HomeMy WebLinkAbout2017-11-08 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Planning & Transportation Commission 1
Action Agenda: November 8, 2017 2
Council Chambers 3
250 Hamilton Avenue 4
6:00 PM 5
6
Call to Order / Roll Call 7
6:02pm 8
9
Chair Alcheck: Secretary will please take roll? 10
11
Yolanda Cervantes, Administrative Assistant: Chair Alcheck, Commissioner Gardias, 12
Commissioner Lauing, Commissioner Monk, Commissioner Rosenblum, Commissioner Summa, 13
and Vice-Chair Waldfogel. 14
15
Chair Alcheck: Thank you. 16
17
Oral Communications 18
The public may speak to any item not on the agenda. Three (3) minutes per speaker.1,2 19
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Chair Alcheck: Ok, I have three cards here all for Oral Communications. So I will invite Heather 21
Schultz followed by Ken Schultz followed by Jim Poppy up to share your thoughts with us during 22
our Oral Communications. You’ll have five minutes, three minutes. Ok, we’ll have three 23
minutes. Please, yeah. Come join us. 24
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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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Heather Schultz: Hello, I’m Heather Schultz. I’m here to speak about the construction project 2
on Ross Road. The curb bump out projecting into the road are creating what looks like a very 3
dangerous situation at numerous pinch points along the road cars and bikes are being forced 4
into very close proximity. I live on Ross and have for 14 years and my husband and I attended a 5
couple of meetings about this project. We and other residents raised concerns about this at 6
the time, but there was no evidence that our concerns were valued. 7
8
We are raising our family on Ross and as soon as our children were old enough we got them 9
onto bikes and they started biking to Palo Verde Elementary School and to Jane Lathrop 10
Stanford Middle School (JLS). My youngest son has now told me that he is scared to bike down 11
Ross, something he’s never said before. He’s been doing this for years. And I’ve spoken with 12
some parents of younger children who have said to me that they do not want their children 13
biking to school or that they would tell their children to bike on the sidewalk instead of using 14
the road. 15
16
In the past there… I bike on this road so like I use it a lot. I both bike and drive on it. Because 17
there were stretches where cars didn’t need to park there were places where a biker and a 18
particularly a slow biker feeling nervous about a car behind them could move over and a car 19
could go around them and they weren’t feeling pressure, but these bump outs are removing 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
parking spaces and so the parking is more compact and then there aren’t these safe spots for 1
slow bikers to pull over and let a car go by. I think that a much simpler and safer solution to car 2
speed issues could have been used if that’s the main addressing here. I know it’s being called a 3
bike boulevard, but I think it’s less friendly to bikes than it used to be in the past so if the real 4
issue is car speed I think there are other solutions. I’d like to ask you to please come look at 5
what this project actually looks like on the ground in the neighborhood. Thank you for your 6
service and your attention. I appreciate it. Thank you. 7
8
Chair Alcheck: Ok, Ken Schultz. 9
10
Ken Schultz: Yes, hi. So I’m Ken Schultz. I’m Heather’s husband so I also live on Ross Road and 11
wanted to speak to this issue of the bike boulevard that’s being developed there and the 12
construction that’s going on. So I understand this project is underway and there’s probably no 13
stopping it so I mostly have questions about the future. There’s three questions I’d love to get 14
answers to and I realize this isn’t really the forum to get answers to questions so [unintelligible] 15
want to plant these questions in your mind. [There are if] like if I were on your side of the 16
podium these are questions that I would want to have good answers to. So the first one is what 17
are the goals of this project and is the construction that’s currently underway likely to achieve 18
those goals? As my wife suggested it was unclear if the purpose here is to increase bike use or 19
bike safety on Ross or if the goal is to reduce cars. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
On car traffic I have biked on Ross, our family has biked on Ross. It does not look like an 2
attractive road to bike on with this new construction so I’m dubious about the goal. Is the goal 3
to reduce traffic and displace it onto Middlefield Road and Louis Road? Do we know how much 4
discretionary traffic there is on Ross given that there's the YMCA and the church there? How 5
many cars are we really going to take off of Ross Road with this construction? 6
7
Second big question is are there procedures and plans in place to assess whether the project 8
meets its goals? Do we have baseline figures for bike safety or bike use or car use either on 9
Ross or in that neighborhood? And more importantly is are there plans in place to assess the 10
effects of this construction going forward on bike and car use taking into account the fact that 11
some of those effects are likely to be displaced on to other roads in the neighborhood. So I 12
would very much hope that there is some kind of assessment plan in place. 13
14
And that leads to my third question which is: is there any plan to revisit, revise, reconsider the 15
construction that's going on in the event that its goals are not met? I would very much hope 16
that the community has an opportunity to revisit this project in the face of assessments that 17
might take place. I see a lot of concrete being poured right now. Frankly given the questions 18
that I have in my mind I would have maybe used a less permanent building material for this 19
