 is declining is because within 11
that is a subgroup which is the people from 18 to before they have a family and we've lost most 12
of them and then they come back when they have kids and they want our school district. But 13
they’ve hauled out that group. 14
15
And so I agree this is sort of an apple pie statement. We all want more housing. We want the 16
services that families need. Palo Alto is about families going to good schools and so I like this 17
except I think the Comp Plan is a document that's a strategy document that's around what kind 18
of city, what kinds of things do we want to address? And to me to the extent that we're making 19
value tradeoffs to say we need more of this kind of housing, we need more of these kinds of 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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services, I personally think that we need to accommodate our growing elderly population and 1
we need to do something to reverse this trend of people of young people starting out not be 2
able to stay in our community. I think it has a lot of impact on multigenerational families. I 3
think it has impact on innovation. It has impact on the kind of city that we are. 4
5
And the final piece is and I'll find this in the Housing Element in a moment, I just haven’t had 6
time to find the table, but I do believe it's the vast majority of our current housing stock is a 7
family housing multi-bedroom units and I can find it confirm that. But so my I guess my only 8
note to the statement and I agree it's a majority, it should go to Council, maybe end debate 9
here, but the only thing that I'll note is this is the area we have the most housing for the group 10
of people that is declining the… is increasing at the lease rate where we have the lease 11
problem. And so to me it's just not the sort of thing that I would want to emphasize in our 12
strategic plan, but I agree that like it is apple pie. We’re a core of families. We want to make 13
sure that family housing remains affordable, plentiful, and the services are there. It just doesn't 14
seem like that's the thing to note in terms of our strategy. 15
16
Chair Alcheck: Thank you, Commissioner Rosenblum. Commissioner Monk. 17
18
Commissioner Monk: My comment is a bit of a general comment in that in looking at how these 19
were polled with the votes I don't agree that they represent any sort of majority whatsoever. I 20
_______________________
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did not do my submission of my top 10 based on what I thought were going to be the most 1
popular. I did it based on things that I wanted to get covered without determining whether or 2
not it was going to be supported by other folks. So for example if I knew something was going 3
to be brought up I would have voted for something else because I don't want to waste my vote 4
on something that I knew would already get brought to your attention. So I really think it's 5
misguided to look at this document and say oh, because there's a bunch of fours here and some 6
three those are higher priority than the twos because I'll tell you these number four's this is the 7
first time that I've really seen these were in the packet just a couple days ago and they were 8
mostly written in letters by various Commissioners more recently. So they weren't items that 9
we had discussed in the past that's probably why they're listed here tonight. So it doesn’t mean 10
they are in any priority, they're new items. So I just really want to make that a distinction 11
because I think if we’re referring to these as oh, there's four votes and I don't think it's accurate 12
in saying that there’s a majority there. I think whatever we decide tonight will be the defacto 13
majority of support of all of these. 14
15
Going back to this Number 1I really don't see what it's doing in the Comp Plan. It doesn't seem 16
like an appropriate comment to have to include in the Comp Plan. It's more for the Housing 17
Element. 18
19
_______________________
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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Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you Commissioner Monk. Look I’ll weigh in here. I agree. I think this 1
is vanilla. I think what we're saying is Palo Alto we want to ensure that this is a good place for 2
families to live. I tend to agree with Commissioner Rosenblum’s standpoint here which is that if 3
you could point me in the direction of a project that you're familiar with that has 15 micro units 4
I would say wow, I had no idea. I don't know that we've developed any micro units in this City 5
and so when I think about what I want our Comprehensive Plan to emphasize it’s the 6
development of a diversity of housing types. 7
8
So I'm not saying I stand in the way of this item, I won't. But it's not really communicating a 9
goal that I think is of critical importance. So if the next individual that speaks wants to make 10
the Motion that this exact language is included in our communication then it we’ll take a vote 11
on it and it can be the end of the conversation, but I would like at least the minutes to reflect 12
that my perspective is that we haven't actually built out those 60 senior units that we talked at 13
great length about on Maybell. And we didn't really build out any micro units yet. And we have 14
not developed we haven't seen in our town significant development of what I would call diverse 15
housing units as opposed to for example the large majority of housing in our City being three 16
bedroom/two bath, four bedroom/three bath houses, multi… what you would call family 17
oriented housing, all the quarter acres with backyards. So the question is: is are we from my 18
perspective is are we were communicating to Council that we want to see them make more of 19
an effort in the Comp Plan to encourage other housing types that might address the needs that 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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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
aren't being met by the overabundance of family oriented housing that we have and the lack of 1
supply of other diverse housing types that we don't have. That's where I stand on this issue and 2
I'm happy for anybody to sort of move this issue forward if they would like to. I have lights 3
from Commissioner Summa and Commissioner Monk. 4
5
Commissioner Summa: Yes, so I appreciate all these comments, but I do think it's important 6
remember I believe Palo Alto has 44 percent renters. I don't know if that's an accurate statistic 7
or if it's gone up. So we have a lot of people who rent and don't own homes and we also have a 8
lot of existing housing stock. And I make I'll just anecdotally note my what my neighborhood I 9
live in Lower College Terrace as it's called where there are a lot of really existing tiny 10
apartments for people. So I feel like there's a lot of existing diversity and I also think it's 11
important to maintain that and I don't think old people are moving to Palo Alto because it’s too 12
expensive. And I think the fact that 18 year olds leave is an aspect of being 18ish. I know I left 13
my home when I was that age and whether or not they come back later to live here so I would 14
agree with Commissioner Gardias. This is a very natural situation. Thank you. 15
16
Chair Alcheck: Ok, Commissioner Monk. 17
18
Commissioner Monk: If this is going to be made into Motion I'd like to see it put as a phrase 19
rather than a hypothetical question. 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 Alcheck: Thank you, Commissioner Monk. Commissioner Rosenblum. 2
3
Commissioner Rosenblum: Yeah, I'll just to state for the record so I did find the table that I was 4
looking for. Palo Alto is 79 percent housing with two or more bedrooms across rental and 5
owner occupied. So if you want three bedrooms and above it's 57 percent. So at any rate I 6
again I would I'm happy I agree with Commissioner Monk we should the Motion should say 7
what we want not a theoretical thing. I'm happy to support the majority of this Commission 8
that feels this is important. My personal view is again the vast majority of housing in this town 9
is two or more bedrooms. The demographics are shifting in a way that this isn't the main pitch 10
point for our community, but sure we’re a family oriented community and to the extent that 11
the document represents that I’m happy to support a statement. But I agree with 12
Commissioner Monk that I don't quite know what the statement is based on this line. 13
14
Chair Alcheck: Ok, I don't have any lights. Would anybody like to move this item forward? No, 15
why don’t… no, why don’t you proceed. Light up the board if you'd like to continue. We can 16
come back to you. I don't want to move away from this until we get a statement that a 17
majority of us can stand behind. Commissioner Summa. 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,
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Commissioner Summa: So I have a question. I didn't think we were going to rewrite these 1
things. I thought we were going to pass them along. 2
3
Chair Alcheck: Well so I’ll clarify for you. The goal for tonight is for us to determine what… I'll 4
give you an example. Look at Number 3 here. It's got two contrary statements. 5
6
Commissioner Summa: Yes. 7
8
Chair Alcheck: So we can't just move that along and the question is: is when we say some PTC 9
members this and some PTC that I'd like to conclude at this meeting whether it's 4-3 or 5-2 or 10
6-1 or 2-2-2 on a separate item. So the goal here from my perspective is that when we author 11
our letter to City Council I am hopeful of two things. Number one, that we've given them a list 12
of statements that represent our view, our collective view on certain items and that they will 13
also be able to very clearly rely on our hopefully excellent minutes tonight to determine how 14
other Commissioners who didn't support those items felt with respect to the things that got the 15
most votes. 16
17
Commissioner Summa: Ok, but so are we going to rewrite each one of these because I think 18
that could I wasn't expecting we would do that. 19
20
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Chair Alcheck: Well, here is the flaw. Right now if any one of the individuals who nominated 1
this item would like to make a Motion for this exact text to proceed we can take a vote on it. I 2
don't know that it would get all seven, but we can see. The other option is that it appears that 3
maybe one of the nominators is sort of drafting a different statement to build greater 4
consensus is what I suspect and if that is the case then there may be the vote may turn out 5
differently. We can do either. I'm not standing in the way of anybody's individual interest to 6
pursue their own sort of process here. I'm just trying to create a opportunity for this to be 7
effective consensus building and to be perfectly honest clear. Ok, I have a light from 8
Commissioner Rosenblum. 9
10
Commissioner Rosenblum: Yeah, just I hope that this is helpful. Commissioner Lauing and I 11
were some of the authors of this process so I just want to reflect back on some of the intention 12
of that. I had thought that what we're going to do was to do essentially a quick poll of what 13
items the group of us thought were important and that's what resulted in this list of 19. Out of 14
that there was going to be probably two things that happened. First, these things will be 15
passed to Council, but second there was going to be a small subset that we were discuss at 16
great length to say well, we spent a lot of time on transaction transactional things, just voting 17
yes/no send it forward, but there be a small number of things that we thought were really 18
important and let's take the time deliberate. So an example of that is our overall parking policy 19
and strategy. Another example is Transportation Demand Management (TDM) or 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.
Transportation Management Association (TMA) programs. So I had thought that what we 1
would get out of this out of 19 there would be those 6-2 or 6-1/5-2 things that would just get 2
passed through. And then second that hopefully we could agree say I think we think these are 3
the three things that we should really take one more session on and then come up with some 4
considered opinion and rationale so that what Council gets is essentially like small reports from 5
the dais of around again an example is parking. And there would be a lot of issues that come 6
up under that rubric. 7
8
So anyway that was what I had thought we defined as part of process was that we were a little 9
bit frustrated by having so many transactional items where we’d just vote then pass it through. 10
That there are some items we wanted to discuss in detail, but recognizing that we're not going 11
to do that for the 200 items that we started with. Even 19 that’s too much. And so that out of 12
this hopefully we'll have a couple that had enough meat that maybe at the end we can make 13
some Motions to say I'd like to discuss this topic and put this on the agenda and get some 14
things through. 15
16
Commissioner Lauing: Can I comment since I was quoted? 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.
Chair Alcheck: Ok, hold on. I have a light from Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] Waldfogel and 1
would do me a favor, light up your board so that I can call on you next. Commissioner [Note 2
Vice-Chair] Waldfogel. 3
4
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: I’m sorry. Do you want to say something before I propose a specific 5
Motion? 6
7
Commissioner Lauing: Yeah, I was just going to comment on as Commissioner Rosenblum said 8
we were kind of the instigators of this. So I just wanted to talk about the procedural 9
expectations and so I essentially agree with what he said which is why I asked at the beginning 10
if we were going to actually go through all 19 recognizing that some of them are not detailed as 11
to this is where it's going to fit in the policy. I think it would be ideal at the end if we had 15 or 12
whatever they are that we do have policy oriented so we're very specific about that. And I 13
agree we don't have time with our extraordinarily sadly limited amount of time to really debate 14
thoroughly 19 which I'd love to do, but we just don't have that much time to get to the end. I'm 15
happy to follow the Chairs’ process (interrupted) 16
17
Chair Alcheck: Yeah. 18
19
Commissioner Lauing: But I agree with (interrupted) 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 Alcheck: Look, I appreciate what you're saying. I hope that the items that for example I 2
nominated that I care significantly about to communicate to staff that maybe didn't fall in your 3
radar you will use the time when we discuss them to encourage me to add potentially 4
comments that you could add to them that will make it more likely for your support or not. The 5
goal here is… look, to be perfectly honest the statement as this is written to me is not 6
particularly relevant for me to communicate to Council. If four people on this Commission want 7
to proceed let them make that Motion. We’ll take the vote. We’ll move on. I'm just what I'm 8
what I suggested in my comments on this item were with the intent of just maybe improving it 9
a little bit so that I could stand behind it. That's all. And any Commissioner could say I don't 10
think that's an improvement and I don't want to include it and here's my Motion and we move 11
on. And it's a simple as that. It’s not, I don't intend for this to be sort of personally upsetting or 12
frustrating and I think that the more concise and clear we are the faster this process can go. 13
Ok, I have a light from Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] Waldfogel. 14
15
MOTION #1 16
17
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: Am I on or off? Here we go, I’m on. Be nice if these lights came up above 18
the... So here's the proposal. In light of Palo Alto’s traditional family orientation we need 19
housing policies that encourage building more family oriented housing for all demographics. 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.
We recommend adding policies to L-4 and L-5 to accommodate larger scale family oriented 1
housing development in retail and commercial districts and policies to ensure school and other 2
service impacts are fully mitigated. 3
4
Chair Alcheck: Ok, I would like to treat that as a like a Motion or if not if that's acceptable. 5
6
SECOND 7
8
Commissioner Monk: I'd like to second the Motion and I have one question. Are you 9
distinguishing between for rental or purchase or just leaving that vague? 10
11
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: Very vague. 12
13
Chair Alcheck: Ok, so we have a Motion to edit this Item Number 1 and we have a second. Does 14
anybody wish to speak to the Motion? To be clear we’re this Motion essentially is saying that 15
not only do we want to communicate something that we've just heard regarding Item Number 16
1, but this is the specific text of that communication. Ok, I see no lights. I see a light. 17
Commissioner Rosenblum. 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 Rosenblum: I just have a question for the for our attorney. Do we have language 1
in any Comp Plan document or City planning document that accounts for school 2
planning/mitigations? 3
4
Ms. Gitelman: We did have a discussion of this very issue with the Council and I think we ended 5
up adding a policy, but it will take a minute to find it. We labored over this with the Attorney 6
staff and (interrupted) 7
8
Commissioner Rosenblum: But we are permitted to do so? 9
10
Ms. Gitelman: Yeah. 11
12
Commissioner Rosenblum: Ok. 13
14
Ms. Gitelman: We’ll find it for you. 15
16
Commissioner Rosenblum: I’m fine with the answer as long as we are permitted to do so I don't 17
need to see where it exists. 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.
Ms. Gitelman: There are limitations as to what we can say and we crafted a policy very carefully 1
to stay within those limitations. 2
3
Chair Alcheck: Ok, I don't see any other lights so I'm going to call for the vote on this item. All 4
Commissioners in favor of supporting the Motion please raise your hand and say aye. Ok, all 5
Commissioner opposed? Ok, Commissioners Rosenblum and Alcheck oppose. All others 6
support. So 5-2. That message is communicated. Would you like to speak to your dissent? 7
8
MOTION #1 PASSED (5-2, Commissioner Rosenblum and Chair Alcheck opposed) 9
10
Commissioner Rosenblum: None. Nothing new. Already been stated for the record. 11
12
Chair Alcheck: Great. Alright, moving on Item Number 2, this is he Land Use Element narrative 13
and maps. I'm not going to read it out loud, but you guys can all look it over. Please light up my 14
board if anybody would like to discuss this item. I have Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] 15
Waldfogel. 16
17
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: I’d rather not start, but if no one else is lit up I’ll do it. So the current 18
Comp Plan is built on a three way distinction between residential districts, commercial districts, 19
and employment districts. And the residential districts and commercial districts by current 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.
Comp Plan I mean the one that's in effect today, not the one that we're currently considering. 1
And the commercial districts and the residential districts have a I hate to use this word 2
synergistic relationship that the residential districts provide customers to the commercial 3
districts and the commercial districts provide services to the residential districts. I mean this is 4
very clear. It's reiterated over and over in the definitions of the districts. The employment 5
district is our third category. The current Comp Plan calls out the Research Park, the medical 6
area, I think San Antonio corridor and East Meadow as employment districts. Perhaps part of 7
Embarcadero extension is an employment district, but it explicitly calls out a distinction 8
between these different categories. 9
10
So now I'm just going to stop and tell you a little story about what's going on. So in my day job 11
the other day I visited a small tech company in Downtown Palo Alto. It’s a group of guys who 12
just recently moved here from Israel, really nice guys, they got 1,000 square feet and they just 13
took in I think they just drew $17 million dollars Venture Capital (VC) investment from one of 14
my favorite venture firms. I won't name names. Good guys on all sides, but as I was visiting 15
them in their very nice second floor space over coffee shops and all kinds of good stuff I just 16
kept wondering how many tax accountants or therapists could possibly compete with guys who 17
just raised $17 million for rent. I mean it's sort of unfathomable because guys in that position 18
$10 a foot that’s not an issue. You know $12 a foot wouldn't be an issue. I mean just for them 19
having a Palo Alto address means a lot because it's actually a way they signal to their partners, 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 other potential investors, to potential employees that they're in the game. And to the extent 1
they're in the game and that they're occupying space this is space that's not available for 2
neighborhood services. 3
4
Ground floor retail protection is a great step although retail has other issues that we can talk 5
about it's not in peril if you look at Stanford Shopping Center, if you look at Town & Country. 6
It's certainly in peril if rents are too high, but we have this situation where we're saying look 7
let's have global companies with strong balance sheets, sometimes infinite budgets for rent, 8
compete with the little guy. I mean it's like saying the 49ers can go scrimmage with the Gunn 9
High School Junior Varsity (JV) football team. Sure they're both on the field playing football, but 10
someone's going to get hurt. It's just not going to work out. So that's what we've really lost. 11
12
I mean it's funny the language around commercial districts is mostly pretty good, but it doesn't 13
acknowledge that something really big has happened in Downtown Palo Alto and in Cal Ave. in 14
the last decade which is the kind of commercial services that the neighborhoods rely on have 15
been economically crowded out by other uses. And I think the Comp Plan either needs to step 16
up and say this is a big shift in our vision of how the town, of how the City is organized, possibly 17
redefine those districts as mixed-use or as adjuncts to Research and Development (R&D) or we 18
need to double down and say these are still neighborhood serving commercial districts and we 19
have to protect space for the kinds of services. I mean I'll just end on this note which is we've 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.
recently seen issues like dentists and doctors complaining about available space. We've heard 1
issues about not for profits, about music schools looking for space and we've crowded all those 2
uses out of our commercial districts. We've seen most of our auto repair leave town. So 3
districts that should be service commercial I can think of a half dozen examples of that. We’re 4
crowding out all these valuable residential services. So this plan has some good language about 5
that, but then from time to time we see a language slipped in which completely undermines the 6
general philosophy of the commercial districts. I'll stop on that note. 7
8
Chair Alcheck: Ok, I have a light from Commissioner Rosenblum. Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I have 9
a light from Commissioner Summa and then Commissioner Rosenblum. 10
11
Commissioner Summa: So I agree with the comments of Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] 12
Waldfogel and I also think it's really disappointing to me I when we moved from Downtown 13
Palo Alto to our house in College Terrace we specifically wanted to live close to services and the 14
train and that's why we wanted to stay in Downtown. And I see all of these services I see them 15
slipping away and sure we've got a lot of new restaurants, but at some point we could have too 16
many. So it's disappointing to me to have to drive to another town to buy art supplies or 17
greeting cards when I could just walk to my little Downtown that I purposely located next to. 18
And I think it really I you know those as interesting and nice as some of these startups are and 19
not to I wouldn’t name names either, but they don't provide anything to create a diverse 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.
vibrant town. People don't go to them except the people working there. You walk by them 1
they don't have products in the stores. You don't have a relationship with the people that work 2
there like you might at your cobblery shop. So I think it is it's affecting not only how complete 3
this town is that we are losing these things, but also it's making it a less vibrant and diverse 4
place for residents and also for the people that work here because they can't walk around and 5
see those things either. 6
7
So I think it's a very important issue. It was an issue that came up a lot at the CAC and it's come 8
up a lot here. So thank you. 9
10
Chair Alcheck: Ok, Commissioner Rosenblum. 11
12
Commissioner Rosenblum: Yeah, I think it's important issue and actually I didn't understand this 13
whole block until Vice-Chair described it I think quite eloquently. And so I agree with the issue. 14
In some ways it's analogous to a lot of what we're asking for around Below Market Rate (BMR) 15
housing, more affordable housing, you want diverse community, you also want a diverse set of 16
services and businesses in our community. The difference to me though is. If you offer an 17
apartment at well below market rate there becomes a point where to an individual it's a safe 18
place to live in a great community near good schools, etcetera. It's attractive. 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.