construction. I want to thank you for your time attention and for your service to our City. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Alcheck: Ok, our last Oral Communications speaker is Jim Poppy. 2
3
Jim Poppy: Good evening, hi there; I’m Jim Poppy. I’ve lived at 135 Melville Avenue for 40 years 4
and thank you for taking on the difficult job of balancing competing interests and 5
environmental considerations when evaluating large projects. Residents rely on your guidance 6
to help preserve a desirable neighborhood environment while providing for managed growth. 7
We also rely on your knowledge, experience, and creativity when evaluating a large project. 8
How’s that for a set up? Technology is changing so rapidly most of us can't keep up with the 9
apps on our phone. City planners have to keep up to date and current on near and near future 10
technologies that are going to change how cities get built. Self-driving cars is a popular 11
example these days of how soon big changes will be upon us. 12
13
Spending several years building an underground garage along Embarcadero Road in an R-1 14
residential neighborhood for a commercial enterprise that pays no taxes would be a great leap 15
backwards for Palo Alto. First of all the source of the issue is Castilleja’s refusal to split their 16
campus or move to a different location. That's the obvious and most environmentally sound 17
choice. Also they've in their application they said some misleading statements. Neighbors do 18
not want the garage. There have been 47 individual households within a two block radius of 19
the school that have signed statements submitted to the City Council and to the school saying 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
they do not want the garage and the school continues to tell that untruth and their feeding that 1
script to students that are coming to City Council every week with those falsehoods. 2
3
The proposed garage would force all cars to enter on Bryant which is a bike boulevard as you 4
know where children and adults who don't go to Castilleja use that for commuting to school 5
and to work. Cars would then have to queue up underground then be forced back onto 6
Embarcadero Road heading east. In other words nobody would use the garage to drop off their 7
kids because right now it takes them a couple of seconds. There are two spots, they can be on 8
their way and most drivers want to be heading west getting back to the 280 corridor because 9
there are only about 100 students from Palo Alto that go there. The garage is the school's 10
Trojan Horse to increase enrollment and host larger and larger events. We would like to live 11
next to homes not a massive underground garage exit. They should not be allowed to merge 12
lots and destroy two single family homes. 13
14
The school would like you to believe that the only impact to the neighborhood is 8:00 a.m. and 15
3:00 p.m. Monday through Friday; however they hold over 100 events during the school year. 16
That's four per week during the school year plus summer camps. Neighbors are ready to sit 17
down with the school with a talk about enrollment, but they refuse to take this out of their 18
plans. I hope that you can lend some creativity and future, a sense of future and forward 19
looking and helping guide this project to where it should be. 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Alcheck: I have here Frank Holland. Three minutes. 2
3
Frank Holland: Good evening, thank you. I'm a resident of Ross Road so I'd like to speak briefly 4
about the project going on at Ross Road. I attended a planning meeting at Ohlone school in 5
2015, looked at some of the preliminary concepts that were talked about. My understanding 6
what I walked away with at that meeting was that part of the Ross Road fix would be traffic 7
calming features at intersections and I didn't take away that there’d be these massive bump 8
outs, curb extensions, etcetera up and down the road. Like my neighbors before me just want 9
to underscore that and look for ways to improve the planning process. 10
11
My frustration is I exchanged email with folks that were hosting the meeting in 2015. They 12
knew of the concerns. I understood that the plans were preliminary or the concepts were 13
notional, there weren't really plans, but it would be nice if people attend these planning 14
meetings that when the plans get to final draft or near final draft that the people that attend 15
planning meetings get direct notice not indirect notice by having to read the Palo Alto Weekly 16
or some other communication mechanism like that. So my suggestion is for improved direct 17
communication with the residents that are affected by these types of projects. Thank you for 18
your consideration. 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you. That concludes our Oral Communications. 1
2
Jonathan Lait, Assistant Director: Just Chair I know we don't typically talk about these different 3
items, but I would like to suggest to Mr. Holland and Mr. and Mrs. Schultz that we do have staff 4
available to talk about this project and there are some very specific questions that were asked 5
and I think we could provide an opportunity to answer those questions and at least create a 6
forum for that. So I would ask the speakers to just leave me their email address or phone 7
number and we can circle back with them. 8
9
[Man speaking off microphone unintelligible] 10
11
Chair Alcheck: I just to be clear I one of the issues about Oral Communications is that the 12
Commission can't respond because the items aren’t agendized. And so I think what Assistant 13
Director Lait is attempting to accomplish is to coordinate an opportunity for there to be a 14
dialogue. So I think it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to at least provide him your email 15
address so that if we agendize an item related to Ross Road at least he can make you aware of 16
it and then the Commissioners up here would be able to engage with you if or maybe even the 17
staff directly. So I appreciate the comments, but again we can't respond to them because they 18
haven’t been agendized. But I think this might be a good path for you three. 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. 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: Ok, alright so we only have, we have five people here although we should have 4
only four. You're going to be recusing yourself very shortly because the Stanford item. I want 5
to highlight two things this is the last meeting before we elect our new leadership which will 6
begin at our next meeting. So I just want to encourage all of you to be here on time on the 7
29th. That's this month because the first item on the agenda will be the election of the 8
Planning and Transportation Commission (PTC) Chair and the PTC Vice-Chair. 9
10
And then I just want to highlight there are two other items on that agenda that I've worked 11
hard to sort of get on our agenda. The first is the annual report to Council which is a memo I'm 12
drafting which I will present the first draft to this Commission as a part of the packet for the 13
November 29th meeting. And my hope is that even though we will run the election as the first 14
item on the agenda at the beginning of the meeting and for those of you unfamiliar when we 15
select new leadership the leadership assumes their leadership role immediately. And so what 16
I'm hoping is that as Vice-Chair Waldfogel suggested yesterday that as in my title as Chair 17
Emeritus I could facilitate the discussion about the memo when we get to that item during the 18
meeting on behalf of the Commission as well as the fourth item that I worked with Jonathan to 19
put on our Commission’s schedule which is the PTC first, I should say first annual process and 20
performance review discussion which I'm hoping to use sort of as an exit interview process 21
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
essentially. Where the meeting could involve a discussion about what worked this past year, 1
what things we could consider reworking in the future in our process and our meetings. And so 2
to the extent that whoever the leader is next meeting is comfortable I'd love to have an 3
opportunity to facilitate those two agenda items which theoretically could have been on the 4
calendar tonight, but it couldn't be because of the lack of attendance if that makes any sense? 5
So we pushed them out to the 29th, but I won't be running the meeting at that time so 6
hopefully at that time you guys will whoever's in charge will be comfortable with letting me 7
facilitate some of that discussion. Ok? Ok, that's all I've got. 8
9
Commissioner Lauing: Can we continue a discussion on the agenda items? 10
11
Chair Alcheck: Yeah, is there something else you (interrupted) 12
13
Commissioner Lauing: Yeah, I just wondered the meeting after that looks fantastic content 14
wise, but really full. 15
16
Chair Alcheck: I suspect that (interrupted) 17
18
Commissioner Lauing: I don't know how long Title 18 is going to take next week, but I just was 19
going to ask if there was anything that could be moved up. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Alcheck: I think that in my preliminary discussion with staff it sounds like the first item on 2
the December 13th agenda actually won't be ready and so what we’ll be left with is an initial 3
sort of a presentation of the Eichler design guidelines and I don't even expect that to be sort of 4
a fully vetted process. I think that’s just going to be sort of a beginning of a discussion, is that 5
right? 6
7
Jonathan Lait, Assistant Director: Yeah, I can speak to that a little, but you are correct. I have 8
confirmed that the first item on December 13th is in fact going to be pushed so you will not be 9
considering that. 10
11
Chair Alcheck: And the third item, the PTC Annual Report to Council… 12
13
Mr. Lait: That's the final draft. 14
15
Chair Alcheck: That's the final draft. So my hope is that at the next meeting you will have had a 16
chance to review it, you’ll give me some feedback, I will make the edits. That item I really 17
actually don't expect it to take… 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Lauing: Yeah, I wasn’t worried about that one, but when we’re going to do an 1
update on 13 different housing laws that seems like that was pretty long. 2
3
Chair Alcheck: I actually don't, do you know are we going to even… is that going to be a full in-4
depth discussion or do you think it's just going to be sort of a preview? 5
6
Mr. Lait: Well, I think it’s we're providing an update and we will have provided an update to the 7
City Council and the Council recently just discussed a colleague's memo regarding housing so I 8
imagine some of that stuff will all come together in a conversation. 9
10
Chair Alcheck: It may I suspect that the last item there the update on recent state housing laws 11
and frankly Accessory Dwelling Units (ADU) and Eichler design guidelines will involve more 12
homework in terms of like reading material for you to familiarize yourself with some of these 13
changes and a presentation then it will probably an in-depth discussion, but (interrupted) 14
15
Mr. Lait: And I can just answer the first question that you asked which was can any of these 16
items move up and I would say no. 17
18
Commissioner Lauing: Ok. 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Lait: All of them are sort of set. 1
2
Commissioner Lauing: Yeah, that was the question. 3
4
Mr. Lait: Ok. So I that might be a shorter (interrupted) 5
6
Chair Alcheck: They might be able to move back so if there is a real concern let me put it to you 7