Retail is facing something different. A lot of retailers just don't survive because of a lot of 1
market pressures. And when retail preservation came up before this Commission a while back I 2
went and talked to a bunch of retailers. So I think I forget the number I called. It was around 3
12 different retailers of different types and I talked to them and very rarely they list rent as 4
their biggest issue. They said we can't get employees. They don't live anywhere around here, 5
they come in from like Gilroy. And so if they get even a job offer even for $5 per hour less 6
closer to home they take it. They leave constantly. So you want to solve my problem figure out 7
how employees can live near me. Second is foot traffic. I need customers. And so to 8
Commissioner Summa’s to answer part of a statement that you made around what do these 9
businesses bring, talk to any retailer. They really depend on the workers here. So you talk to 10
the cobbler who's making custom shoes or looking to get their shoes repaired? Who is actually 11
going into a dry cleaning shop? A lot of them are the workers who live around here. So it is an 12
important ecosystem question, but at the same time the loss of diversity of services is a 13
problem. 14
15
I don't know if there's anything here that actually gives me something to latch onto to say yes, 16
this is a great idea to support. It talks about mixed-use designations. There were some specific 17
areas around for example designating and I think the Vice-Chair had suggested this in the past 18
and it came up around the music schools and psychological health services operating out of our 19
churches, but designating churches in such a way that allows them explicitly to carry on certain 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.
community services so they don't have to that this doesn't become like a grey market economy 1
where they have businesses that are businesses, but they have to act like they're not but 2
they're serving the neighborhood. 3
4
I don't know what the answer is here. I do think it's an important issue. I don't see anything in 5
particular here that I'm not sure where this would even fit in the Comp Plan. I it's a statement 6
to say it's important to have diversity of businesses. I don't see things here that necessarily get 7
to that, but I guess there are different levels of things within the Comp Plan. I personally think 8
the one thing as a City that we've done which is retail preservation ground floor citywide I think 9
was poorly done. I think for retail to survive you want to pick a good area for retail and 10
concentrate so every store front is full, it's vibrant, it's around people that can work there and 11
buy there and that making everything all over the City have to find a retailer makes for lots of 12
empty pockets everywhere. I think it was a poor move and it doesn't address a big problem 13
that retailers have. I just think was a blunt instrument and not that well thought out. 14
15
At the same time I do think that reserving spaces for well below market rate services is a good 16
idea. I'm just not sure exactly how it gets implemented or if there are other models for other 17
cities that are good. Anyways so I've said my piece on this. I support this idea. I'm not sure 18
how it works exactly. I think it's important, but it's more difficult in some ways than BMR 19
housing. 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 Alcheck: Ok, thank you Commissioner Rosenblum. I’ll jump in here. I this is a perfect 2
example of why I am glad that we're sort of following this process because when I saw this item 3
in our list I didn't quite appreciate what it was getting at and I think Commissioner [Note Vice-4
Chair] Waldfogel’s comments were really thoughtful. My context is similar Commissioner 5
Rosenblum’s. I recently had a very in-depth conversation with a hotel proprietor that's opening 6
a new hotel and his biggest issue I mean they're trying to open up the doors this month and 7
they're having it, they're struggling like crazy to hire staff in the kitchen and in the hotel. And to 8
the extent where they're paying two times the rate they're paying in Los Angeles where they 9
operate hotels too and it's simply because the housing and the commute are creating barriers 10
for employees to come. And I think that I imagine that this is the same situation that probably 11
all restaurants and retailers are really struggling to do as well. 12
13
There is this is an interesting discussion because we're not talking about retail preservation 14
we're talking about a floor up. We're talking about the second floor. And I agree, we've seen a 15
dramatic change. I grew up here and I don't know that I would look… we had Commissioner 16
Summa make an interesting comment earlier. She quoted City Council Member Filseth saying 17
we do two things well we raise good kids and we raise good start ups. I don't know that I would 18
suggest that the startup that received $17 million dollars is sort of the norm. What I've noticed 19
in the last decade in Downtown Palo Alto is that we're losing the startups and we're getting 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.
J.P. Morgan’s and the thousand dollar an hour attorneys. Those are not the kind of attorneys 1
that you go to when you have a dispute with your neighbor about where they put the fence or 2
anything for that matter that's not corporate. 3
4
So I guess my issue is here when you were speaking you sort of mentioned things like 5
veterinarians and doctors and dentists and I think that one way we could ensure that services 6
like those were protected would be to incorporate them in some element of ground floor retail 7
preservation. The wider we make and we had this discussion during our retail preservation 8
debate which was should we be incorporating not just your Merriam-Webster version of retail, 9
but sort of a wider description of the definition of retail. I think once you get to the second 10
floor the distinguishing between a $17 million funded startup and a $1,200 lawyer is to me… it 11
lacks like a clear winner and loser. 12
13
If we're talking about for example an art store that we want to preserve that goes into retail. 14
So I guess it's I would be curious to know how we could craft this statement so that it 15
communicated that we wanted commercial tenants that served our neighborhoods. Again, I'm 16
having a hard time sort of picturing exactly what that is, but I do sort of wonder if the best 17
solution there is to incorporate them in some of our retail preservation which is now citywide. 18
That could actually create a retail preservation ordinance that I could be more proud of because 19
it would allow the “hardcore” or “real retail” to congregate where it will and then the areas 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.
really aren't suitable for retail, but now are preserved could become areas that are suitable for 1
services like dentists, veterinarians, accountants, I guess to some extent community banks, 2
therapists, and stuff like that which are transactional. They have a customer who comes in and 3
in some respects there is a retail service component as opposed to a business to business (B2B) 4
component. So that's where I stand on that issue, but I do really appreciate the thoughtful 5
comment. I have now Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] Waldfogel, Commissioner Monk, and 6
then Commissioner Summa. 7
8
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: So just a couple of quick responses. I appreciate the directional support. 9
I mean I think that the retail preservation as we have it now is both too broad and too narrow. 10
So it possibly covers too much ground floor geography, but doesn't capture our ability to 11
implement these second floor services. So I think that's possibly that's the tool. I'm not… it 12
seems like a slightly blunt instrument for an interesting discussion. 13
14
On this point about the difference between different I think you're right that the $1,000 an 15
hour lawyer and the $17 million startup are possibly the same category although I can tell you 16
that all my $1,000 an hour lawyers have left Downtown Palo Alto and they’re either in the 17
Research Park or in East Palo Alto. So strangely enough most of the guys that I work with have 18
gone elsewhere. I mean maybe the rents are too high. I don't know what the reason is. I mean 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 know that… Well, I know that they don't pack them in as tight as some of the startups do. So 1
and then just the well, let me leave it at that and see what other people have to say. 2
3
Chair Alcheck: Ok, I have a Commissioner Monk and then Commissioner Summa. 4
5
Commissioner Monk: I just want to acknowledge commish or Vice-Chair Waldfogel for putting 6
this together. I think it's an important issue. What Commissioner Rosenblum stated really 7
resonated with me pretty much on every level. And in particular in regards to the reasons why 8
we're seeing or one of the reasons why we're seeing a decline in retail being more attributed to 9
lack of workers being able to be attracted to this area. So I'm wondering if it would make sense 10
to try to think of some sort of policies and I was going to go more into this under the retail item 11
that I had voted for separately rather than here, but I'd like to see the City or staff take some 12
sort of proactive approach to really addressing the issue. There are problems with the retail 13
protection ordinance. Those buildings are just sitting empty. It's very depressing and while 14
other businesses have help wanted signs every one of them practically. So if we want to have 15
more services and more retail we need to figure out how do we can get workers here and 16
parked. I think that's the main thing that we should work on and if there's a policy in that 17
regard that could happen I would advocate for that. Thanks. 18
19
Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you Commissioner Monk. Commissioner Summa. 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 Summa: Thanks. So I think this is kind of this is not just about retail this is about 2
a balance of the residential districts, commercial, and employment districts. So what has 3
happened is that the commercial districts have sort of morphed into becoming employment 4
districts and it's not just retail, it's not just shops, it's all the services as well. So I think it's an 5
important distinction to make. I also I we don't have to preserve this, we don't have to write a 6
new way to preserve this. The municipal code it's very clear about it especially in the little C 7
zone, CN, CS, and CC about restricting the kinds of business to in especially in CN to the kinds 8
that people will walk in and use. So I don't think we need to rewrite the municipal code here I 9
think we need to acknowledge that there's maybe been some slippage and blurring between 10
commercial districts and employment centers and strongly reaffirm that we believe that's 11
important for a vibrant and useful community where people don't have to get in cars and drive 12
to find those things. Thank you. 13
14
Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you Commissioner Summa. I don't have any other lights so if anybody 15
wishes to sort of jump in here? Ok, Commissioner Lauing. 16
17
Commissioner Lauing: Yeah, just briefly correct this isn't retail. We've had this painful example 18
in front of us recently about the music schools and they needed to use the churches and that 19
was also to benefit the churches. I don't think were in that business to create benefits 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.
churches, but music schools are never going to be defined as retail. Maybe gymnastics are or 1
things like that. So it's this is a comment about neighborhoods and quality of neighborhoods 2
and making sure that you can get the services there. So I definitely support the tone of this, but 3
I would have to see it in specifics in terms of how that would be implemented as a policy. 4
When it gets down to the issues about the maps that's something that at some future date we 5
could take a look at and work on together to make any adjustments necessary there, but I think 6
the devil's in the details on this one. 7
8
Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you Commissioner Lauing. I would like to suggest and see what my 9
fellow Commissioners think about this in the past we've had staff articulate sort of a thought 10
statement based on the various opinions that have been mentioned here. And I think tonight 11
across this stage we've sort of heard Commissioners each touch on what Commissioner [Note 12
Vice-Chair] Waldfogel raised. I we have a second meeting on this topic. I don't have a light 13
here sort of suggesting a statement or even suggesting this statement as a whole. If there is 14
that Motion we can discuss it, but another option could be that staff could somehow 15
summarize the discussion that we've just had in a way that we can review it next week or at our 16
next meeting. I'd love to move on to Item Number 3 if there aren’t more comments on item. 17
You can add many comments. Anybody who wants to light up the board can add comments. I 18
have a light from Rosenblum and a light from Waldfogel. Go ahead. Go ahead Commissioner 19
[Note Vice-Chair] Waldfogel. 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 Waldfogel: Ok, sorry. The reason why it's hard to actually write up a policy is that at 2
some level the policies are already here. So if you read Goal L-4 commercial centers, I'm not 3
going to read it out loud to you. If you read policy L-4.5 University Avenue Downtown it's 4
substantially describes districts that conform with this vision that's in this paragraph or that 5
that we've been discussing and I'm very grateful for the directional support that people have 6
expressed. So substantially this is what we say in the Comp Plan. It's also what we say in the 7
current Comp Plan. I mean these goals and these policies are substantially lifted from the 8
existing Comp Plan and carried into this one. And so in some ways I'm left scratching my head 9
because this is the law of the land so to speak or the policy framework that we live within and 10
yet experientially this has slipped away from us. So the question is what do we have to do? I 11
mean I guess I'm putting this back on staff. What do we have to say if we want to provide 12
direction that we want to recapture and prioritize these goals and policies that are already 13
articulated in the plan? 14
15
Ms. Gitelman: Well, I could make a suggestion here. I mean I think it is possible that the 16
Commission could recommend to the Council that they take a minute to evaluate the 17
distinctions between the commercial centers and employment districts and look at 18
strengthening policies to support walkable neighborhoods with professional services as well as 19
ground floor retail. I mean I think that the Commission's making a point about 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.
professional services that aren’t really covered in the ground floor retail ordinance and some of 1
you have had suggestions about how those two concepts could be blended together. And so I 2
think that is a new idea that the Council would like to hear from you so maybe a Motion or a 3
statement recommending that the Council look to support, look to strengthen policies about 4
the walkable neighborhoods including both professional services and ground floor retail would 5
be something that could get agreement here. 6
7
Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you very much Director Gitelman. I'm going to go to Commissioner 8
Rosenblum and I'm also going to suggest that if somebody would like to move what Director 9
Gitelman just suggested and we can proceed too. 10
11
Commissioner Rosenblum: So I was going to try to support the Vice-Chair in first observing the 12
same thing which is in principle this I think what's being suggested exists in our Comp Plan. To 13
make it have some more teeth my reading at least listening to you is that we're going to try to 14
extend something like retail protection to services. So it’s service protection; want diversity of 15
services, diversity of retail. The thing that I do find troubling here, the piece I wouldn't 16
necessarily support is if there's some attempt to use this as a sharpening of zoning distinctions 17
between commercial and employment districts. I think that the trend at least in our Comp Plan 18
has been to encourage mixed-use wherever possible and that's for many reasons, but it has 19
benefits of traffic smoothing throughout the day, of having people be able to support so if 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.
working in one area I can support those local businesses and vice versa, etcetera, etcetera. So 1
it has again if we're thinking about modern urban planning most cities that we consider great 2
cities are great partially because they've knocked down some of those distinctions. That you 3
walk around and there are people who are working and also shopping and playing all in the 4
same areas. So if this is about preserving a diversity of services just like we're trying to preserve 5
a diversity of retail and diversity of housing 100 percent for it and I would suggest that the 6
Comp Plan have language in it around preserving a diversity of services to service our 7
community. 8
9
If it's also about sharpening zoning distinctions and again when I read about like where did we 10
go wrong with city planning and I had a brief discussion about Level of Service (LOS) and why 11
that led to evil and about parking minimums and why that led to bad city planning one of the 12
other principles was the sharp zoning distinctions forcing people to live in one part of town and 13
drive to another part of town where they work and yet another part of the town where there 14
are commercial activities and that was thought to be, that was the American invention. In 15
Europe you lived above the store. You had the store downstairs. You everything was located 16
centrally and so that was an American innovation and a lot of cities are now trying to undo that 17
right? And try to get these zoning distinctions to be more mixed. 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.
Anyway so if there's two principles here one I completely agree, preservation of diversity of 1
services. I'm not sure if it's if it's overburdened with the second thing or not which is around 2
the sharpening of distinctions in commercial districts. So I'm not sure if that was intended. I 3
might be reading into it, but I heard two different things and so Vice-Chair’s original statement 4
about preserving these people from getting squeezed out I completely agree with. But I think I 5
also heard particularly from you Commissioner Summa that we want to get back to sharpening 6
the kind of enforcement around the distinction between commercial and employment districts 7
and I'm not sure if I fully understand it or would support that. 8
9
Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you Commissioner Rosenblum. I don't see any lights. I’ll mention that 10
I 100 percent agree with that statement so for what that's worth in our minutes. Would 11
anybody else like to make a comment? Do we want to communicate anything on this item to 12
Council? Sorry, I have two lights. I have ok, I have Commissioner Summa. 13
14
MOTION #2 15
16
Commissioner Summa: So no I to answer my colleague no it's not to sharpen a distinction of 17
zoning it's to I'm not sure what you mean even, but really the intention is to preserve walkable 18
neighborhoods with services. And I think there's also very strong language which was an area 19
of agreement at the CAC about encouraging mixed-use buildings. So it's not to attack mixed-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.
use buildings at all. In fact many of these buildings are mixed-use anyway. So yeah, no. It's 1
really to keep this City a city with full services and it's professional services, personal services, 2
and retail walkable or at least at short distance for everybody and to not have a blurring 3
between the employment centers which the Research Park does not have those other kinds of 4
serve… I mean there's big, big law firms, but it doesn't have those other kinds of services. And 5
I'm not actually so the idea is to keep the other places diverse. 6
7
So and I mean we could try to rewrite this right now, but we could move… I would move that 8
we just pass this along. I think it's self-evident and unless somebody wants to try to rewrite it 9
I'd move that we just pass this along to Council the way it's written. 10
11
Chair Alcheck: Do I have a second? 12
13
SECOND 14
15
Commissioner Gardias: Second. 16
17
Chair Alcheck: Commissioner Gardias. Ok, thank you Commissioner Gardias. You lit your light 18
up. Was that to second or to speak? 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.