this way. Ahead of the December 13th meeting there'll be the November 29th meeting at 8
which point there will be new leadership and at that time if whoever is in charge still feels that 9
way they can… we can all work together to if we still feel like that's too much in one night. You 10
see what I’m saying? 11
12
Commissioner Lauing: Yeah, yeah. I was just given that it's now I was wondering if anything 13
could be moved up so Johnathan just answered that question. 14
15
Chair Alcheck: Ok. 16
17
Commissioner Lauing: Do we have any further visibility on the downtown parking in terms of 18
when that might come back to us? 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Alcheck: The recommendation we made to City Council you mean? 1
2
Commissioner Lauing: Yeah. 3
4
Chair Alcheck: You mean the non-recommendation? 5
6
Commissioner Lauing: Sometimes called paid parking non-recommendations. Exactly. 7
8
Mr. Lait: So this is the Downtown Parking Management Study? 9
10
Commissioner Lauing: Yeah. 11
12
Mr. Lait: Yeah so I’m looking at the schedule now and it looks like that's slated to go to the 13
Finance Committee on November 28th. I don't know if that's been confirmed. Oh, you think 14
it’s going to be moved? Ok, so I guess no I don't have an update for you on that. 15
16
Chair Alcheck: Yeah. 17
18
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: Just one other request on the Eichler design guideline topic something 19
that came up at some of our previous deliberations on second story in Eichler districts is the 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
status of CC&Rs in the Eichler districts. I mean there is some people of the view that CC&Rs are 1
still in force and enforceable and others are of the view that they're not, that the Homeowners 2
Association (HOA) lack of HOAs means the CC&Rs aren’t enforceable and I think it's important 3
as we have this discussion to understand the risks that we’re exposing people to as we look at 4
the design guidelines that are relative to whether the second story restrictions in the CC&Rs 5
may or may not still be enforceable. 6
7
Mr. Lait: I know that's been an ongoing conversation and we’ll consult with our Attorney’s 8
Office. 9
10
Chair Alcheck: It wouldn't be a bad idea to sort of get sort of a legal perspective on that. Ok. 11
Ok, so and then the only other thing we talked about this yesterday, but I just want to sort of 12
reinforce it which is the idea of during the for the PTC annual process and performance review 13
discussion having the package include the by-laws for the Commission so that when we get to 14
that discussion it can be a part of it. 15
16
Mr. Lait: Ok, great. 17
18
Chair Alcheck: Ok, great. 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Lait: I just wanted to know as we're If you want to under the section consider the minutes 1
now since you have a five members? 2
3
Chair Alcheck: Oh yeah, why not? Actually that’s a good idea. Alright so let's go for the 4
(interrupted) 5
6
Commissioner Gardias: Can we continue this discussion or? 7
8
Mr. Lait: Yeah, we're still in the same area so absolutely if there's… I mean if there's a 9
conversation that we want to have about future agendas I would actually suggest that we cover 10
that under Commission Questions, Comments, and Announcements. That's typically where we 11
have these future agenda conversations. If there’s changes that we want to make to this 12
agenda we would address that here. We sort of expanded that concept a little bit, but we were 13
looking at the future agenda which is actually under the City Official Reports and we can have a 14
conversation about future items maybe under there too. 15
16
Commissioner Gardias: Yeah I agree, but since we're going to be in the rather minority, loosing 17
Ed in a couple of moments, it would be nice to have him participating in the discussion. 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Lait: Yeah and I'm sorry maybe I wasn’t clear. If we're going to talk about items on future 1
agendas we can have that discussion under the Director’s Report because that’s where we have 2
a scaled calendar and schedule. I thought maybe before we get into that discussion further if 3
we wanted to just sort of follow the flow here and if you do want to consider the minutes you 4
can move those up maybe before the official report so we can get a vote on that or after the 5
official’s report. 6
7
Chair Alcheck: Ok, yeah. We’ll do the minutes in a second. Do you want to say something real 8
quick or not? Is there something you want to get, is there something about the Agenda 9
Additions, Changes or Deletions that you want to talk about? 10
11
Commissioner Gardias: Yes that's right, but we're going to continue, right, under Director’s 12
Report? Or so are we in the Director’s Report? 13
14
Chair Alcheck: This is the moment right now for Agenda Additions, Changes or Deletions. Then 15
I'm going to do the minutes, but I'll do it right after the Directors Report and before they 16
General Use Permit (GUP) letter. That’s right? 17
18
Mr. Lait: Yes. So you’ll have an opportunity in a moment to speak to that. 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Alcheck: Oh, ok. Alright. Ok then so then nothing else on the Agenda then let's go the 1
Assistant Directors Report. 2
3
City Official Reports 4
1. Assistant Directors Report, Meeting Schedule and Assignments 5
6
Jonathan Lait, Assistant Director: Thank you. Now I’ve got to find my notes here. Let’s see, just 7
a few announcements. One, this Commission has had conversations about the North Ventura 8
Coordinated Area Plan and I wanted to let you know that the City Council on Monday initiated 9
that effort. So we will be spending some time getting the funding arrangements worked out 10
with Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) and returning to the City Council with 11
the formal funding agreement. At that time we do also come back with some program goals to 12
help frame that discussion. The objectives the municipal code sets forth a very specific process 13
that to follow for the North Ventura or for coordinated area plans which we will be rolling out 14
over the next few months to Council. We’ll be forming of a working group. The Council will 15
appoint this working group and we anticipate project kick off somewhere around April once we 16
get all that stuff moving forward. So that’s (interrupted) 17
18
Chair Alcheck: Is the working group Council, is that are Council Members part of the working 19
group or is that like community members are going to be in the working group? 20
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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Lait: Yes so it's anticipated to be community members. I don't know if there's a prohibition 1
about Council, but I'd have to take this (interrupted) 2
3
Chair Alcheck: Is this like a stakeholder, is this like a the Citizen Advisory Committee (CAC) kind 4
of the same idea? 5
6
Mr. Lait: Yeah. Yeah, well and we can define more about this, but it the code sets forth that 7 7
to 14 members are appointed by the City Council and it lists some examples of like property 8
owners, business owners, people of interest in the area to participate in that process and it's 9
Council appointed. 10
11
Just couple of other announcements there was the retail there were two retail waiver requests 12
so the City Council adopted the retail preservation ordinance to preserve ground floor retail 13
and the conversion of that to other non-retail uses. There were a couple properties that were 14
considered by the City Council this week. There was some allowance granted to these two 15
properties on 425 Portage and 999 Alma to still retain retail, require retail or at least be subject 16
to the retail preservation ordinance. On Portage there was the provision to allow it to restore 17
back to a warehouse use which it was before the pet food depot was established there. And on 18
Alma there was a provision to allow the 10,000 square foot building to be half of that building 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
to be used for medical uses, medical office and so the front half adjacent to Alma would still 1
stay subject to retail and retail like uses. 2
3
The 101 bike/ped bridge is slated to go to the City Council on November 27th. As it is a 4
prescreening request for a zone change to allow roof decks in the downtown area so we'll keep 5
you apprised of that particular request. And that concludes the Directors Report, but I 6
understand we want to have a conversation about the future agenda. 7
8
Chair Alcheck: Commissioner Gardias would you like to… 9
10
Commissioner Gardias: Just a quick, quick, quick question before we go there. So that the 11
rooftops decks exception or in the Downtown area is because of the house request, is this 12
right? Or this is a broader initiative to allow for the rooftops? 13
14
Mr. Lait: No it was an application filed by representatives of house. 15
16
Commissioner Gardias: And this is the only applicant and the exception is only for them or any 17
other applicants? 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Lait: So there's it's a single applicant. They brought forth a the concept of allowing roof 1
decks on these nonconforming buildings Downtown. I'm sure they'd be perfectly happy if it 2
was just limited to their property, but we're looking at it from a more policy perspective as 3
opposed to just the specific property. 4
5
Commissioner Gardias: Ok. Thank you. 6
7
Chair Alcheck: Is there something? 8
9
Commissioner Gardias: If we can go now to the schedule, right? 10
11
Chair Alcheck: Go ahead. 12
13
Commissioner Gardias: So let's have a discussion on this so we Ed here so… So the reason I 14
would like to just speak about this is because I'd like to propose of swapping the a the schedule 15
and in my perception that we should look into the update of the by-laws, Planning and 16
Transportation Commission (PTC) by-laws first and then once those are clean we would 17
proceed into the election of the new leadership. And we know the reason we discussed this on 18
many occasions that pretty much there is a confusion with the with… there was a confusion and 19
contradiction in the City code in regards to election of the PTC leadership that resulted 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
moving forward the date of appointments towards the end of the year thus changing the 1
original ordinance from 1999 where the sequence was proper and selection of the new 2
leadership was done once appointed, newly appointed members were seated. 3
4
Chair Alcheck: So we had a discussion yesterday actually during a pre-commission meeting 5
about this and my impression was that staff felt pretty strongly that we ought to have our vote 6
at the next meeting. And one of the I think your suggestion about delving into the by-laws and 7
addressing some issues with timing or whatnot is worth the effort, but I think I noticed that it's 8
currently on the calendar for January. So my comment earlier about the by-laws being a part of 9
the performance and review discussion that I've added to I’ve worked with Jonathan, I’ve 10
worked with Assistant Director Lait to add to the agenda was because I was hoping to sort of 11
lead a discussion about my year of leadership here and what people felt worked because I 12
thought if I led that discussion it could inform the next Chair on what people felt like worked. 13
It’s sort of a indirect way of communicating how people felt about things and then the next 14
leader could sort of take it or leave it. And the idea of having the by-laws present was simply in 15
case anybody wanted to reference them. 16
17
There is on our agenda right now in January this discussion for the 10th about updating the 18