Commissioner Gardias: Same thing. Same thing, second, I said it. 1
2
Chair Alcheck: Oh, ok. Thank you, Commissioner Gardias. Ok, so we have a Motion on the floor 3
and a second. Would anybody like to make a comment at this time? I have Commissioner 4
Lauing. 5
6
Commissioner Lauing: Yes, I was going to suggest earlier before this Motion, but I'm not in favor 7
of the Motion because I think that it could be extraordinarily important, it could be 8
extraordinarily add to the value of the Comp Plan, and I think that it's not self-explanatory as a 9
number of Commissioners noted tonight that they were some thought it was something 10
different. So I think it’d be well worth continuing this item until it could be appropriately in 11
detail taken up by the Commissioner and potentially City to just get it right so we're 12
communicating exactly what we think. So that's why I wouldn't support that current Motion. 13
14
Chair Alcheck: Ok, I'm going to make a comment. I really I'm not a huge fan of the Substitute 15
Motion process because I think it doesn't really give the makers of Motions the opportunity to 16
be heard. So I won't do that here, but I will suggest that I don't I wouldn't support this language 17
as it's written if we vote on it which I will put to a vote in a minute. But I would support a 18
Motion that more closely tracked the language of Director Gitelman’s statement which was to 19
encourage City Council to incorporate policies that… I'm paraphrasing at this point, but more 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.
dramatically protected services. Would you mind by any chance do you have that written down 1
what you? So you don't have to do it now, but what I would suggest to you all is that if we had 2
a Motion that was had a more clear ask I would support that. You don't have to read it now. 3
Any other comments? Does anybody want to speak to their Motion? I mean I can take a vote 4
and we can see where the chips fall and… 5
6
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: Could I just ask them? 7
8
Chair Alcheck: Yeah absolutely, please. Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] Waldfogel. 9
10
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: Commissioner Summa a question. Would you support an amendment to 11
give Director Gitelman some discretion to use this language as guidance toward developing 12
some... 13
14
Commissioner Summa: So you would want to continue it and discuss it in the next meeting, is 15
that what you're saying? 16
17
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: Well to bring some language forward for the next meeting. 18
19
Commissioner Summa: Yeah, if the Motion fails. 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
VOTE 2
3
Chair Alcheck: I'm going to suggest that we put this to a vote. Let's see where we are and 4
maybe we can efficiently move forward. All those in favor of this Motion please raise your 5
hand. I have one, two, three, three takers going once. All those opposed to this Motion please 6
raise your hand. Three. All those abstaining? Ok, I'm going to count that as an abstention. We 7
have Commissioners Summa and Rosenblum and Gardias supporting the Motion, 8
Commissioners Monk, Alcheck, and Lauing not supporting the Motion and Commissioner [Note 9
Vice-Chair] Waldfogel in the truest sense of the word abstaining. Would anybody else like to 10
make a Motion? Commissioner Lauing. 11
12
MOTION #2 FAILED (3-3-1, Vice-Chair Waldfogel abstained) 13
14
MOTION #3 15
16
Commissioner Lauing: Yes, I'd like to move that we continue this and get very specific language 17
that captures the essence of the core points and vote on it at the next meeting. 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.
Ms. Gitelman: Through the Chair I think we'd be happy to take that direction even without a 1
Motion. Just so we understand your desires I think we've heard the desire to emphasize this 2
kind of neighborhood services in addition to retail services and the also the concept of walkable 3
neighborhoods that are accessible to residential districts and I think there are a couple other 4
points made in the course of the conversation. We'll try and put that all in kind of a positive 5
statement and bring it back for your action next time. 6
7
Chair Alcheck: Thank you, Commissioner [Note-Director] Gitelman. I'm going to actually second 8
this Motion and I’ll suggest that I think a fruitful way this could work is that if you felt that there 9
were sort of multiple statements that you had a hard time putting together you could break 10
them down into bullets and when we look at it next week individuals could sort of opine about 11
which elements of whatever statement you craft they agreed with and it would help us as 12
opposed to having to go up and down one statement. I have light from Commissioner Summa. 13
14
Commissioner Summa: So I think I can support this Motion and I just I think it's important for 15
staff to emphasize that there was a there's that there's been a blurring of kind of the distinction 16
between the commercial centers and employment centers and that was an important idea that 17
the these personal services, professional services, and retail cannot compete with these 18
startups such these well-funded startups such as Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] Waldfogel 19
illustrated in his earlier example. 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
VOTE 2
3
Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you Commissioner Summa. Alright in an effort to sort of keep this 4
train rolling and moving to the next item I'm going to quickly take a vote on this Motion. All 5
those in favor of Commissioner Lauing’s Motion please raise your hand and say aye. It's 6
unanimous. 7
8
MOTION #3 PASSED (7-0) 9
10
Chair Alcheck: Ok Commission we are moving on to Item Number 3. This is the L-1 Growth 11
Management where there is conflicting messages here about citywide growth and the overall 12
cap and how we want to communicate to City Council where this Commission stands on that. 13
So any individuals who nominated this or anyone in particular would like to comment or start 14
this discussion off? I see a light from Commissioner Rosenblum. Thank you. 15
16
Commissioner Rosenblum: So this item just became just came before our City Council and so to 17
some extent they've already made this water under the bridge, but hopefully we can record our 18
thought for the future. I've spoken on this item a number of occasions and I'm pretty 19
passionate about it. When this ordinance was originally passed it was right after the City ran 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.
giant process of citizen engagements, the Our Palo Alto Summit, and this was specifically on the 1
agenda. So hundreds of Palo Alto citizens debated this item and weighed in on what method 2
for controlling growth people were most interested in. And the method that the City Council 3
chose was the least favorite which was a hard cap. And the reason why I think many people 4
didn't favor it was because people felt that the issue we're trying to control for was traffic and 5
congestion and we're using a cap as a way to try to control that. That office construction is 6
viewed as a culprit for cars and to make fewer cars be on our street we will control the number 7
of offices that get built. And the people who wanted alternative methods felt that the City and 8
buildings and developers could contribute to a better use of our time and funds. So basically 9
what we call the TMA which I think has been a poor stepchild that no one really has shown that 10
much consideration or love for while we had meeting after meeting about office caps. So I feel 11
that it's first not a terribly effective tool, but it also is a distraction from what I think is a more 12
meaningful programs that we should be embarking upon. 13
14
Council took the step of making some relaxing of this cap. I wish they would do away with it 15
altogether. I think it's a poorly designed tool and I think that we should be all guns a blazing on 16
alternative means of getting people to our employment centers and that should be our main 17
focus. And that any building that goes up needs to have a fairly robust package that would get 18
people out of their cars, but that having a annual limit at this level is counterproductive. So 19
that's been my argument for two years now. It's my argument today. I think that it was not 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.
I don't think it was a well thought out plan, but also I think it was against the will of again the 1
hundreds of citizens that engaged on this issue. So that's my piece. 2
3
Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you Commissioner Rosenblum. There aren’t any other lights. I’ll the 4
reason why I nominated this issue is for the same exact reasons. I do not disagree with 5
anything Commissioner Rosenblum said so if the minutes can show that I just am restating his 6
statement entirely so that you guys can understand where I stand. Ok, I have a light from 7
Commissioner Summa and then Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] Waldfogel. 8
9
Commissioner Summa: So I do agree that the TMA is a poor stepchild and I would love to see 10
reports on individual buildings’ efforts such as 101 Lytton which was supposed to have reports 11
annually I think or maybe it was every two years on how well programs for specific buildings are 12
using. But that being said I do agree with you on that and I would like to see it better funded 13
and more completely integrated into just something we do in this City. That being said I 14
disagree that having the cap was against the will of the people. I think it was a very satisfactory 15
tool and I think that staff presented it as having been successful in the sense that we were 16
getting projects that had… mixed-use projects that retained retail or had retail and kept the 17
office under the limit so it wouldn't be noticed and housing which I thought was an 18
improvement and going kind of the right direction in improving housing which I think we all 19
agree we need. So I don't see it is 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
I didn't nominate this. I didn't personally nominate this one. I didn't nominate any of the ones 2
as reading them that had either/or like some believe this and some believe that because how 3
do you…? It struck me when I read this one and a couple others that they should be split into 4
two separate things because it's hard to make a recommendation with two totally opposing 5
ideas. So those are my thoughts on that. 6
7
Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you Commissioner Summa. I have Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] 8
Waldfogel. 9
10
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: Thank you. I think that this category is a great place to bring metrics back 11
into the Comprehensive Plan. Because at some level I agree that the issue is impacts and yet 12
there's nothing in the plan today about measuring anything about quality of life, about any kind 13
of impact. We should have metrics in the plan and we should meter growth based on 14
performance against those metrics. So if we're not having impacts, grow. If we are having 15
impacts then slow down, but without any kind of measurement without any kind of feedback 16
loop built into the plan it's really hard to say we should just have open ended policies about in 17
my opinion about office and Research and Development (R&D) development. 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.
Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] Waldfogel. I’m not seeing lights 1
so I'll try to encourage some discussion here which would be would you support, just something 2
to think about. Would you support a Motion that suggested that because in light of Council's 3
recent discussion on this exact topic so in light of that discussion the Motion could be that the 4
Commission encourages Council to further consider the cap and it and in conjunction consider 5
adopting metrics to create a foundation for basing growth decisions on performance 6
achievement. So some I'm just trying to food for fodder there. I have two lights, three lights 7
now, four lights. Commissioner Rosenblum, Commissioner Summa, and then I had 8
Commissioner Gardias and Commissioner Lauing. 9
10
Commissioner Rosenblum: Yeah, so I want to respond quickly to the Vice-Chair’s statement. I 11
agree with this that there aren't that many metrics and goals. There's a metric and goal around 12
Single Occupancy Vehicle (SOV) rate which I think is important or at least it was there, so what 13
the goal of the City is to reduce SOV percentage. I would like to see other metrics as well. So I 14
completely agree. So there should be metrics around total number of car trips in and out of the 15
City and our goals for those parking capacity utilization. There should be a number of quality of 16
life metrics. So I agree with this. 17
18
In terms of this particular item what I would like as an outcome would be a message to Council 19
saying the PTC thinks that the cap is the wrong tool. We would like to see a focus on offsets 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.
both from a citywide level, so what degree of congestion do we want to deal with? Like so 1
basically what quality of life are we aiming for and on a project basis i.e. if you build a building 2
in the City what kind of offset fund are you paying into? What do you need to achieve and 3
show in order to build in our town? So that would be my preference is to send a signal that we 4
do want both the metrics to be collected and then define I think the Comp Plan probably 5
wouldn't necessarily define individual metrics, but that we do need a section in Comp Plan 6
that's like metric driven planning. I don't know if that exists and I’m not sure if that would 7
satisfy the Vice-Chair, but I agree in general that we want to be managing two metrics. But my 8
hope for this item would be to send a signal back to say we agree or at least whatever number 9
agree that the cap is not the right tool for guiding growth in our City. We want to focus on 10
impact and quality of life. 11
12
Chair Alcheck: Thank you, Commissioner Rosenblum. Commissioner Summa. 13
14
Commissioner Summa: So this is kind of a tricky problem because there were two metric and 15
basically quality of life that we couldn’t use that term indicators in the Comp Plan that the 16
Council chose to take out and that was the community indicators and the development 17
requirements. So I don't know what to say because Council clearly didn't want those and those 18
were the two missing comments by the way also. So that [I rephrase], but anyhow so I don't 19
know what to say about that because it was clearly something that Council didn't want in 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.
so maybe there's a way it can be, because I agree with you, but maybe there's a way we can 1
restate it that would be restate those two groups of metrics that the community indicators and 2
the development requirements that would be more palatable to Council. I don't know. It's just 3
a thought. 4
5
Ms. Gitelman: Through the Chair if I can offer a observation? I'm glad that Commissioner 6
Summa raised this. This was the subject of a lot of conversation at the CAC and then at the 7
Council because it was among the kind of options on managing growth that the CAC forwarded 8
to the Council and ultimately the Council's decision I think was based on the fact that we 9
already measure a ton of things in our performance report every year that accompanies the 10
budget document. In other ways we’re sort of measuring performance and I think one thing 11
the Commission could do is suggest that the Council look at a way to build a link between those 12
other efforts and the this plan. I don't know exactly how you would phrase it, but that might be 13
one way to get some of that back in that the Council said oh my God, we already do that in 14
another venue and ended up taking it out. 15
16
Chair Alcheck: Yeah, no. Thank you Director Gitelman. I think that's a perfect suggestion 17
actually and I don't know that we need to burden ourselves with figuring out exactly how to 18
craft the language around the link or what links should be made. I think the general idea is 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.
accurate, is sufficient, excuse me. Ok, I have two more lights here. I have Commissioner 1
Gardias and Lauing. 2
3
Commissioner Gardias: Thank you. So there are two items before I get to the metrics which the 4
topic I totally agree with. I believe that there should be a set of operational metrics or maybe 5
sort of let me take it, say it differently, planning metrics that we would be looking after on the 6
times that would pretty much show the relationship between different elements and then our 7
growth should be pretty much some standard deviation from those metrics. If it goes beyond 8
that we would be alarmed because we know that something would not be working. And I 9
remember we talked about metrics a couple of years ago. We had a very good discussion and 10
the same arguments are coming up again. So I'm totally for it if somebody wants to propose a 11
Motion to request or propose this set of metrics, planning metrics I’d be totally supporting 12
them, planning and transportation metrics of course. In terms of this item just this specific item 13
I was not really sure if this total number of votes is the right count here just listening to those 14
that were just saying that we're not supporting this. So I would just encourage staff just to 15
check them off if there were truly four votes for this. 16
17
Ms. Gitelman: I think it's correct. What the issue is here that there are two conflicting ideas in 18
this one box and so some people voted for it because they like one idea and some people voted 19
for because they like the other. 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 Alcheck: I'm going to clarify something here. We approached the nominations from the 2
perspective of what topics do we wish to discuss at our next meeting, not what topics do 3
unequivocally agree with. So I nominated this item because I felt like it was a topic that I would 4
like to discuss and communicate a shared message to Council. So that is what I believe this 5
voting process entails. I don't think that the four people that voted for this necessarily felt the 6
same way as I did. They just all felt that there was something about this item that they 7
wanted… 8
9
Commissioner Gardias: I totally agree, but I was just looking at her arithmetic. I was I just 10
couldn't find the four votes for this line item (interrupted) 11
12
Chair Alcheck: [Unintelligible] I would encourage you [unintelligible] 13
14
Commissioner Gardias: I think the topic is interesting so we should just discuss it otherwise and 15
I think that it just went to the right track which is the metrics. 16
17
Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you Commissioner Gardias. I have Commissioner Lauing. 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 Lauing: Yeah, just briefly I intentionally did not nominate this one. You actually 1
had brought it up as an example last time in our discussion. I said that's one that I don't think 2
we should talk about because for one thing we're not going to get consensus, but the reasons 3
are I think it's so recent since it's been debated in detail by CAC in Council and it's now out of 4
the Comp Plan. So in terms of looking at changes yes, of course procedurally we could add it 5
back, but I just don't think this one is one that we should go with just because of really the 6
timing. And I don't think we should rush to judgment on all of us trying to come up to speed 7
tonight on this issue. All of us haven't dealt with it as often as fortunately or unfortunately 8
Commissioner Rosenblum has had to do. 9
10
Chair Alcheck: Ok, well thank you for that comment. We do have though four individuals that 11
did want to elevate this issue to a communication topic. 12
13
Commissioner Lauing: I don't know if that's true. 14
15
Chair Alcheck: No, no. No, no. Four individuals nominated this item for discussion which 16
means that it that we're having this discussion and if during that discussion there is a consensus 17
then the discussion is the opportunity to see if we can build consensus. I appreciate that you're 18
not ready to jump on this, but I'm going to proceed with the conversation to see if anybody else 19
potentially does feel like there’s consensus. 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 Lauing: Sure. 2
3
Chair Alcheck: Ok, I have a light from Commissioner Rosenblum. 4
5
Commissioner Rosenblum: So I'd like to make a Motion. And first just to quickly I think again 6
make sure that I'm being accurate about this. Commissioner Lauing just said this is no longer in 7
the Comp Plan. I am confused by that. I think this is an item that is in the current draft that is 8
affirm the cap on office development. 9
10
Chair Alcheck: I believe the office cap, the overall office cap is in part of the element and the 11
annual development limit is not. 12
13
Commissioner Rosenblum: Yeah. 14
15
Ms. Gitelman: Yeah, the overall cumulative cap is in the plan and the annual limit on office R&D 16
is not. The Council's direction was to do that by ordinance. 17
18
Commissioner Rosenblum: I see. 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.
Ms. Gitelman: Not a policy in the plan. 1
2
MOTION #4 3
4
Commissioner Rosenblum: Ok, so that's helpful. Ok, so to finish off this item so I would… I 5
think that this should be passed as feedback to Council we've brought this far, but I would 6
agree that that would actually thank you for that. That in my mind makes it probably not one 7
of those small items that we will choose to debate at length out of this longer group. The 8
language I would suggest as a Motion would be PTC recommends that rather than annual office 9
development cap that Council consider to focus on offsets and quality of life and other 10
indication metrics setting annual goals based on the based on the impacts of development 11
including traffic, noise, pollution, etcetera. So my recommended language would be focused on 12
impacts and set metric goals on those impacts. 13
14
Chair Alcheck: Thank you. Do I have a second? 15
16
SECOND 17
18
Commissioner Monk: I'd like to second the Motion. 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 Alcheck: Ok, Commissioner Monk seconded the Motion. Would either of you like to 1
speak to the Motion? 2
3
Commissioner Rosenblum: Very briefly. So just to reiterate a couple of points I think that this is 4
actually a good Comp Plan type issue. It's an overall guiding principle around how we approach 5
development and so if the way we approach development is with hard caps, but no 6
measurements then I think that it's a I think it's folly. I think we should approach development 7
with an eye towards mitigating the impact and having a small set of metrics that we set goals 8
for. So I agree with Director Gitelman’s suggestion that something that should be done at a 9
Comp Plan level is try to link all these metrics that we do collect information on to the few that 10
we really care about. And so like I said one that was in the Comp Plan already there was a 11
reference to what we want our SOV rate to be. That’s a big goal. There may be a few others 12
around quality of life and around impact from traffic that we want to have sort of top level 13
indicators of are we on the right path or not, what we want to get to? So to speak to my 14
Motion I think the Motion gets to that. It says instead of a cap use this and set a couple of 15
metrics that we're going to try to abide by. 16
17
Chair Alcheck: Ok, Commissioner Monk would you like to speak to the Motion? 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 Monk: I would just iterate that it's not an ideal measure and the other tools that 1
were advocated by Commissioner Rosenblum were more appropriate and that's why I 2
supported the Motion. 3
4
Chair Alcheck: Ok, I have a light. If anybody else like to make a comment before we vote please 5
light up the board. I have one light for Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] Waldfogel. 6
7
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: So I think that as long as the metrics that we're talking about capture 8
some of the neighborhood quality of life items that we were discussing in the previous under 9
Item 2 that I support this. I mean I think that unbridled commercial development, unbridled 10
office development is probably not exactly what we want to do, but having some way to 11
measure what is happening better than what we do now, better than some of the traffic 12
studies that we've seen over the last couple of years that I've been on this Commission and 13
then responding to that I mean if we're seeing problems that maybe we it may be that we can't 14
identify specifically what project caused a problem, but if we're seeing trends going in a 15
negative direction then I think that if we can use these metrics to put reins on then I support 16
this. So that's I want to reiterate that as long as we will use metrics, use quality of life 17
indicators as a way to positively put the reins on development, figure out what's going on and 18
then restart or retest after we've implemented mitigations then I think this is a good direction 19
to go. 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 Alcheck: Ok, thank you Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] Waldfogel. I just want to turn to 2
the maker of the Motion. Are is that qualification in line with your Motion? 3
4
Commissioner Rosenblum: Yes. 5
6
Chair Alcheck: Ok, good. Alright so we're building consensus here. I have two more lights it's 7
Commissioner Gardias and then Commissioner Summa after which I will take a vote. 8
9
Commissioner Gardias: Yeah so if this is the language that Commissioner Waldfogel just 10
proposed, I’m sorry, Vice-Chair then I support it. 11
12
Chair Alcheck: Thank you. Commissioner Summa. 13
14
15
Commissioner Summa: Yeah, so I'm sorry that I can't I like the second half of your Motion about 16
metrics and but I don't support the first part about getting rid of the cap. But also Council has 17
just voted on what they wanted to do with the cap. It's seems bizarre to give them direction 18
about something they've recently decided which is not a Comp Plan issue it's at the ordinance 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.
level. So if you took out the first part about getting rid of the cap which I've already supported 1
so I won't speak again I could support the second part about collecting data and metrics. 2
3
Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you Commissioner Summa. I’ll make a quick comment that I think the 4
reason why I support this isn't that it contradicts what Council just did it's that it identifies the 5
sentiment that it shouldn't be that we set caps in a vacuum. If our metrics are saying that every 6
development we allow is dramatically affecting our and reducing the goals of our Comp Plan 7
and that the metrics are showing dramatic falls in quality of life or [unintelligible] single 8
occupancy vehicle rates then restricting development is fine. It's the sense that those two 9
aren't linked. It's the sense that we're operating with a global cap on all development and an 10
annual cap on office development in the absence of actually any tool to measure whether or 11
not that cap whether or not the development that we would have seen would have caused a 12
problem. 13
14
That's not to suggest that the development that's taking place hasn't caused problems. It's just 15
to suggest that moving forward the Council should consider this linkage. That's basically what I 16
think we're doing. So did you just re-light? Yeah, ok. Last comment to Commissioner Summa 17
and then we’ll take a vote. 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 Summa: So I what I'd like I know you don't like them, but I'd like to make a 1
Substitute Motion and if you could give me the language from the second part again of your 2
Motion? 3
4
Commissioner Rosenblum: I believe that the second part of the Motion was that we consider 5
that we tie quality of life and impact measures to our development plans and set specific goals 6
around a couple of key metrics. 7
8
SUBSTITUTE MOTION #1 TO MOTION #4 9
10
Commissioner Summa: Does staff have that? So I'd like to make that as a Substitute Motion 11
and for reasons I've already stated. 12
13
Chair Alcheck: Ok, in order for the Substitute Motion to replace the current Motion on the floor 14
I need a second. 15
16
SECOND 17
18
Commissioner Gardias: I will second 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 Rosenblum: So now could I make a substitute Motion and just keep this up all 1
night? 2
3
Chair Alcheck: No, unfortunately you can't, but I will suggest that you can speak to your dissent 4
if you wish to. So I'm going to we have a Substitute Motion on the floor. Let's take a vote. All 5
those (interrupted). Yeah, this Substitute Motion in essence strips the comments made by 6
Commissioner Rosenblum that relate to the suggestion that the cap is not the right tool. So it 7
essentially is saying that we should be linking the metrics to our growth strategies without 8
commenting I think opining on how we feel about the cap itself. Commissioner Summa’s main 9
concern was that she didn't agree that the cap was the wrong tool and I think that's her… Yeah. 10
So that's the Motion which... 11
12
Commissioner Lauing: You so we can have commentary on the Substitute Motion now. 13
14
Chair Alcheck: Yeah. Well here's what I would like to do. We have a Substitute Motion on the 15
floor and we have another Motion that's just been sort of pushed to the side. And I do want us 16
to be effective and concise and this will undoubtedly be something that the minutes will be 17
useful to Council so let's be efficient. I do if anybody wants to make a comment before I take 18
this vote light up the board. Ok, I have two lights, there will be two comments; Commissioner 19
Rosenblum and then Commissioner Lauing. 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 Rosenblum: Yeah so just to take a couple things in order. The first the fact that 2
Council discussed this recently is irrelevant. We're talking about now a Comp Plan that goes for 3
over a decade. And so this is a record of what the PTC recommends in terms of growth strategy 4
which is core to our mission. This is what we do is we talk about development strategy, 5
etcetera. And so I don't really to me it's not that relevant that they had this on their agenda 6
recently. This is a guiding document and something that we're in the final stages of so I don't 7
actually I'm not that sympathetic to that argument. 8
9
The second which is splitting this into two parts I think it makes the whole thing just not very 10
meaningful. Meaning the whole purpose of saying we should be metric oriented in our growth 11
strategy is to is as a alternative versus what we currently do which is we set a hard cap. So 12
we're saying no instead of that we should manage to impacts and here the measurements we 13
should use. What we're proposing is just to collect data which everyone likes and we like to 14
have data, but I'm proposing that that is the method that we set goals and that is the method 15
that we use to control growth. And so in splitting it I think it makes it just not very meaningful 16
that we're just saying we like data, we should set, we should collect metrics, we should have 17
goals and I agree with that. I think that's fine, but in particular we're actually just talking what 18
we're talking about in this section is how do we control development growth? And so if you 19
take that out it's just not, it doesn't mean much. It just says we're going to as a city we’ll have 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.
couple of metrics that we consider important which is a good thing to do, but it doesn't really 1
have much to do with the topic on the table which is how do we control development. So 2
anyway that’s my dissent against this Substitute Motion. 3
4
Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you Commissioner Rosenblum. The last comment before our vote is to 5
Commissioner Lauing. 6
7
Commissioner Lauing: Yes just having made the second just to add to my original comments the 8
Comp Plan is a strategic and policy document. The 50,000 square foot has been taken out so 9
that's just a guideline that can be overruled and the Comp Plan is driving policy. So having 10
growth monitored with strong metrics is one of the things we've said throughout the Comp 11
Plan is not there yet. So this is a good place to add it by making sure that we're monitoring the 12
growth which could then impact at I think a later date the elimination of that 50,000 square 13
foot cap to something else. So I think it's policy level versus tactic level. It's policy level versus 14
an ordinance that's in place. So that's why I would support the Substitute Motion. 15
16
VOTE 17
18
Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you. At this time I'll take a vote. All those in favor of this Substitute 19
Motion please raise your hand and say aye. I have four in favor that's Commissioner Summa, 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 [Note Vice-Chair] Waldfogel, Commissioner Lauing and Commissioner Gardias. 1
All those opposed? That's Commissioner Rosenblum, Commissioner Monk and Commissioner 2
[Note Chair] Alcheck. Would either of you like to speak your dissent? I’ll just suggest that I 3
supported the original Motion as spoken and that's why I didn't support this Motion. 4
5
SUBSTITUTE MOTION #1 PASSED (4-3, Commissioners Monk, Rosenblum, and Alcheck opposed) 6
7
Chair Alcheck: OK let's move on to Item Number 4. We had four nominations for the 8
sentiments in Item Number 4 related to committing to creating BMR housing for purchase and 9
rental. There is really a distinction in the language between purchase and rental when we talk 10
about affordable housing and BMRs, but anybody that wishes to sort of kick off this discussion 11
please do so. I have Commissioner Lauing. 12
13
Commissioner Lauing: Yes, this is one of the examples that I raised at last meeting relative to 14
how we might make suggested changes. Feel very strongly that we should take a strong stance 15
in terms of BMR and affordable housing. So the suggestion here is that this become a policy 16
not a program and that we potentially develop a quantifiable goal which I don't think we can do 17
tonight in terms of the specifics, but that at the end of 10 years we create X more units of 18
housing or if you want five and ten. It's part of the diversity that we all want. It's very 19
fundamental to our values in Palo Alto and I think we should raise it to the policy level, 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.
about eliminating the barriers not just identifying them which I think somewhere else there was 1
that, and really, really focus on opening this type of housing up in a stronger way then it’s 2
stated. Thank you. 3
4
Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you Commissioner Lauing. I'm going to turn to staff before we go to 5
Commissioner Monk and then Commissioner Gardias. 6
7
Ms. Gitelman: Thank you, Chair Alcheck and Commissioner Lauing. Just two observations, one 8
is we do have a goal a 10 year goal in the Housing Element. It wouldn’t be a bad thing to cross 9
reference it here, but it does already exist. And potentially we could alter it or make it more 10
aggressive at some point in the future, but at this point we'd want the two elements to be 11
somewhat consistent. The other thing is I just wanted to make an observation I really think that 12
this is one of those things on your list that is in the apple pie category and that you may want to 13
proceed quickly to move this one and go on to some of the others that are going to be harder 14
lifts. 15
16
Chair Alcheck: Thank you. I actually couldn't agree more with that statement. I have two lights, 17
Commissioner Monk, Commissioner Gardias. 18
19
MOTION #5 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 Monk: I'd like to make a Motion in support of this comment here and also thank 2
Commissioner Lauing for bringing it to our attention. If there is some language that would 3
cross-reference it effectively that you'd like to propose I’d like to adopt that as my own. Go for 4
it Director. 5
6
Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you. Do I have a second? 7
8
SECOND 9
10
Commissioner Lauing: Second. 11
12
Chair Alcheck: Ok, if anybody would like to speak to the Motion or make a comment in general 13
please light up the board. I do have one light to Commissioner Gardias and then Commissioner 14
[Note Vice-Chair] Waldfogel. 15
16
Commissioner Gardias: Yeah, so my comment was to support to express support for this 17
statement since there is already a Motion on the floor I think it's a no brainer. And just 18
listening to you I think that there is a building up very quickly support for this and so I think that 19
this is going to succeed with majority of the votes or maybe even more. I just want to make 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.
couple of comments because there is of course we have a Housing Element, but this Housing 1
Element may be strengthened with this policy because everything what we do of Housing 2
Element we build a pipeline, we don't build the housing. So that is a clear distinction that we 3
discussed last time when we had discussion if we had this stronger policy it would some 4
housing that are being proposed recently on the corner of Page Mill and El Camino would be a 5
subject of this policy. This is how I see it that this policy would be forcing us to take to prioritize 6
BMR units over some other discussion and for this reason I like it. Thank you. 7
8
Chair Alcheck: Ok, I have Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] Waldfogel as the last comment 9
before we make a vote. 10
11
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: Great, thank you. I’d just like a point of clarification because currently 12
this program is under Policy L-1.3 which is infill development and so is the intent to elevate this 13
Program L-1.3.1 into Policy I’ll call it L-1.3 and a half and to remove the word infill or just I just 14
want some clarification. 15
16
Commissioner Lauing: Chair? May I respond to that? 17
18
Chair Alcheck: Yeah. You were just to be clear you're talking about Page on L-27. 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 Waldfogel: Page L-27 of the (interrupted) 1
2
Chair Alcheck: Program L-1.3.1 3
4
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: Because that's what this (interrupted) 5
6
Chair Alcheck: Yeah. 7
8
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: That's just references. 9
10
Chair Alcheck: Clarifying, yes. 11
12
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: Yes. 13
14
Chair Alcheck: Yeah, of course Commissioner Lauing. 15
16
Commissioner Lauing: The short answer is correct. I think it should be elevated to policy level 17
which would then become L-1.4 and then 1.4 and 1.5 would just get a different number and it is 18
not specifically infill. It’s in general. 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 Waldfogel: Thank you. 1
2
VOTE 3
4
Chair Alcheck: Ok, at this time we're going take a vote on this Motion; all those in favor of 5
supporting this Motion please raise your hand and say aye. I have one, two, three, it's 6
unanimous. Thank you. 7
8
MOTION #5 PASSED (7-0) 9
10
Chair Alcheck: Ok, moving on to Item Number 5. Support for Program L-4.6.1 to prepare a 11
coordinated area plan for Downtown which is a huge undertaking and revise the program to 12
add the coordinated area plan should consider covering parts of University Avenue, converting 13
parts of University Avenue to pedestrian only zone. This item received four votes. I see some 14
lights on the board. I'm going to start with them. Commissioner Rosenblum. 15
16
Commissioner Rosenblum: Yeah, I think that 90 percent of this is also apple pie. It's already in 17
there it's just for us to at the end of the Comp Plan process Council and staff are going to 18
probably have a list of things that they launch in terms of projects that then start implementing 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.
some of the higher priority items. So part of this is just to say yeah, we think this is a high 1
priority item. A coordinated area plan is important so they need to launch that. It's a big deal. 2
3
The part of it that might not be apple pie was something that I inserted at the previous meeting 4
to say that they have language around what a plan should include and I felt that it would be a 5
good idea to specifically say we should look at pedestrianized zones. Many other cities have 6
them. Palo Alto does not have it. It would just be a nudge to say as you do this as you launch 7
this that a pedestrianized zone was thought of by the drafters of this plan as part of that. As 8
part of that coordinated area plan you should consider it. So part of it is already there and 9
we're just saying yes we think this is really important you should launch it and then part of it 10
that was not there before is to specifically call out a pedestrianized zone as something to be 11
studied. 12
13
Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you. I have a light from Commissioner Summa. 14
15
Commissioner Summa: So I'm not sure this really needs to be called out in the Comprehensive 16
Plan because any Council any time can call for a coordinated area plan and we identified on the 17
CAC coordinated area plans that would take precedence over this Fry’s and even South El 18
Camino. And this there it's an awful lot of work and so and the staff time and resources to do 19
so many coordinated area plans at one time are limited. And I think that pedestrianizing part 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.
University Avenue in other words closing it to vehicle traffic is such a potentially divisive issue 1
that I don't think it should be tied to an area plan, but I just don't think an area plan needs to be 2
called out in the Comp Plan this specifically and that second part of it would be so unpalatable 3
to so many people in Palo Alto that it's kind of not desirable to put it there. So I am not really 4
supporting this one. Thanks. 5
6
Chair Alcheck: Ok. I do see a light now, but I didn't a minute ago so I wanted to ask a clarifying 7
question here. What other coordinated area plans in your mind are sort of strategically 8
envisioned in this Comp Plan? Yeah because I don't I didn't maybe I missed it, but I don't know 9
that the Comp Plan is really calling out (interrupted) 10
11
Commissioner Summa: I think it calls out the Fry’s site. 12
13
Chair Alcheck: You're right. It does call out the Fry’s site. 14
15
Commissioner Summa: Necessary and then we have (interrupted) 16
17
Commissioner Rosenblum: So this is actually in the Comp Plan right now. So (interrupted) 18
19
Commissioner Summa: The Downtown one? Ok, I didn’t realize 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
Commissioner Rosenblum: 4.6.1. 2
3
Chair Alcheck: My question was what other one? Because you made… the implication was 4
there are so many happening other and these are the… 5
6
Commissioner Summa: Well no, we prioritized them on the CAC. I didn't I think maybe Council 7
added this. I don't remember us doing that, but I don't remember everything. But and then 8
South El Camino we thought was an important one and I notice that we have a scoping session 9
on yet a new one that I had never heard of coming up in October for North Ventura. 10
11
Ms. Gitelman: That’s Fry’s. 12
13
Commissioner Summa: That’s just Fry’s? Oh, we call it North Ventura. Ok. 14
15
Ms. Gitelman: Just because it includes a few more properties. 16
17
Commissioner Summa: Ok, I didn't realize that. So that's all. Yeah. 18
19
Chair Alcheck: Ok, I have Commissioner Rosenblum then Commissioner Gardias. 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 Rosenblum: Yes, I first want to make that clarifying statement that this is already 2
in the draft so the first part of this was just to say in a list of things to work on after this. I think 3
we're well overdue for a coordinated area plan for our Downtown. It’s a major transit center, 4
there's a lot of things that have that we've kind of done piecemeal Downtown. It’d be good to 5
have a more coordinated approach, but the second part of around pedestrianization I don't 6
think it's a problem that you think or I think that some people might find it appealing or some 7
people might find it divisive. It's just a call out. They already call out some elements of the 8
language it says a coordinated area plan considering X, Y, and Z and I'm saying add a clause to 9
say at least consider we’re for a town of our character and our size it's fairly common to have 10
say a Saturday market. So for example you do have a pedestrianized zone in California Ave. one 11
day a week. That's not that divisive. In fact I would argue many people like the California Ave. 12
farmers market and that is not a divisive issue. That having on one day a week two blocks of 13
University Ave. being pedestrianized may be appealing to people. So I'm not saying this has to 14
be done. I'm saying that it would be a good nudge that it's a part of this plan that's already in 15
the Comp Plan. 16
17
Chair Alcheck: Ok, I have Commissioner Gardias and then Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] 18
Waldfogel. 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 Gardias: Thank you. I believe that when I think about the Downtown 1
coordinated area plan I think that's nice to have. From my perspective the priorities are the 2
Fry’s area and we already agreed into it. It’s in the pipeline. I think that the second priority is 3
the California Avenue. That would be from my perspective the second area and the reason 4
would be that pretty much the risks in those areas and potential for the build out are the 5
greatest so I would prioritize those first two. And then in terms of this plan of course I would 6
have supported it had if we not had the railroad crossings in front of us which I think it's going 7
to take priority over this coordinated plan because we still have to maintain the crossing at 8
University giving the scarcity of crossing or potential crossings in the other areas. So for this 9
reason I would say yes I agree with this, but from my perspective it's nice to have and I would 10
say that this would be a second priority after those three that I just named. Thank you. 11
12
Chair Alcheck: Ok, I have Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] Waldfogel. 13
14
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: Thank you. Just a quick point of clarification and maybe a word maybe 15
propose a word change if your if you would accept it which is instead of the word consider use 16
the word study because I don't mind studying this. I'm not sure, I don't want voting in favor of 17
studying to be construed as an endorsement of a decision to do this. I mean I think that 18
Commissioner Gardias raises some very good points about potential conflicts with other 19
changes that may have to happen in traffic circulation, but I'm fine with studying 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.