rules of order and by-laws for effective meeting which I think… Let me put it this way, my 19
memo which I've been working on makes some suggestions on potential changes for our by-20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
laws. I don’t want to get into right now, but whether or not the Commission wants to consider 1
adjustments to Substantive [Note-Substitute?] Motions or whether they want to adjust the 2
election of their leadership. I still think it makes sense for those changes to happen in January. 3
I think that trying to accomplish an election and an adjustment to the by-laws in the same 4
evening is a little difficult because it doesn't we don't it doesn't give the Commissioners sort of 5
enough time to maybe study the by-laws. So I think the idea of having a meeting where people 6
get to talk about what could we do differently and then it simmer, sit on it for a month, and 7
then come back in January and say hey, now let's talk about changes we want to have. I think 8
it's sort of a better order. 9
10
And the sort of second thing is that just yesterday I mean I there was sort of staff sort of 11
demonstrated a number of reasons why they wanted to do the vote. Theoretically the vote 12
should have happened today. So our I don't know if it's our by-laws or our rules of order say 13
that has to be the first meeting of November. We've clearly not, we've missed that today and 14
so there's sort of a strong desire to get it done very soon and get it done as the first part of our 15
next meeting which I'm fine with. And so that's sort of my response to you. I still think that this 16
idea of investigating the by-laws is a good one, but I also think it shouldn't happen in the in a 17
rushed way. Like it should involve maybe a two stage discussion which maybe we can start 18
with our performance and process review and then the next and then January you guys can 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
conclude it or whoever is a part of the Commission can conclude it with suggestions. If anybody 1
else has any comments about that, anybody? 2
3
Commissioner Summa: I have a question. 4
5
Chair Alcheck: Yeah. 6
7
[Sandra Lee, __________?]: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to clarify that it's the municipal 8
code that sets out the timing of the election and so that would supersede any conflicting 9
section in the procedures or by-laws for the Commission. 10
11
Chair Alcheck: Got it. And our, my understanding is that the municipal code says we should 12
have done it already. 13
14
[Ms. Lee?]: It says the first meeting of November. 15
16
Chair Alcheck: Right. So this is why there is a strong preference to get it done and so in with 17
sort of respect and deference to that requirement we're doing it the first item on our next 18
meeting. And I would suggest that you pursue the opportunity to review the by-laws not 19
necessarily that night because I think it would go hand in hand with the process 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
performance review. So I'm hoping that discussion will tee up the next discussion for this 1
Commission. Anybody else? Ok. 2
3
Commissioner Gardias: So if I may just so if you look up the meeting minutes year ago where 4
Cara Silver was in your place and she clearly made the guidance that based on the municipal 5
code we should be electing leadership in January. This was a similar timing and similar 6
recommendation and Cara was sitting here in your place. She look up the meeting minutes, she 7
said this clearly. So there is an error in the municipal code. November 1 date is an erroneous 8
date that is pretty much a left over from different changes that in the municipal code that were 9
overlooked. One certain when the selection of the Commissioner changed, Commissioners 10
changed. If you look up the ordinal ordinance that made Cara to make this statement there is a 11
proper sequence of events and then there is no contradiction in municipal cope. And we're not 12
talking about the by-laws, we're talking about the municipal code. So I recommend that you 13
look at this. I believe that and then compare your notes with Cara’s recommendation. So for 14
this reason I just cannot accept this explanation because (interrupted) 15
16
Chair Alcheck: No, you're not wrong. You’re not wrong. You’re not wrong. 17
18
Commissioner Gardias: It puts us… so it puts us in the in this uncomfortable position again 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Mr. Lait: Right. 2
3
Commissioner Gardias: That we would be that outgoing PTC would be selecting leadership for 4
incoming… 5
6
Mr. Lait: I totally get your point, but I but this is not an agendized item. So if you want to talk 7
about it let's put it on the agenda so we have a dialogue about it. That's what we should be 8
doing here as opposed to debating the issue. 9
10
Chair Alcheck: And just for the record we were in the additions and agenda items 11
[unintelligible] I know I’m just say, here’s the thing. I’ll just my last comment. You're not wrong 12
about the order. Yesterday during our PTC meeting [Note pre-commission?] we had 13
clarification from the legal which said that which acknowledged that our terms used to end in 14
October so having an election the first week of November meant that new terms could 15
participate. That's exactly what happened. Our terms used to end in October. Note our terms 16
were extended sort of by City Council to December and no changes made to the municipal 17
code. So right now while there may… well from your perspective there is this issue we're 18
grappling with the idea of adhering to our current ordinance and... 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Lait: So if I may? So we have the rules of order scheduled to be discussed on January 10th. 1