1
Chair Alcheck: Ok, I'll weigh in too. I that's probably a good recommendation that I would also 2
support simply because look the objective here is not to sort of compete on the dais, the idea is 3
to sort of see if we can build consensus. And I don't believe that the notion that Commissioner 4
Rosenblum is suggesting is that he wants all of us to endorse a pedestrian only zone that's 5
permanent on University Avenue. I think what he's suggesting is that a pedestrian only zone 6
can do very appealing things for a Downtown area. I think we just had one a week and a half 7
ago where we shut down University for almost seven blocks for an arts fair that I think lasted 8
two days. So that's a great example of how we turn our Downtown into a place of congregation 9
for the entire community. So study/consider it makes no difference to me; I would support this 10
message being communicated to City Council and I wouldn't limit it to just to the University 11
coordinated plan. I would suggest that all of the coordinated area plans should include a study 12
of pedestrian only zone incorporation to the extent that it is appealing to this, those doing the 13
study. Ok, I have one light from Commissioner Summa and then I guess it would be nice to 14
have a Motion. 15
16
Commissioner Summa: So I think studying whether we should do it is a prudent idea and I did 17
from the way it was worded I did think that Commission Rosenblum was suggesting a 18
permanent shutdown of all or part of University Avenue. So and I would like to point out that 19
we can already shut down or use University Avenue for a congregating place when we want 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.
like the art fair, etcetera. We could have the farmer's market there on Sunday if we wanted to 1
so I don't think it's that necessary, but I'm not against studying it, studying whether we should 2
do it. I'm not I worry about piling too many things on at one time especially with all the 3
uncertainty about the rail the railroad. 4
5
Chair Alcheck: Ok. I have no other lights so if we're going to communicate anything on this item 6
to Council then we’ll need a Motion. I know people might be gun shy because a Substitute 7
Motion is such a quieting tactic. 8
9
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: Tell you what I'll move this (interrupted) 10
11
Chair Alcheck: Hold on, I have a light. I do. Commissioner Rosenblum then Commissioner [Note 12
Vice-Chair] Waldfogel. 13
14
Commissioner Rosenblum: You're right though, I'm not going to make a… it seems foolish to 15
ever make a first Motion here. Never like why would you ever do that? It’s like those cycle 16
races where nobody wants to be in second. 17
18
Chair Alcheck: Let's stick with this process and see if we can maybe encourage more first 19
Motions. Let, just a minute Commissioner Rosenblum you have the floor. 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 Rosenblum: I’ll pass. 2
3
Chair Alcheck: Ok, Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] Waldfogel. 4
5
MOTION #6 6
7
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: So I’ll move the language of the comment with the word study replacing 8
the word consider. 9
10
Chair Alcheck: Can I get a second? 11
12
SECOND 13
14
Commissioner Rosenblum: I'll second that. 15
16
VOTE 17
18
Chair Alcheck: Great. I'd like to put this to a vote. I don't see any lights if anybody would like to 19
quickly make a comment? Ok, seeing no lights all those in favor of the Motion on the floor 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.
please raise your hand and say aye. That is five Commissioners. All those opposed? Ok, we 1
have two Commissioners opposing, Commissioner Gardias and Commissioner Summa. Great. 2
3
MOTION #6 PASSED (5-2, Commissioners Gardias and Summa opposed) 4
5
Chair Alcheck: Ok, I'm excited to suggest to you all that we've gotten we've made our way 6
through all of the items that received four votes. What I would like to do is ask the Commission 7
right now if we want to take a five minute break or continue to work here? So let's do it like 8
this if all those in favor of taking a five minute break raise your hand? No… 9
10
Commissioner Gardias: Just kidding. 11
12
Chair Alcheck: Ok, alright. I anybody that wants to take a break I don't personally want to 13
break, but anybody that… Ok, let me do that again. Anybody interested in taking a five minute 14
break raise your hand. I have four individuals so we're taking a five minute break and when we 15
get back we'll continue with the first item that received three nominations. Thank you. 16
17
[The Commission took a break] 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.
Chair Alcheck: The dais. We can reconvene here with… Ok, let's reconvene please beginning 1
with Item Number 6. This is require companies located in Palo Alto to create a joint TMA for all 2
companies or open buses to other companies. I see a light from Commissioner Rosenblum. 3
4
Commissioner Rosenblum: Yeah, I think this isn't a great idea. I think we do want to require 5
Palo Alto companies to join the TMA and to contribute to a overarching organization. I think 6
what this is saying is that if you're going to run a bus service so if you're Hewlett-Packard (HP) 7
and you have buses then you have to have a shared bus service. And I first I don't think it's 8
practical, but I also think we want to have an organization not like a thousand small 9
organizations. And so I just think it's not the right direction. I think our TMA needs support and 10
needs to be better participated in. I would support this and I think there are items we're going 11
to look at later around support for the TMA and what relationship companies should have for 12
like a Downtown TMA, but I don't support that companies that set up in Palo Alto need to have 13
an open TMA of their own which I think is what this language says. 14
15
Chair Alcheck: I don't see any other lights, but I'll make a similar comment. I think this is a 16
phenomenally terrible idea because any company that is considering reducing SOV trips 17
through this one program of theirs would suddenly be subject to so many more considerations 18
that they would have to make for the general public and the ultimate goal is that all of our 19
companies sort of consider different programs to get vehicles off the road. The notion 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.
would also ask our companies to provide general transportation for residents seems like an 1
extraordinary ask. That's not to say that we don't want them to participate in a global TMA 2
which is I think what you're saying, but I don't I would not encourage City Council to take on 3
this measure. I have a light from Commissioner Gardias. 4
5
Commissioner Gardias: Yeah, so this is I proposed this item and it was supported by a couple of 6
my colleagues and I can give you the reason why pretty much I proposed it. There were a 7
couple of items so in general I thought that there was not too much of the emphasis on the 8
Transportation Element that's number one. We focus on Land Use, but I think that the ideas 9
from the Transportation Element are lost and this is one of those to pretty much to strengthen 10
the Transportation. And one of my observation is that there is many, many TMA programs 11
organized by different companies and those TMA programs only serve themselves. So if there 12
is an opportunity for those companies to collaborate, to make some joint ventures in opening 13
their TMA for other companies, I think that we should support we should propose it and then 14
enforce it on the Palo Alto area and also send signal to other municipalities that such a program 15
is possible. 16
17
Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you Commissioner Gardias. I don't have any lights on this topic, but I 18
think that the statement is very straightforward so what I would suggest is that we have a 19
Motion on the floor that we can either vote up or vote down because I don't know that 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.
one where we don't really understand the goal of the statement. The question is is do people 1
agree with it or not as a majority. So I'm going to ask that somebody please make a Motion and 2
(interrupted) 3
4
MOTION #7 5
6
Commissioner Summa: I move that we move on to the next item. Can I do that? 7
8
Chair Alcheck: She made a Motion that we move on to the next item that we abandon 9
communicating anything on this topic to Council. Do have a second? 10
11
Commissioner Rosenblum: I also want to move on the next item, but I do think it deserves a 12
hearing and if again if it gets voted down I think if this was Commissioner Gardias’ suggestion 13
and I think it deserves do we agree with it or not. I've already stated my case. I don't think it's 14
practical. I don't think companies can be forced to have joint TMA programs. I do think it also 15
undermines what we're trying to do with creating a TMA program for given areas within Palo 16
Alto. So I think it has some, I think it's both suffers from practicality and undermines a program 17
that we're trying to support. 18
19
MOTION #7 FAILED FOR LACK OF SECOND 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 Alcheck: Ok, I'm going to suggest that it didn't receive a second. I also just want to make 2
a quick statement here. I agree with the sentiment, let's give Commissioner Gardias the 3
opportunity to make a Motion and get his vote heard. This process of… I have no control 4
whether we make Substitute Motions or we make Motions before the other person can make a 5
Motion, but I do think that if we take on that sort of tactic frequently we will it will result in a 6
breakdown of our process from the perspective of trying to build consensus. People should 7
have an opportunity to hear their Motion voted on and if they are about to make a Motion we 8
should try to consider them the respect of giving them a chance to make the Motion not to say 9
that you were trying to disrespect him, but the point here is that I agree with that sentiment. I 10
want to encourage us in this process to be as thoughtful about consensus building as possible. I 11
have two lights Commissioner Summa then Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] Waldfogel. I do 12
want also to encourage someone to make a Motion so that we can hear this topic. 13
Commissioner Summa. 14
15
Commissioner Summa: Thank you. So I also appreciate the sentiments and I think that really 16
there's so the TMA is a Transportation Management Agency. I think what would be more 17
appropriate here is a Transportation Demand Management, a TDM, and because we do require 18
TDMs for some companies and buildings, locations, but so that's specific to the building and 19
then the TMA is an overarching program for the City. So I think what you I think it might make 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 sense to require companies located in Palo Alto to create their own TDM program and 1
then the second part open buses to other companies were you thinking that if a bus wasn't full 2
other companies could coordinate and use like some companies bus? Is that what you were 3
thinking? 4
5
Commissioner Gardias: If I'm not mistaken Mountain View has its own cross corporate TMA 6
program. 7
8
Chair Alcheck: I’m sorry, hold on. Commissioner Gardias, please. 9
10
Commissioner Gardias: Thank you. So if I'm not mistaken Mountain View has its own TMA 11
program so if you go to the Caltrain station you may observe that there are shuttles that that 12
you cannot get to if you are a private citizen and then they go to some destination. I don't 13
know the details of this program, but I know that it exists and I think that it's funded or it's 14
organized by a number of the companies. So this pretty much proposal was to create a 15
program like this to make companies to jointly create TMA program, those large companies like 16
VMware, HP, and some other large employers that have interest in moving their employees. 17
18
Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you. I have Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] Waldfogel and then 19
Commissioner Rosenblum. Again looking for Motions here, 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
MOTION #8 2
3
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: Whoops. Ok, let me take a stab at this because I think there's some good 4
things here and I think I've also heard some reasonable objections. So I'm not going to get this 5
exactly right on the first try, but let me see if I can come close. I think the sentiment is to 6
require employers and we might want to qualify this by size, but located in Palo Alto to 7
participate in TMA and tell me if TMA is the right word to use here, could be something 8
different, and consider opening the TMA whatever TMA facilities that they provide to other 9
TMA participants where practical, where practicable. 10
11
Chair Alcheck: Ok. We have a Motion suggesting language entirely different than the item and 12
I would need a second. 13
14
Commissioner Gardias: You know it may be different language, but it reflects the intent that I 15
had with this specific item. 16
17
Chair Alcheck: Ok, so are you seconding the Motion? 18
19
SECOND 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 Gardias: I can second the Motion, yes. 2
3
Chair Alcheck: Ok. Would anybody like to speak to this Motion? I have a still a light from 4
Commissioner Rosenblum. 5
6
Commissioner Rosenblum: Yeah. Well process wise can I make a Substitute Motion then now? 7
8
Chair Alcheck: You can. 9
10
Commissioner Rosenblum: Ok. So if we're in the topic of TDM/TMA so first I want to make a 11
statement then I'll make a Motion. 12
13
Chair Alcheck: Staff do we have an item that received three votes about TMA? I just the reason 14
why I ask is because if we do then it may be that that is similar enough to this new Motion that 15
we maybe raise that item. It doesn't have to incorporate three votes, it could have two votes 16
just so that we kind of create a little bit more of a global discussion. Because if the item is now 17
shifting to… 18
19
Ms. Gitelman: I think this is the item about the TMA. There isn’t another one. 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 Alcheck: Ok. I just wanted to make sure so that when we didn’t have something very 2
similar later. Ok, please continue. I'm sorry. 3
4
SUBSTITUTE MOTION #1 TO MOTION #8 5
6
Commissioner Rosenblum: Yeah that was what so my statement is that we have an item that's 7
a more global consideration of TMA and TDM programs for Palo Alto and I would suggest that 8
we move on from this and move and have a more structured discussion around how if any 9
suggestions we have for Palo Alto wide TMA and TDM programming we should have. A couple 10
of responses to things I've heard though which is requiring TMA by company and then to share 11
it with other companies what Mountain View has is essentially a TMA for Mountain View. So it 12
means many companies participate. That's what we're trying to do in Palo Alto. It's not forcing 13
VMware if they have a bus to also allow other people from other employees to ride their bus. 14
You know certainly they can choose to do that, but they are contributing to a citywide program 15
and that's what we're also trying to do here. 16
17
To Commissioner Summa’s point that companies should be required to have TDM measures in 18
place we are suggesting that for buildings, right? So you put up a big building you have to put 19
in TDM measures. I have a five person company, you have an eleven person company, we'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.
not going to be… each of these small entities we're trying to get them to join again a larger 1
entity together so that together they could have they can have Caltrain Go Passes, etcetera. So 2
I just think we're suggesting things that aren’t the way these programs work and you need scale 3
for these programs and that's the only way they work. The whole reason we're trying to bind a 4
lot of companies together is so they have buying power to have buses to buy Caltrain Go Passes 5
so essentially what Stanford has, Marguerite shuttles, Go Passes, etcetera. And so what this is 6
specifically doing is atomizing like making it small and so it's exactly opposite of the way these 7
programs work. 8
9
So my Substitute Motion if we're going to go there is to forego this item or bind it to the item 10
around TMA/TDM programs more generally. And we consider if we want a program that is 11
many small companies each running their own and being forced to allow other companies to 12
partake or are we looking to support a global TMA program and TDM at the building level. So 13
that's my suggestion would be that we can get to the same issue as part of that bigger 14
discussion. So that's my Substitution Motion. 15
16
Chair Alcheck: Ok, I want to make a quick clarification here because there is an item on Page 2 17
of our list PTC members had differing views on offering incentives for TDM achievements. Is 18
that the item that you are thinking is coming? 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 Rosenblum: Yes. 1
2
Chair Alcheck: Ok, I suspect you nominated that? 3
4
Commissioner Rosenblum: Yes. 5
6
Chair Alcheck: Ok, so did I. I don't see it in our list. 7
8
Ms. Gitelman: Yeah, thank you for pointing that out. We're checking our spreadsheet. 9
10
Chair Alcheck: I think it's sufficient to just suggest that at least two of us nominated it. I don't 11
need to sort of have… 12
13
Ms. Gitelman: So (interrupted) 14
15
Chair Alcheck: Did anybody else nominate this particular item? It's on Page 2. It says, “PTC 16
members had differing views on the offering incentives for TDM achievements.” Ok, I know 17
that it had it got two votes so I just, just so we're clear because this document that we're using 18
right now doesn't have that item. I will add it. Did you, did anybody else vote for it? I need to 19
know. 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 Monk: Yeah, it was one that I wanted to have discussed. 2
3
Chair Alcheck: Ok, alright. So I'm going to add it to the number to the list of threes because I 4
know I nominated it, it sounds like Eric did, and it sounds like you have two check marks next to 5
it as well. Ok, so just so we're clear here Eric was suggesting that we return to this conversation 6
when we talk about that issue which is a little broader and also discusses TDM measures 7
related to parking. I didn’t want anybody to be confused that we weren't going to return to this 8
discussion because it's not in our list. Ok, so we have a Substitute Motion on the floor. 9
10
Ms. Gitelman: And I'm sorry could we hear the Substitute Motion again? 11
12
Commissioner Rosenblum: Yes. The Substitute Motion is that we forego this discussion and 13
combine it with the discussion of the TMA program more generally. So rather than voting the 14
vote is the Motion is do we have companies have an open TMA program that allows other 15
companies to participate I think and I'm suggesting that we have that we forego this question 16
and have the discussion as part of the other TMA related. 17
18
Ms. Gitelman: 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.
Chair Alcheck: So just to be clear does your tally reflect that there was more than one vote for 1
this item? 2
3
Ms. Gitelman: We're still looking. 4
5
Chair Alcheck: Ok. 6
7
Ms. Gitelman: But I think I guess I'm going back to what the Chair asked of staff a few minutes 8
ago which is if there is another item that you think should be on this list that addresses this 9
issue why don't we just discuss both the items right now as (interrupted) 10
11
Chair Alcheck: Right. That my concern was he was starting to move to suggest that we come 12
back to it when we get to that item and then I didn't see the item on the list and I was 13
concerned that if it got a up vote or a down you know anyways… I think it's clear what I was 14
worried about. 15
16
Commissioner Gardias: If I may? 17
18
Chair Alcheck: Yeah so just so we're clear here the item that believe I Commissioner Rosenblum 19
is talking about is the third bullet on Page two of the list that all of us had over the weekend. 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 if I’m, if I took my tally right we had Commissioner Rosenblum, Commissioner Monk, and 1
my (interrupted) 2
3
Ms. Gitelman: You could just read it again for the record. 4
5
Chair Alcheck: Yeah it's PTC members had differing views on the offering, on offering incentives 6
for TDM achievements. Some suggested lowering parking requirements for projects with 7
successful TDMs. Others felt that permanent parking reductions are not appropriate for 8
uncertain future trip reductions. So it was a topic that touched upon TDM programming. 9
10
So what I'll suggest is that because this item also received three votes that we’ll and it's higher 11
on the list in terms of this item that we're currently reviewing that if your Motion passed if your 12
Substitute Motion passes we’ll begin that discussion immediately. If it doesn't we will continue 13
this discussion and then the next topic will be this item which is on the list at a higher position 14
in terms of order. Ok, so we have a Substitute Motion on the floor which is essentially to 15
incorporate this discussion into the discussion of the next topic. Do I have a second? 16
17
SECOND 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.
Chair Alcheck: Ok, I'll second this [Note Substitute] Motion. Would anybody like, I have a 1
comment from Commissioner Gardias. Would anybody else like to make a comment before we 2
take a vote? 3
4
Commissioner Summa: Can staff confirm that there were the votes to get it on the list. 5
6
Chair Alcheck: So here’s my sheet. Eric can show you his sheet. 7
8
Ms. Costello: Yeah we’re, excuse me, we’re checking. Unfortunately in consolidating it we have 9
to go back and re… we collapsed all the columns and we have to go back and spread them back 10
out again, but if you have the sheets and you I think it's fine. 11
12
Chair Alcheck: Yeah, I decided I don't think it makes a difference because as long as I… I feel 13
very comfortable that clearly there's at least two so it’s a topic of review. 14
15
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: I’d like to call the question. 16
17
Chair Alcheck: Go ahead. 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 Waldfogel: Well that just means we vote. That ceases debate and we vote on the 1
Substitute Motion. 2
3
Chair Alcheck: You’d like to vote on the Substitute Motion? 4
5
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: Yeah, I'd like to call the question of the Substitute Motion. 6
7
Chair Alcheck: Ok, but I have a Commissioner who wants to make a comment. 8
9
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: I think calling the questions cuts off comment. 10
11
Chair Alcheck: Ok, alright so there's a Substitute Motion on the floor. Does anybody need it to 12
be repeated? 13
14
Commissioner Summa: Yes, please. 15
16
Commissioner Rosenblum: Yeah, the Substitute Motion is simple which is that we rather than 17
voting on this item we combine it with the other TMA/TDM related item and we have a more 18
general discussion about the formation of a TMA/TDM programming for Palo Alto versus a 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.
separate vote on this and then later another vote on a related topic on TDM/TMA. So the 1
[Note-Substitute] Motion is to combine this with the other item and a vote on them together. 2
3
Chair Alcheck: Ok and Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] Waldfogel raise the call to question if I 4
got that right. So we will take the vote. All Commissioners in favor of the Substitute Motion 5
please raise your hand and say aye. Ok, we have… did you vote as well? Ok, so we have six in 6
favor. All Commissioners opposing? Ok, Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] Waldfogel opposes 7
that [Note-Substitute] Motion. 8
9
SUBSTITUTE MOTION #1 TO MOTION #8 PASSED (6-1, Vice-Chair Waldfogel opposed) 10
11
Chair Alcheck: So this Item Number 6 is tabled. We will move to 6.1 which is the third item on 12
this list on Page 2 of the packet that we received for the purposes of clarity I want to confirm 13
that we have three nominations for this item. That item is PTC members have different views 14
on offering incentives for TDM achievements. Some suggested lowering parking requirements 15
for projects with successful TDM programs. Others felt that permanent parking reductions are 16
not appropriate for uncertain future trip reductions. Ok, I have a light from Commissioner 17
Rosenblum then a light from Commissioner Gardias. Commissioner Rosenblum then 18
Commissioner Gardias. 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 Rosenblum: Sorry, just opening my notes on this on this item. So there are a 1
number of things that were about the TMA/TDM that were all clustered together of which we 2
only had two that received three votes, but I think this is one of those big issues. So I think the 3
TMA and the TDM programs under it are one of the things that Council has highlighted as one 4
of the cornerstones of our planning and transportation policies going forward. So I think that in 5
order to have a successful program we need a couple of things. We need a source of funds. So 6
we need to fund this thing. So just like Stanford you need come with money for to give 7
everybody Caltrain passes, run shuttles, and market the program, and have the operational 8
support. And you need participation. You need lots of companies to come in and participate 9
together so that you have enough people going to different places because if you want to run a 10
bus to Hayward and a bus to Fremont and a bus to San Mateo and a bus to all these different 11
places you need liquidity, you need enough people that are going to participate so you can have 12
enough buses going to the right places so it's not just Caltrain dependent. 13
14
So if I break this into two parts the first part was what we were just discussing which is this idea 15
to have individual companies have their own TMAs and then get other companies to be able to 16
join their TMAs. I think that undermines liquidity. So it makes it so your program doesn't really 17
work. It would be as if Stanford had every one of their schools have their own TMA or each 18
department had to have their own TMA. It works because you have Stanford as a whole having 19
the shuttle system and buying the Caltrain passes at the rate that they can get as a large entity. 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 then the second part is what we're discussing now which is where does the funding come 2
from? And the three sources of funds that are the most obvious are first the parking fees from 3
paid parking programs and that's something that Council is discussing. Second are employee 4
fees, so per head if you have employees you pay in to this program and the third developer 5
fees. When you build a building you need to put up money for TMA and that's what's being 6
discussed in this item which is developers you can charge them all kinds of things, but you can 7
charge them a lot more if you're saying well you don't have the expense of those extra five 8
parking spaces. You would have had to build those and those are $60,000 apiece. That's 9
$300,000 that we now want for this program. That's a huge expense that they would like to 10
forgo. Now you could still charge them more. You could still say well you're still making margin 11
and we'll get, we’re going to take as much as we can, but this is a big item that's well aligned 12
with the goals of a TMA program or TDM program which is to reduce the reliance on cars. So 13
the beauty of it is A) it's a lot of money, and B) it's philosophically aligned. It's reducing reliance 14
on cars to pay for a program that reduces cars. So there's a great symmetry there. 15
16
So anyway to take these two kind of in parallel the first issue which we just discussed I think is 17
kind of the opposite of a successful TMA program. It takes a large program and splits it into lots 18
of small programs and then the second is where does the funding come from? I would have 19
loved if actually this item had all the three funding sources, but we're only talking about one 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 which is developer funds. And what's being said here is that we would contemplate a 1
tradeoff between parking and funding a TMA that if you put up the funds you can get a certain 2
reduction of parking. I think that's actually a big pot of money and I think it's a good one to look 3
into. I would support these other pots of money as well we just didn't have them on the list. 4
So that's my discussion and that's why I’d like to discuss both these things. 5
6
Chair Alcheck: Commissioner Rosenblum would you help us by suggesting what sort of program 7
or what recommendation you would make to Council? So that this particular issue has 8
confusing elements here so maybe you can help us have a concise statement to walk or talk 9
around. 10
11
Commissioner Rosenblum: Yeah. So the alternative to Commissioner Gardias’ idea I would say 12
is that companies in Palo Alto be required to join Palo Alto’s TMA. So they pay fees into this 13
association so you have those buses like you have in Mountain View, part one. Part two is 14
about cost and this is this item now this new item which is that developers also pay into the 15
TMA in partial exchange for a and I’m trying to be careful of the language here, but it's there is 16
some degree to which you can reduce your parking requirement in exchange for funding into 17
the TMA. So it's like density bonuses for BMR and other kinds of programs where in exchange 18
for some it's say let's 10 percent reduction in parking acquirement you pay more into a TMA 19
program. So at the Comp Plan level we wouldn't dictate its 10 percent reduction is the cap, 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.
etcetera. At the Comp Plan level it would be something like all companies pay into TMA, 1
developers will pay in to fund this in exchange for partial reduction of parking requirement 2
where appropriate. Something like that, but it's essentially talking about the ground rules for 3
the TMA and then where one source of funds should come from. 4
5
Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you. I have a light from Commissioner Gardias; anyone else that would 6
like to speak? Thank you. Keep lighting up my board. 7
8
Commissioner Gardias: Yeah, so my intention behind this first item that we just discussed and 9
combined with the second one was to pretty much make the companies to participate in the 10
citywide TMA program. Would they be joining each other programs? It doesn't matter for me, 11
right? The vision that I had in front of me was the sign of the buses Mountain View Go or 12
however they were called which was Mountain View TMA program. So I would support any 13
policy that would require the companies at certain threshold to participate in the citywide TMA 14
program. 15
16
The funding issue it's a secondary issue that I see here, right? And I have a different perspective 17
about this I think that the companies they have either reached TDM [TDR] programs or some 18
other expenditure to support employees so they could solely focus on providing on subsidizing 19
transportation without needs to have some other funds. I think that the companies specifically 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.
within the Stanford Research Park (SRP) are doing well enough to pay for this program solely 1
without the additional subsidies from the developers which should be focused on the TDM 2
programs as opposed to TMA programs because this way we would be shifting the 3
development funds and all the taxes from the development toward the companies subsidizing 4
their employees as opposed to subsidizing those that live in the houses those developers built. 5
6
Chair Alcheck: Ok. I'm going to I saw your light go up. I’m, do you want to respond to that 7
before we move on? Ok. I’m going to go back to Commissioner Rosenblum and then we'll 8
move on to Commissioner Summa then Waldfogel. 9
10
Commissioner Rosenblum: Just a quick response. So I think you and I are basically in 11
agreement. So we’re in agreement on part one around the goal of this which is to get 12
companies to participate in a joint program which is citywide or region wide. Part two though 13
is funding. I agree businesses should pay for a lot of this and that would be just per head. 14
However, the thing that again I really advise everyone that hasn't done this to watch videos of 15
the Stanford program managers talk about how they implement the program where the money 16
came from etcetera. So a lot of the money came from not having to build parking. They 17
basically took a lot of the money out of the capital budget that would have gone to parking fees 18
and turned it into operational fees. So they bought buses and they subsidized Caltrain, 19
etcetera. There's a lot of money in the development. 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
The thing that I like best though is aligning incentives. So the three stakeholders I just 2
mentioned are people who park so you make it more expensive to park and you're taking the 3
revenue from that and putting it into a program that allows people to get here without their 4
car. You're making, you're taking money from the development so that you are less reliant on 5
cars. They don't subsidize car use and then putting that into this alternative system. And 6
you're taking money from the employers that are causing a portion of the problem by having 7
the employees coming to town. And so I like the idea of having those are causing the impacts 8
change the incentive structure. So it's a philosophical thing. I also think it's always good to 9
have multiple funding sources just from a business sustainability standpoint it's good to have 10
because developer fees are spiky whereas employee fees will be ongoing year after year and 11
parking fees God knows. The people may decide they hate paying for parking. That may go 12
away it hasn't started yet and people rumble about it. 13
14
So at any rate I think you and I are mostly in agreement it’s just on the funding side I would say 15
what I'm proposing here is a mechanism for developer fees. I would also ideally like to say it 16
should be a three part developers, business owners, and people who park. People who come 17
into our community and park should are the three legs of what we should have as a funding 18
strategy. 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 Alcheck: Ok, Commissioner Rosenblum thank you for that explanation. I’m before I go to 1
Commissioner Summa then Waldfogel I’m going to give Commissioner Gardias one more 2
opportunity. I really am hoping we can build consensus among our Motion makers here so 3
Commissioner Gardias go ahead. 4
5
Commissioner Gardias: Yeah, I agree we’re getting to the yes, but just one comment. I think 6
that Stanford example is not a good example because Stanford is a large employer as opposed 7
to a developer of a condominium building that you would require the funds to go towards 8
subsidizing HP for example. So that's not I think that this would not be the appropriate proper 9
appropriation of the funds. So I disagree with the funding portion, but the rest I agree totally. 10
11
Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you Commissioner Gardias. Let’s go to Commissioner Summa then 12
Waldfogel and then I’ll make a comment. 13
14
Commissioner Summa: Ok, I so I think I kind of agree with Commissioner Gardias. I think well I 15
think it's premature because I don't think the TMA is I think it's too nascent. There's nothing for 16
people to really be required to do yet, but I'm sure at some point there will be. And I think it's 17
interesting to consider requirement and employee like some kind of fee per head for 18
employees, but and I was going to make the same point that Commissioner Gardias made. The 19
Stanford example is very different because there's one property owner and they can make all 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.
the rules. So it doesn't always strike me as the best analogy. And I'm not understanding how 1
this would work with in the assessment district Downtown the in lieu parking. 2
3
So it's I personally think it's premature to start trading parking spots I mean you can I like the 4
creativity of funding sources and I like charging employee tax, but it seems like you can't 5
replace a missing parking spot a physical missing parking spot with money. So I'm not 6
comfortable with doing that now, hopefully sometime in the future we will be able to do that 7
when we have realistic transit options and the TMA is really up and running. 8
9
Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you. Just a quick comment just so keep, bear this in mind, these we're 10
really trying to communicate ideas to City Council. Nothing we do right now is about now. This 11
isn't about now and we're not even authoring the text of the Comp Plan. We're just trying to 12
communicate suggestions or considerations for Council when they review our review of the 13
Comp Plan. So I don't want anybody to walk away from this and think that a vote tonight is 14
about charging a company or charging a land… this is these are just concepts. Ok, 15
Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] Waldfogel. 16
17
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: Thank you and [will you] should do a time check pretty soon. Whoops. 18
Thanks. We should do a time check pretty soon and see how many more of these we can cover 19
tonight. So Stanford and last month in the Stanford General Use Permit (GUP) presentation 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 that Stanford has reached at least a temporary saturation point in their TMA that the rates 1
are not going up. The we didn't really get an explanation of what caused that and my 2
suggestion is we just don't know how scalable that TMA programs are in this region. I mean 3
that Stanford's probably a best case and I forget the number, but their performance hasn’t 4
improved much over the last couple of years. 5
6
So my feeling on this is that I would agree with Commissioner Summa. Lowering parking 7
requirements based on TMA is what I'd call a bet on hope not a bet on performance. And TMA 8
performance is year by year while missing parking spaces are gone forever. So I don't think 9
that's a good tradeoff. I don't think it's appropriate to shift the risk of TMA performance on to 10
the general public; however, if the thinking here is let’s build parking spaces at kind of our best 11
sense of utilization and perhaps downstream we can provide mechanisms for landlords to rent 12
out spaces that TMA programs demonstrably remove the need for in that building and I say 13
demonstrably. Metrics, actual accounting for how people get there and how many people are 14
getting there, but if we if we're talking about something like that where spaces get built and 15
then we envision some mechanism to share spaces that are getting built and perhaps over the 16
long term we revise the ratios and hey, if what we're seeing is this long term secular trend over 17
10 years or 15 years that supports a lower demand for parking spaces then directionally I 18
support that. But in the short term I think it's critical that the spaces get built and that TMA be 19
implemented in parallel with that. That we find appropriate funding sources for TMA short 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.
term, but we can't do that by just not building the spaces short term. That's an unacceptable 1
risk for the general public. 2
3
Chair Alcheck: Ok, I'm going to make a comment and then we'll go to Commissioner Rosenblum 4
then Lauing. So I think there's an opportunity here. I think that there's a chance that we can 5
get at least four votes here and so I’m going to reach and I’m going to try to suggest you a few 6
ideas to consider in support of what Commissioner Rosenblum is suggesting. The first is that I 7
think that the notion that it's a... what was? I don't know what you the… it was a action and 8
hope as opposed to what was that? It was a bet on hope. I don't actually think that's accurate. 9
I think that we have results demonstrated by Stanford our closest neighbor right now. So we 10
don't have to go out of this City to see demonstrative results as a result of their program. 11
12
I also think that I want to suggest something to you. An employer comes and an employer 13
goes. It could be Google now, it could be Intuit, it could be some small company inside of a 14
new development it's gone after two years. But the development as it makes its way through 15
the process is affected by the expectations that the developer is demonstrating. For example, 16
the developer is going to build X Square feet. We determine based on our code this is how 17
many parking spaces you're going to need, but we don't really want this many cars coming. So 18
in exchange for reducing your parking requirement we want you now up front, this is a great 19
opportunity, you don't have to build that underground parking garage four floors down with 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.
mechanical lifts each one costing $50,000. Here is your savings in exchange make a substantial 1
funding to a TDM program. That is the opportunity to fund this program not just on a yearly 2
basis because anything you did with an employer would have to be annual because they could 3
be gone next year. You're not going to make a five year agreement. They're not they might not 4
be here. Their lease might not be there. The whole point is they could actually move. 5
6
And so I would suggest that when you're thinking about whether it's the developer or not don't 7
I don't I'm not interpreting Commissioner Rosenblum’s common as this is the only 8
recommendation. I think of it as we're encouraging City Council to consider this one population 9
the developers as a place to also seek funding because what we are allowing them to develop 10
we require X parking, but we don't want those cars and we want them to participate in the 11
solution in such a substantial way. But it's not for nothing they will save tremendous funds on 12
the development because they may not have to dig deep, they may not have to import car lifts, 13
etcetera. 14
15
And I'll make one other point. I think Stanford is an excellent example. Stanford is not an 16
employer, it is a landowner. And landowners develop. The reason why Stanford is an applicant 17
is because they are a landowner. They're the only landowner employer that we've seen in 18
recent history. Maybe the Jewish Community Center (JCC) is another example of a dramatic 19
landowner and employer, but most developments are not brought by the companies. So 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.