Is there a majority of the Commission that would like to have that conversation sooner than 2
January 10th? I mean that’s really what we need to know for scheduling purposes. 3
4
Chair Alcheck: Right. Well so my you guys have heard my suggestion is that we don't do that 5
because I think that it's multi-faceted, but I’m eager to hear from you if you have a comment. 6
7
Mr. Lait: But again this isn’t so much a debate as just get something we're talking about… we're 8
not debating the merits of this discussion. It is not agendized. We're looking at your calendar. 9
10
Chair Alcheck: No, you’re looking for Motion right now though. 11
12
Mr. Lait: I'm wanting to know if this one of the things that we want to change are the rules of 13
order. Staff has an interest in this too is being very clear about how items get scheduled on the 14
Commission agendas. Make that decision. 15
16
Commissioner Gardias: So if I may, right? So I'm proposing if just I'm sorry if I just may? 17
18
Mr. Lait: That's not what we're talking about though right now, right? So… 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Gardias: No, but I'm proposing just to swap the order. Just make the election of 1
the new leadership after the by-laws are reviewed and approved. 2
3
Mr. Lait: Ok. 4
5
Commissioner Gardias: Or there is another way of doing this or just simply following the 6
municipal code as it states correctly the sequence of events and then postpone the election of 7
the new leadership to January altogether. 8
9
Mr. Lait: So I'm sorry. I don't want to go into a debate about it. It’s where the code has 10
established the requirement for elections to take place in the first meeting of November. It was 11
scheduled for this day. At your last Commission meeting you pushed it to the second meeting 12
in November. 13
14
Chair Alcheck: Because we were going to be only four people on the Commission. 15
16
Mr. Lait: Ok. 17
18
Chair Alcheck: So there was the reason why we did that is because you were going to miss 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Mr. Lait: I really don’t want to have a debate about it. There's I want to get to the discussion 2
item. 3
4
Chair Alcheck: I'm not. I'm just setting the record straight. I’m just setting the record straight. 5
We moved it not in an effort to... Yeah, ok. So. 6
7
Commissioner Lauing: I just have a question. It’s not a debate item. If we were to move the I'm 8
a little confused about if we move the rules of order and by-laws up with the idea of looking at 9
when officers are elected I don't see how that changes it if we're going off the municipal code. 10
That’s point one, right? And point two is if we did that will we just be deciding (interrupted) 11
12
Chair Alcheck: That's a good point. 13
14
Commissioner Lauing: On the officers or would we be looking at all of the by-laws? We could 15
narrow it to just that point, but it still seems like it defaults to the municipal code. So those are 16
my two related questions. 17
18
Chair Alcheck: So the… that's a great question. The assumption is is that we could change our 19
by-laws or our rules of order and it would have no effect on the municipal code and we would 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
still be required to have our vote which means that there wouldn't be a need to rush that 1
discussion. 2
3
Commissioner Lauing: That's why I'm asking. 4
5
Chair Alcheck: Do you understand the question? 6
7
Mr. Lait: I believe so. You can have that I mean we can agendize a discussion and action on the 8
rules of order for your next meeting. We can consider that first if that's how you want to do 9
that. 10
11
Chair Alcheck: I don't want to do that. 12
13
Mr. Lait: I'm just I’m trying to respond to the question now, so. 14
15
Chair Alcheck: I just want to know is… I know. The question is can we change the meeting or 16
would we still vote on our next meeting regardless because it's a municipal code thing and we 17
can't change the municipal code in an evening. 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Lait: Ok, so we're already in vio… we're already not following the municipal code. We want 1
to get as close to following the municipal code as possible. If you push it I don't know who is 2
the aggrieved party that's going to come and hold the City to the task on this, but I mean you 3
have some rules. They are set forth in the code. I think you should follow them. If you want to 4
change them we can talk about changing them. 5
6
Chair Alcheck: That's exactly what I'm trying to accomplish here and that’s why I think Ed is 7
trying to ask you the question is: is it redundant? He's looking for some help from you right 8
now to respond to (interrupted) 9
10
Mr. Lait: It’s staff’s recommendation that the elections be held on November 29th. 11
12
Chair Alcheck: Ok. So let me put it to you this way. In order for us to keep having staff would 13
like us to end this conversation. I agree with staff. In order for us to have a conversation next 14
meeting about this item we need to demonstrate right now that there is overwhelming support 15
for that. Aside from Commissioner G does anybody want to have this discussion at the next 16
meeting or are we comfortable with the current agenda? Ok, so I'm going to take that silence 17
as sticking to our current plan. I'm sorry that took a little longer. I was trying to help you there. 18
Ok, so like I started this meeting we’ll begin our next meeting with the election and then we'll 19
move on with the rest of the items on the agenda with the exception of… Oh no, with all 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
items on the agenda. The only item that's probably not going to be on the agenda is the first 1
bullet of this Number 13. Any other things that we can maybe we can just move on now? Are 2
we good? Anybody? 3
4
[MINUTES MOVED HERE] 5
6
MOTION 7
8