companies have a very different relationship with the property they come in and whatever 1
parking spaces they have they're going to use. In addition to those parking spaces they might 2
also have a program because guess what their employees don't want to sit in traffic. The 3
reason why they're doing the buses is because they're trying to get their employees here and 4
their employees are saying forget it I'm not coming all the way down there if I have to sit in two 5
hours of traffic. So right now a lot of these TDM programs are basically employee benefits. 6
Those employee benefits don't necessarily improve our standard of living here, our LOS. 7
8
The way we can improve our LOS is by making sure that the developers in this town are 9
participating in those programs from a strategic view way out in front getting ahead of it. I 10
know that I can save $1,000,000 on my parking garage underneath this building if I spend that 11
$1,000,000 on a TMA program. Why wouldn't they? What's the cost for them? The question is 12
is will it be successful and I'm not saying right now we have to determine that. I'm just 13
suggesting that we put forward this idea that we begin to grapple with these ideas. That's sort 14
of my recommendation so I don't know if that's a good enough sort of argument to see if we 15
can get you on board on this on this Motion that hasn't even been made yet, but this idea of a 16
Motion. So anyways I’ll stop there. We have Commissioner Rosenblum, no. We have 17
Commissioner Rosenblum and then Commissioner Lauing and then Commissioner [Note Vice-18
Chair] Waldfogel. 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 Rosenblum: Yeah so just a couple things, one is the applicability of Stanford. The 1
whole reason for our TMA is that previously Stanford, Google, so large bodies, large employers 2
were able to have a program where they could run buses and provide benefits for their 3
employees, but all the companies based in Palo Alto that are much smaller had no opportunity 4
so therefore they have a lot more people driving. So the whole point is to act more like 5
Stanford. So if we say it's not applicable the whole reason to do this is to bind together all 6
these companies under one authority. And then Stanford develops their own land and so you 7
say well the developers here are separate. Yes, they have a separate role. So at Stanford 8
they'd have to pay to build a parking garage and we're saying that here someone else is building 9
the building, taking that risk, we're tracking the money from them just like Stanford would 10
extract that money from a budget. So the whole point is to act more like Stafford, to act like a 11
single corporate entity that has a program that has enough scale to it to get going. So I do think 12
it's applicable, but you have to start acting like a corporate entity. You have to start acting like 13
this whole group is together on this thing. 14
15
Now about the practicality and this is it a bet on hope versus a bet on some certainty of places. 16
The Comp Plan is the strategic document so it's saying what kind of incentives do we want to 17
put in place for the future? And right now we subsidize driving. So we force everyone to build 18
fully park buildings. We force all of us to have garages and enough space to park all of our cars. 19
We force everyone to invest in driving infrastructure and yet we have to buy our own Caltrain 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.
passes. And I always give this example of when I commuted to work in San Mateo I paid over a 1
$1,000 a year to take Caltrain even though I had free parking in the building because my 2
building had to be fully parked. It was an employee benefit. So my driving has always been 3
subsidized, but I've always paid full freight for doing the better thing. And what we're talking 4
about is philosophically does our Comp Plan want to start to reverse those incentives? So I'm 5
saying as a philosophy we should be looking to trade parking, the dollars that go into parking, 6
for dollars that go into TMA. And if we think that TMA is the future that we have to start acting 7
like a larger entity like Stanford that can have large scale programs like they have in Mountain 8
View. 9
10
Where do the funds come from? I'm suggesting the fund should come from the thing we're 11
trying to start to do less of which is subsidize driving. And it is subsidizing like building parking 12
spaces is super expensive and that is a subsidy that we're giving to drivers. And I'm saying that 13
maybe drivers need less subsidy. Maybe we should be subsidizing people arriving by train or 14
subsidize our ability as a community to have more frequent shuttle routes. Like someone's got 15
to pay for the stuff and we either make developers pay for my individual car when I come and 16
park or we make them pay for the shuttles that we can use as a community. So anyways that’s 17
my pitch is that it's a philosophical thing in this document to say we're willing to trade some 18
parking in exchange for funding for this community good. So that said and I do think we just 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.
need to realize that Stanford is applicable or at least that's what we're trying to do is act more 1
like Stanford and combine forces with all of these small businesses. 2
3
Chair Alcheck: Ok, I have a Commissioner Lauing then Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] 4
Waldfogel and then Commissioner Gardias. 5
6
Commissioner Lauing: Yeah, thanks. I think an important distinction here is this is listed as a 7
program. This is not listed as a policy so I'm delighted that the programs are in here after the 8
prior debate we've had in our City about that, but it doesn't rise to the level of a policy which 9
has more of a strategic impact than the program. The program has staff discretion, we will 10
have a lot of activity in some of those programs helping put together so I want to state that first 11
of all. Secondly it's a two page program so it's a very important program and it covers almost 12
two full pages, but there's interesting wording in there such as monitor the success of TDM 13
measures. 14
15
Chair Alcheck: Would you call it, would you call out the page number you’re on? 16
17
Commissioner Lauing: T-23, monitor the success of TDM measures. I just picked out a couple 18
here. Evaluate the performance of pilot programs implemented by the TMA. So it emphasizes 19
the using I can’t remember who said this now, it's still a nascent program. It's just getting 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.
going. We need more data, we need more evaluation of that. So I'm actually pretty 1
comfortable with what's here right now because it's at the program level. I'd be a little more 2
concerned if we were talking about this at the policy level. I think there's a lot of good ideas 3
here that have to be evaluated longer term, but I don't think we're missing anything by not 4
revising or suggesting any revisions to what's already listed here in this program. 5
6
Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you Commissioner Lauing. Next speaker is Commissioner [Note Vice-7
Chair] Waldfogel. 8
9
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: Thank you, Commissioner Lauing for pointing that out. I think you're 10
right that what's in the plan and what's in the programs is actually pretty good. Although there 11
are some questions, did have some questions on that. My point on this is maybe Stanford's a 12
good example, maybe they're not. Hard to say. I mean certainly the work day at Stanford and 13
the work day at a lot of the companies that we're talking about are different so perhaps these 14
things work perhaps they don't, unknown. 15
16
But the more important point is who owns the risk if missing parking spaces are needed or are 17
not needed. I mean is that risk on the general public? Is that risk on the building owner? Is 18
that risk on the current tenant of the building? And I would completely support a program that 19
reduces parking requirements for developers if they then pass along the risk to their tenant 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.
say look, if we're actually going to count how many vehicles are coming into town through your 1
tenancy and if the number of vehicles coming to town is greater than the number of parking 2
spaces available then you have to reduce the density of your tenancy. So very simple as long as 3
the developer and the tenant own the risk of fewer parking spaces I'm fine with fewer parking 4
spaces, but if the risk is on the general public that people will continue to drive that the cars will 5
be parked in the neighborhood or that they'll be orbiting anyhow then I think that's an 6
unacceptable risk to pass along to the general public. 7
8
Chair Alcheck: Ok, I have the light here which is a Commissioner Gardias. Please, take the floor. 9
10
Commissioner Gardias: Yeah so looking at the at this what Commissioner Lauing suggested 11
which was he pointed us to the Policy T-1.2 I believe, right, or the program underneath? So 12
that my intention was to strengthen the Policy T-1.2 which would pretty much require a certain 13
size of employees to join this program not just to collaborate with Palo Alto. Just to make it 14
citywide and make a large employers to really participate in this program as a mandate or close 15
to the mandate. This is number one. 16
17
In terms of the discussion about the parking bonuses and then allowing them to pretty much to 18
gain space in exchange of participation in this program I believe that TDM and TMA are two 19
different programs. And although they are related because at the end of the day they 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.
focused on reducing the traffic I believe that there are different mechanisms for funding both 1
of them and also there is a ownership of those programs. The ownership is distinct as well. 2
And for this reason I suggest to keep the discussion separate and also I want to just take your 3
attention to the Page Number 3 where we have the item Goal Number 8 which talks about the 4
parking requirements. So Eric if you're interested in discussing TDM program I suggest without 5
making a Motion to combine it with this Point 8 and then just focus the discussion on TMA. 6
Because I think that we agree on TMA, but I strongly disagree with funding TMA by the 7
developers because they pretty much that's a different source in my perspective, different 8
mechanism that deals with a specific building and it's not applicable and I already talked about 9
this twice. Thank you. 10
11
Chair Alcheck: Ok. So I'm not sure that I have consensus here, but (interrupted) 12
13
Ms. Gitelman: Chair Alcheck I hesitate to jump in here, but if the objective is to ensure that 14
more employers or developers will join the TMA and I think that's the objective of some of you 15
or one of the objectives I think that is already covered in these programs. There's a program 16
here that says formalize TDM plan requirements that are applicable to developers by ordinance 17
and within that ordinance it is says establish a list of effective TDM measures including TMA 18
membership. So it may not be a headline item in this policy and program list here, but it is here 19
and I think many of the sentiments that the Commissioners are expressing about the nascent 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.
nature of the TMA and our desire to grow that and the importance of the TMA as a city 1
program and the TDM efforts that were engaged in I think all of those things are here. And if 2
there is anything that you see missing I haven't heard it yet. 3
4
Chair Alcheck: Let me ask you question. I think part of the effect of Commissioner Rosenblum’s 5
or part of the sort of goal of the Commissioner Rosenblum was trying to achieve here was this 6
notion of connecting the cost of parking with the opportunity for funding and this notion that 7
our Comp Plan is not really acknowledging that we may be subsidizing the very thing that we 8
are trying to oppose. So I'm I don't disagree with you. I think all of us are behind the general 9
programs here. I think there's also potentially and I may be speaking for myself here, but a 10
general frustration that we have not really empowered our TMA goals. And this notion of 11
incorporating developers in the process was in an effort I think that Commissioner Rosenblum 12
was making that I was supportive of and it may not have consensus, but it was I think it was a 13
stiffening of those programs that you were going for. So I have a light from Commissioner 14
Rosenblum. I have a light from Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] Waldfogel. We’ll see if I get a 15
Motion on this item and then move on. 16
17
Commissioner Rosenblum: Yeah so first Director Gitelman thank you for that. At least the 18
discussion had two parts one was something new that I think Commissioner Gardias had 19
inserted, but I think we've misunderstood what the intent was. So the new item I wanted 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.
discuss because I was opposed to it meaning if we wanted employers who have a TMA program 1
or TDM program to have to allow others to piggyback on their programs which was the way it 2
was written I was saying that would undermine a citywide TMA which is what we're trying to 3
do. So discussion number one was I was saying that's a bad idea. We shouldn't do that. 4
5
And then part two was something I had proposed I think a while back which is responding to 6
some of the language that is already in the plan that was affirmatively saying that as a City 7
we're willing to trade parking for funding that that’s a good trade. It is here. It's in it's here and 8
I’d call it fairly weak language which says allow property owners to achieve reductions by 9
contributing to citywide so reductions could be a number of different things. 10
11
Commissioner Lauing: Where are you reading please? 12
13
Commissioner Rosenblum: This is Program T-1.2.2 on T-23. Yeah. So it is there is language that 14
says like a number of dimensions you can get compensated for these things including and I was 15
looking for more affirmative language just to say as a City we are trying, we're willing to trade 16
parking which is huge for this other goal which is big. And parking is a divisive issue. So I was 17
trying to like call this out in particular. If this is something that people feel really uncomfortable 18
with we can put to a vote. I'm not obviously I feel passionate about I feel quite honestly that 19
we have this program that we all talk about, but don't do a lot for which is this TMA 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.
nascent body and we spend a lot of time other things. And I'm trying to affirmatively say I want 1
to get funding for this. I want to make it real. I want it to have teeth and some of the and I'm 2
trying to identify the big pots of money and one of those is the money that goes into parking. 3
4
So for the point of moving forward part one now that I understand Commissioner Gardias’ 5
intent seems to be boiled down to we should encourage all employers to join the citywide TMA. 6
And I think there's already some language in there that suggests that. Yes. 7
8
Part two was me calling out parking reduction as a specific trade off which is already suggested 9
by the language here although not explicitly so. And I’m fine to put that to vote. So I can make 10
a Motion. If we want to vote down that's fine. There is already language there that is more 11
umbrella language that would suggest that parking reductions are one of the mechanisms that 12
could be used. 13
14
Chair Alcheck: Are you making a Motion? 15
16
Commissioner Rosenblum: Yeah, I would make a Motion unless someone else has comments to 17
make before I make a Motion. 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.
Chair Alcheck: I have a three lights so I'm going to go down that list, but if you want to make a 1
Motion then make a Motion. If not then I'll go down this list and you can relight up the board 2
and I can come back to you. 3
4
Commissioner Rosenblum: Ok. Let me let them make their comments first. 5
6
Chair Alcheck: Ok, that's fine. I have a Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] Waldfogel then Monk. 7
You’ll defer? Ok. I have Commissioner Monk then Guardias. 8
9
Commissioner Monk: So I had brought this up when we discussed this element in the past and I 10
think it was recorded, but I'll just bring it up again and it might address the issue. But in 11
reference to the language on T-23 that you just read Commissioner Rosenblum on allowing 12
property owners to achieve reductions by contributing to citywide employment district shuttles 13
I would propose adding some language in there or other proven transportation programs such 14
as TMA. That would be the language I would propose adding that are not directly under the 15
property owners’ control. Is an amenable solution to… I can show it to you so... 16
17
Commissioner Rosenblum: [Unintelligible] It doesn’t exactly [unintelligible]. 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.
Ms. Gitelman: Chair Alcheck I don't know if we heard a second to the Motion that's on the 1
floor. Was there a second? 2
3
Chair Alcheck: I’m sorry, are you suggesting that Commissioner Monk made a Motion? 4
5
Ms. Gitelman: No, Commissioner Rosenblum (interrupted) 6
7
Chair Alcheck: No, Commissioner Rosenblum did not make a Motion. 8
9
Ms. Gitelman: He did not? Ok. 10
11
Chair Alcheck: He did not. He said he was going to wait for the remaining comments. I'm sorry 12
so what was the conclusion of that discussion? 13
14
Commissioner Monk: That if folks can direct their attention to the bottom of Page T-23 in the 15
Comp Plan its Program T-1.2.2. It's the last bullet on that page. If you allow property owners to 16
achieve… or other proven transportation programs and then insert the language “such as the 17
TMA, that are not directly under the property owners’ control.” 18
19
Chair Alcheck: Ok, is that a Motion? 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 Rosenblum: So we just had this discussion offline, but just to make it explicit it 2
isn't exactly so this this whole thing by the way the reduction that is being referred to in this 3
section is reduction in SOV rates that they can achieve through various means including their 4
own program or a citywide program. It doesn't refer to tradeoffs that if they do enough of this 5
then they can achieve for example a lower parking requirement. So that is not explicit. And so 6
that’s what I’m saying; I'm proposing that language be inserted explicitly so Commissioner 7
Monk that doesn't exactly do. This is what they already have which is that you contribute to 8
some other program to achieve your reduction goal, but you get no benefit from that in terms 9
of reduction in parking requirements for example. 10
11
MOTION #9 12
13
Chair Alcheck: I'm going to make a suggestion that maybe that we don't have consensus on this 14
item and it can't move forward, but because it's in because all of these items in on are in our 15
top list it can be what essentially can happen is that this discussion can all the discussions we 16
have tonight can essentially be included in our communication. That there was a discussion 17
about this, but it didn't have a consensus. And there was a discussion about this and it did have 18
consensus. And so if you're comfortable with that I think that that's a better way. We've talked 19
about this all along throughout this process that the notion that we would all get behind every 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.
issue is unlikely and even we might have a hard time getting consensus behind many issues, but 1
that we can communicate areas where we spent time discussing and had thoughtful discussion. 2
3
So if you're comfortable with that I would make a Motion right now that we move on to the 4
next topic. What I’d very much like to do is at least finish all the items that got three votes. 5
And let's move on and this conversation can be incorporated as an area where we didn't have 6
any consensus. I have lights and I’ll we’ll go through them, but if anybody would like to second 7
that Motion I would accept a second at this time. 8
9
SECOND 10
11
Commissioner Rosenblum: I'll second that. 12
13
Chair Alcheck: Ok, we have a Motion on the floor. We have three lights Commissioner Gardias 14
or excuse me, two lights Commissioner Gardias and Commissioner Summa. 15
16
Commissioner Gardias: So I don't know how to proceed with this, but I was about to propose a 17
Motion about TMA program only. So I don't know how you want to deal with this. 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.
Chair Alcheck: I can withdraw my Motion. If you think you can build consensus today I will I can 1
happily withdraw my Motion. 2
3
Commissioner Gardias: This is only about TMA program. 4
5
Chair Alcheck: What I'd like to do is be very efficient with the time. So why don't you give it a 6
try? 7
8
Commissioner Gardias: So this is verbiage of the proposed Motion. 9
10
MOTION #9 WITHDRAWN 11
12
Chair Alcheck: I’ll withdraw my Motion and I’ll open the floor to your Motion. 13
14
MOTION #10 15
16
Commissioner Gardias: So proposed Motion is to strengthen TMA program and require 17
employers larger than small business over small business to participate in citywide TMA 18
program. 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 Alcheck: Ok. Either way can I get a second on this Motion or a comment on this Motion 1
or clarification on this Motion? 2
3
Commissioner Lauing: What's the language? 4
5
Chair Alcheck: I think that correct me if I’m wrong. I think what you're doing is you're trying to 6
make a suggestion that City Council consider strengthening the TMA program by incorporating 7
language related to employee membership. 8
9
Commissioner Gardias: Requiring larger mid and larger size employers to participate in citywide 10
TMA program. 11
12
Chair Alcheck: Yeah. You're not authoring a specific program, you're making a general 13
recommendation for consideration? 14
15
Commissioner Gardias: Well I mean it's very specific because there would be a requirement 16
which I think it's a big change from this what we have currently. 17
18
SECOND 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 Rosenblum: I’ll second that. 1
2
Chair Alcheck: Ok. We have a second on the floor. I’m sorry, staff is calling our attention. 3
4
Sandra Lee, Assistant City Attorney: Thank you Mr. Chair. Sandy Lee, City Attorney's Office. I 5
just wanted some clarification because it's not clear to me what participation in the TMA is and 6
to the extent that it is and I don't know if you want to clarify that further Commissioner, but to 7
the extent that it's some kind of financial contribution that would that could such as a per head 8
tax that would require a vote of the people. So I just wanted to raise that as an issue that we 9
could not today just require all large existing employers to participate financially in supporting 10
the TMA, but if we're focused on developers and offsetting impacts then that would be 11
appropriate. 12
13
Chair Alcheck: Well better late than never. Ok, thank you for that. Alright. 14
15
Commissioner Gardias: Hold on a second so let's ask so what is the reason why we cannot? 16
Because we have different policies and programs so why we cannot strengthen it? 17
18
Chair Alcheck: What I would like to do actually is sort of take City Attorney's advice just on her 19
word. And I think it's a good conversation to sort of explore why we can't pursue a per head 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.
requirement fee, but what I'd like to navigate away from this. I feel like we're spending a lot of 1
time on an issue that's going to be very difficult to build consensus on and if this Motion is 2
flawed on its head then I think we should abandon it. I will sort of turn to the two people 3
involved in this Motion to see if any of them want to withdraw their support? 4
5
Commissioner Gardias: No, I’m sorry. There needs to be a reason. I mean respectfully if there 6
is a reason of course we will change the Motion or something like this, but please give us the 7
reason. 8
9
Commissioner Rosenblum: I have alternative language that will satisfy the attorney I think. 10
Again, this is just a this is a forward looking document so the language should be worked to 11
ensure full participation among employers in Palo Alto for to participate in the TMA. So the 12
concern is that if we say require all employers that that require and that and if participation is 13
interpreted to mean you have to fund it then that's that has to be subject to a vote, but if we 14
say that the goal of the Comp Plan is to encourage full participation then I think that probably 15
can be said. And it’s slightly stronger than what is currently in there which is language around 16
developers, etcetera. It just says that we are going to work to have full participation of 17
employers in Palo A in the TMA. Would that satisfy you Commissioner Gardias? I also think 18
would that without satisfy the Attorney? 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.
Ms. Lee: Yes, Commissioner. 1
2
Commissioner Gardias: But I still want to know the reason. Is there a legal reason why you are 3
suggesting not to use the language? I understand this is very sharp language and it would 4
require employers, large employers to participate in this program. So what’s the reason not to 5
request their participation. 6
7
Ms. Lee: Requests is not the concern. My concern was with the word requiring participation to 8
the extent that participation means a financial contribution such as on a per employee basis 9
which could potentially be done, but it would couldn’t be done by ordinance without a vote of 10
the people because it could be a tax. 11
12
Commissioner Gardias: That's exactly what it is and I we have number of other policies that 13
require similar commitment. 14
15
Ms. Gitelman: Commissioner Gardias I think you're hearing that some of your colleagues and 16
staff are happy to have some policy change or program wording in here it's just a question of 17
wording it carefully so we don't run afoul of this issue. So I think Commissioner Rosenblum had 18
some suggestions. We could come up with another alternative, but the idea is to say if you 19
would like to recommend to the Council that they pursue a requirement or consider 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.
requirement or support full participation we can come up with a number of different ways to 1
phrase it. 2
3
Chair Alcheck: Ok, I want to for the process do you accept his revision? 4
5
Commissioner Gardias: Yes, I do. 6
7
Chair Alcheck: Ok, so we have a Motion on the floor as revised. Is staff comfortable, do they 8
understand the language? Good, so do I. No, we have a second. Commissioner Rosenblum 9
seconded the Motion that he helped author. I have lights from Commissioner Summa and 10
Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] Waldfogel. Before I turn to you do you want to speak before 11
we vote? 12
13
Commissioner Summa: So what we're voting on now just seems redundant with what's already 14
in here. It’s it doesn't encompass Commissioner Rosenblum’s funding sources at all, it just said 15
let's try to make this thing work which is already in here and it's all of our intentions. So I think 16
it's completely unnecessary and if you want to vote you should vote on, we should vote on the 17
part that we likely don't all agree with which is the idea of passing along the risk of not parking 18
buildings as Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] Waldfogel said to the general public. That’s 19
(interrupted) 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 Alcheck: Ok, unfortunately we have a Motion on the floor so unless you intend to make a 2
Substitute Motion in favor of that policy I'd like to put to vote what we actually have on the 3
floor. 4
5
SUBSTITUTE MOTION #1 TO MOTION #10 6
7
Commissioner Summa: So I'll make a Substitute Motion that we should vote on the funding 8
sources recommended by originally recommended by Commissioner Rosenblum including most 9
importantly parking reductions for fees 10
11
Chair Alcheck: Ok, so if I understand you correctly you're making a Substitute Motion right now 12
that you don't support? 13
14
Commissioner Summa: Correct. I'm saying we should (interrupted) 15
16
Chair Alcheck: Would anybody like to second Commissioner Summa’s Substitute Motion which 17
she will not be supporting? 18
19
Commissioner Summa: No. I am saying we should vote on the aspect of this (interrupted) 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 Alcheck: I understand, but there is a Motion on the floor and you are making an effort to 2
table it so that we can vote on a Motion that you are proposing now that you actually don't 3
intend to vote up. So I want to (interrupted) 4
5
Commissioner Summa: No, no, no, no. 6
7
SUBSTITUTE MOTION #1 ON MOTION #10 FAILED, VOTE ON MOTION #10 8
9
Chair Alcheck: I need to get a second on this Substitute Motion. Does anybody second this 10
Substitute Motion? Ok, there are no seconds. I do plan on calling the question. Good. We're 11
going to put this to a vote. We have a Motion on the floor it’s seconded by Commissioner 12
Rosenblum. All those in favor of the Motion on the floor please raise your hand and say aye. 13
We have five in support of this Motion. All those opposed? We have two Commissioners who 14
oppose the Motion, Commissioner Summa and Commissioner Lauing. Ok, that concludes this 15
discussion of this item. 16
17
MOTION #10 PASSED (5-2, Commissioners Summa and Lauing opposed) 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.
Chair Alcheck: We have I would like to suggest that we have our list is all over the map. I’m 1
missing a page. We have it I’m not wrong we have Item Number 7, Item Number 8, 9, 10, 11, 2
and 12 that all receive and Item Number 13 and 14 that all received three votes. That's a lot of 3
items that I doubt will be able to get through. It's not infrequent that our colleagues at the City 4
Council level stay late to have important discussions, but I don't want to make that decision 5
unilaterally I don't even think I could. So I do think we could maybe get through least one more 6
item if we worked at it to what would probably be 11:30, but I would like to know if the rest of 7
the Commission is interested in doing that? The consequence of not doing that would be that 8
at our next meeting we would have two tasks. Number one determining how we will collect 9
the discussion that we had right now into our communication, there's a little bit of a process 10
discussion there. And in theory we could continue to discuss some of these items. Our hope 11
tonight was to get through more of this so let me ask my question. Do are you are you guys 12
interested in continuing for another 45 minutes? Commissioner Lauing. 13
14
Commissioner Lauing: Just in general six hour meetings I think are a little bit difficult to keep 15
focused so I would like to maybe go another maybe one more and then push it. However I’d 16
also like to point out that at the beginning we talked about we have 19 and we got through 6, 17
we might get through 7. So at this rate we're not going to get through it next week either. So 18
that raises the issue of we have to trim some of these or we have to add another meeting or we 19
have to talk a lot more efficiently which you know… 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 Alcheck: I agree. I would add that once you get into the two vote items in theory 2
consensus could be determined pretty quickly. If we don't have enough votes for it we can pass 3
on it, but it's the threes and fours that are a little more complicated. 4
5
Commissioner Lauing: Yeah I do think that there were a couple Commissioners that noted that 6
they weren’t voting for things that they wanted to pass, they were voting for things that they 7
wanted to discuss. So that might be… 8
9
Chair Alcheck: That's true. Anybody else want to make a comment on whether you want to I'm 10
happy to support the idea of doing one more, I'm happy to support the idea of doing two more. 11
I just want a consensus here Commissioners. I have a light from Commissioner Summa. 12
13
Commissioner Summa: Is it possible that we could just vote on the items without trying to 14
achieve consensus? I mean I envisioned us voting rather [unintelligible]. 15
16
Chair Alcheck: The next item for example has two opinions. Some say LOS is good some say 17
Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) is. It’s without a discussion that's an incoherent vote. I don't I’m 18
not disagreeing with the (interrupted) 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 Summa: Can we skip around and go out of order and vote on the ones that we 1
can just vote up or down? 2
3
Commissioner Lauing: Why would you want to do that without debate? That was the whole 4
point of this process. 5
6
Chair Alcheck: I didn't nominate items that I agreed with. I nominated items that I think 7
deserved more discussion so I think that voting them up and down would be counterintuitive. 8
9
Commissioner Summa: Ok. 10
11
Ms. Gitelman: Chair Alcheck there’s I mean one kind of compromise position here is to get a 12
Motion on the floor before debate so ask for each item ask someone to make a Motion. 13
14
Chair Alcheck: Have the first person who… yeah. 15
16
Ms. Gitelman: There’s the Motion and then a second and then you're actually debating an 17
action. 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.
Chair Alcheck: I agree. I think that that's a good path because we've spent a lot of time talking 1
about the concepts and then we spent a lot of time talking about the articulation of the concept 2
and maybe we could condense those into the same thing. Thank you for that suggestion. Ok, 3
Commissioner Monk. 4
5
Commissioner Monk: On the next item before us I know that it was heavily debated is there a 6
way that we could just perhaps reference our prior transcript on it and maybe skip that for 7
tonight because I think that's a long… 8
9
Chair Alcheck: Well what I would suggest is that the person or the individuals that nominated it 10
make a Motion right away and then if then Commissioners could decide not to debate it and 11
vote. 12
13
Commissioner Monk: My only concern is that on some of these we've had big discussions so I 14
just want to acknowledge that and not have to repeat what's been what we’ve already gone 15
through. 16
17
Chair Alcheck: No, here's the thing I'm very comfortable with not spending a lot of time talking, 18
but that’s that only happens when everybody on this Commission decides I'm not going to 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.
spend a lot of time talking on it. So if a motion maker makes a Motion and nobody really wants 1
to have a debate about it then they don't have a debate. Ok, are you inclined to continue? 2
3
Commissioner Monk: I'm inclined to support the meeting getting continued, but if I’m alone I’ll 4
stay. 5
6
Chair Alcheck: You mean not continuing tonight? Ok. Commissioner Rosenblum. I have a light 7
from Commissioner Rosenblum. 8
9
Commissioner Rosenblum: Yeah I mean if we’re voting on push on or call it day I would call it a 10
day. I'm getting a little frazzled and it's just not… 11
12
Chair Alcheck: Ok. 13
14
Commissioner Rosenblum: I find my own thoughts to get suspect after a certain time so. 15
16
Chair Alcheck: Ok, so I have Commissioner Summa do you feel the same way? Yeah. 17
18
Commissioner Summa: I’m happy to do what most want to do. 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 Alcheck: Ok. I have two Commissioners who want to stop. Anybody else? 1
2
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: I would I’m ready to stop too. 3
4
Chair Alcheck: Ok, Commissioner... that’s three we just need one more and then I don't have to 5
keep pushing you guys. 6
7
Commissioner Gardias: I can continue my next meeting is at 7:00. 8
9
Commissioner Lauing: I already suggested that we stop, but… 10
11
Chair Alcheck: You suggested that we did one more. Ok, we have a desire to conclude tonight. 12
13
Ms. Gitelman: So Mr. Chair if we can just have a brief conversation about our goals. 14
Commissioner Lauing articulated we’re up against it. We have one more scheduled meeting. I 15
think the staff would be willing to start earlier than six o'clock if the Commission could 16
accommodate that. We'd be interested we could also help you in help facilitate a meeting that 17
tries to get through more material however you might want that assistance. Maybe getting 18
Motions on the floor immediately might be one way to speed it up. Maybe just getting rid of 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.
some of the things at the bottom of this list and sticking with the fours and the threes is one 1
way. But we would also be open to scheduling a special meeting if that’s (interrupted) 2
3
Chair Alcheck: Let me ask you a question. Do you know what else is on the agenda for the 4
meeting on the 27th? 5
6
Ms. Gitelman: This is the only item on the agenda. 7
8
Chair Alcheck: Ok. I would venture to suggest that I am comfortable beginning that meeting as 9
early as 3:00 p.m. if it made a difference. So if the Commissioners felt like they could come 10
earlier to that meeting and we could accomplish a significant amount before the wee hours of 11
the evening I just need to know how you guys feel about that. It doesn't have to be 3:00, it 12
could be 4:00, but as early as you're available maybe you could let us know right now. 13
14
Ms. Gitelman: And we'd be happy to bring in dinner if you want to start at 4:00 we could take a 15
break at 6:00 for… 16
17
Chair Alcheck: I'll just go down the line. Commissioner Gardias do you have availability on the 18
27th to start a meeting earlier? 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 Gardias: Not that early. I can start 5:30, but not that early. 1
2
Chair Alcheck: 5:30. Ok and Commissioner Lauing? 3
4
Commissioner Lauing: I can start pretty much at any time. 5
6
Chair Alcheck: Ok, Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] Waldfogel? 7
8
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: 5:00ish. 9
10
Chair Alcheck: 5:00ish. Ok, you know where I am. And you Commissioner Monk? 11
12
Commissioner Monk: I’m fine. 13
14
Chair Alcheck: Fine with what? 15
16
Commissioner Monk: I just want to (interrupted) 17
18
Chair Alcheck: Could you begin at four o'clock? 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 Monk: That's fine. 1
2
Chair Alcheck: Commissioner Summa? 3
4
Commissioner Summa: [Unintelligible] anytime. 5
6
Chair Alcheck: Commissioner Rosenblum. 7
8
Commissioner Rosenblum: 4:00 p.m. 9
10
Chair Alcheck: Ok, I have one, two, three, four, five individuals that can start at 4:00. I think the 11
question is is how do I proceed? We don't need to have seven individuals present to have a 12
quorum and to have a meeting and I think that the task of determining how to move forward if 13
the five of us can build consensus as to some of the topics it could be sufficient. We didn't have 14
seven Commissioners at all of our meetings on this review in general, but does staff have an 15
opinion about how to proceed here? 16
17
Ms. Gitelman: Yeah I hesitate to advise you on this. I think this Commission has been working 18
very well this evening as a full body. It's been most constructive I think when the Commission 19
has been fully present and participating. 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 Alcheck: Yeah, I don't disagree with that. 2
3
Ms. Gitelman: So I know you can conduct a business with a quorum, but I don’t know I’ll just 4
question whether (Interrupted) 5
6
Chair Alcheck: Ok, well why don't we do this? Why don't we (interrupted) 7
8
Commissioner Monk: Perhaps the Commissioner Gardias could weigh in on the two or three 9
ones that we might discuss or maybe he can advocate ones that he wouldn't want to be here 10
for and we could start those, something along (interrupted) 11
12
Commissioner Lauing: He might be able to do 5:00 he just said. 13
14
Chair Alcheck: Then let's go for 5:00. Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] Waldfogel you think you 15
can make 5:00 squeak by? 16
17
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: I can make 5:00 work. 18
19
Chair Alcheck: Ok then we've got seven people who can make 5:00 work. 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
Ms. Gitelman: And we'll bring in some food so we can get started right away and then take a 2
break after a couple hours and eat. 3
4
Chair Alcheck: That would be delightful. Ok, so it will be our only item so we'll start earlier and 5
we'll also get to it sooner. 6
7
Commissioner Monk: And I just want to mention that I think I didn't communicate correctly on 8
my list so I think two of my items were not on. I don't know if they were captured or not so. 9
10
Ms. Costello: Through the Chair? We're going to double check the list. We'll just double check 11
it tomorrow and if there’s (interrupted) 12
13
Chair Alcheck: Would you mind actually when we meet next week I think will be helpful if we 14
had a new spreadsheet that removed all the items that we've dealt with. 15
16
Ms. Costello: Yeah, yeah. 17
18
Chair Alcheck: So that we can have (interrupted) 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.
Ms. Costello: Right. We will create a new spreadsheet and if we missed something we'll go 1
back and double check because we were doing it quickly and then we were trying to create a 2
format so we might have missed some and there was some miscommunication. So we will go 3
back and double check and if there's something with a two or three we'll put it back on there 4
and we'll create a new sheet that takes off what we've already discussed. 5
6
Chair Alcheck: Ok, alright. I just want to say two things. Number one thank you to all of you. I 7
know this is a really challenging process. I know it's a struggle. I want to thank staff for being 8
here really late. I we really appreciate it and I think we all have the same goals here. 9
Commissioner Monk is suggesting ice cream as (interrupted) 10
11
Commissioner Monk: This weekend there's the (interrupted) 12
13
Chair Alcheck: Oh, the ice cream social. Ok, yeah. Any other comments other than the ice 14
cream social announcement that anybody wants to make real quick before we (interrupted) 15
16
Commissioner Monk: And there’s a rail study… 17
18
Ms. Gitelman: Saturday rail (interrupted) 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 Alcheck: For all of you viewers out there. 1
2
Commissioner Monk: I’ve RSVPed to that and I don’t know if other Commissioners have. 3
4
Chair Alcheck: Come to the rail study. Ok, thank you. I'm going to conclude this meeting it's 5
11:01. Thank you again everybody for your hard work. See you in two weeks. 6
7
Approval of Minutes 8
Public Comment is Permitted. Five (5) minutes per speaker.1,3 9
There are no minutes to be approved at this meeting. 10
Committee Items 11
Commissioner Questions, Comments or Announcements 12
Adjournment 13
14
11pm 15
_______________________
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.
Palo Alto Planning & Transportation Commission 1
Commissioner Biographies, Present and Archived Agendas and Reports are available online: 2
http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/gov/boards/ptc/default.asp. The PTC Commission members are: 3
4
Chair Michael Alcheck 5
Vice Chair Asher Waldfogel 6
Commissioner Przemek Gardias 7
Commissioner Ed Lauing 8
Commissioner Susan Monk 9
Commissioner Eric Rosenblum 10
Commissioner Doria Summa 11
12
Get Informed and Be Engaged! 13
View online: http://midpenmedia.org/category/government/city-of-palo-alto or on Channel 26. 14
15
Show up and speak. Public comment is encouraged. Please complete a speaker request card 16
located on the table at the entrance to the Council Chambers and deliver it to the Commission 17
Secretary prior to discussion of the item. 18
19
Write to us. Email the PTC at: Planning.Commission@CityofPaloAlto.org. Letters can be 20
delivered to the Planning & Community Environment Department, 5th floor, City Hall, 250 21
Hamilton Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94301. Comments received by 2:00 PM two Tuesdays preceding 22
the meeting date will be included in the agenda packet. Comments received afterward through 23
2:00 PM the day of the meeting will be presented to the Commission at the dais. 24
25
Material related to an item on this agenda submitted to the PTC after distribution of the 26
agenda packet is available for public inspection at the address above. 27
Americans with Disability Act (ADA) 28
It is the policy of the City of Palo Alto to offer its public programs, services and meetings in a 29
manner that is readily accessible to all. Persons with disabilities who require materials in an 30
appropriate alternative format or who require auxiliary aids to access City meetings, programs, 31
or services may contact the City’s ADA Coordinator at (650) 329-2550 (voice) or by emailing 32
ada@cityofpaloalto.org. Requests for assistance or accommodations must be submitted at least 33
24 hours in advance of the meeting, program, or service. 34