Chair Alcheck: Minutes. Ok. Let’s move on to the minutes. Can I get a Motion to approve the 9
minutes for October or September 27th and October 11th? Can we do them together? Great. 10
Second? 11
12
SECOND 13
14
Commissioner Summa: Second. 15
16
VOTE 17
18
Chair Alcheck: Ok, we have a Motion from Commissioner Lauing and a second from 19
Commissioner Monk. All those in favor of oh, excuse me, from Commissioner Summa. Sorry. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
I’m so sorry. I’m so used to her sitting right [unintelligible]. All those in favor of approving the 1
minutes for those two meetings please raise your hand. Great, ok; those are unanimously 2
approved. 3
4
MOTION PASSED (5-0, Commissioners Monk and Rosenblum absent) 5
6
Study Session 7
Public Comment is Permitted. Five (5) minutes per speaker.1,3 8
Action Items 9
Public Comment is Permitted. Applicants/Appellant Teams: Fifteen (15) minutes, plus three (3) minutes rebuttal. 10
All others: Five (5) minutes per speaker.1,3 11
2. The Planning and Transportation Commission Will Review and Provide Comments on 12
the Draft Environmental Impact Report Prepared for the Stanford General Use Permit 13
(2018) Application and Provide Input to the City's Comment Letter 14
15
Chair Alcheck: So we are now going to begin finally the Stanford General Use Permit (GUP) 2018 16
Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) comment letter item tonight and with that 17
(interrupted) 18
19
Commissioner Lauing: As I recuse because my spouse is employed at Stanford. 20
21
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Alcheck: Thank you, Commissioner Lauing. We will see you on the 29th on time and early 1
for our very important election. Ok, staff I invite you to present if there's a presentation and 2
sorry for the delay. 3
4
Jonathan Lait, Assistant Director: Thank you. So Meg Monroe [Note-Margaret?] from the City is 5
going to give a presentation to you and we're here to receive your comments and suggestions 6
after the presentation. 7
8
Margaret Monroe, [____________]: Yes, way back in must have been February the Commission 9
looked at issues to respond to Stanford’s Notice of Preparation of a significant amendment to 10
their use permit which is referred to as the 2018 GUP, General Use Permit. This is for 11
development and lands on lands at Stanford that are in the County, not in the City. On the 4th 12
of October the County issued a notice of availability for the environmental document. You 13
Commissioners were sent a copy of that I believe on October 6th that had a Uniform Resource 14
Locator (URL) in it to the some 2,500 pages that constitute this document. The City is now in 15
the process we have a 60 day period within which to review the document and to respond to 16
the County with any concerns. And we’re in the process of preparing a response letter as we 17
speak. 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
The DEIR includes those issues that relate to the environment and can be measured against 1
acceptable criteria. In addition as you look at the DEIR there are other non-California 2
Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) issues that are raised by the 2018 GUP project that affect the 3
City of Palo Alto. These the County has been referring to as policy issues and they will also be 4
identified so that in our correspondence on the DEIR so the County is aware of these issues as 5
well. 6
7
Briefly Stanford applied in 2016 for a major modification to their 2000 GUP with associated 8
amendments to the Stanford Community Plan which is a part of the Santa Clara County General 9
Plan and for some rezoning within the various districts in the core campus area. In the staff 10
report I give you a summary of the scope of this request. It's actually taken directly from their 11
DEIR and when we talk about it generally we sort of focus on the 2.275 million new square feet 12
academic and academic support space and 3,150 new dwelling units. Some of those are beds 13
for students, but 550 of them are actual dwelling units for faculty, staff, post-doctoral and 14
medical students. 15
16
As lead agency Santa Clara County is responsible for preparing the environmental document; 17
however Palo Alto is a responsible agency in this case and will be responsible for carrying out or 18
approving some of the some aspects of the project. And so your comments probably relate as 19
much to that responsibility we have as a responsible agency. City staff has the City has hired 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
consultant to do the technical review of this document. It's quite detailed and we hired Dudek 1
to do the environment, who is an environmental firm to look at the environmental aspect of it 2
and in addition Hexagon traffic transportation firm to assist in our review working along with 3
the City Departments and there are a variety of City Departments involved: Traffic, 4
Transportation, Planning, Department of Public Works, our Community Services, Police, Fire all 5
those departments have also been participating in this review. 6
7
This evening we have with us to capture your comments and concerns Stephanie Sterlow from 8
Dudek and Jane Clayton from Hexagon. They're here as much as anything to hear your 9
comments on the work that we've done so far and any additional comments you might have. In 10
the staff report there are two lists of items. One is the technical issues and then the next is the 11
policy issues. We've put these in here so you would have an idea of the direction we're going 12
and the kinds of things that we've identified so far. They may trigger your concerns; you may 13
also help you identify additional concerns. We also included in the staff report a copy of the 14
Notice of Preparation letter because in that your concerns and comments particularly on traffic 15
were reflected and you might look at those and see whether you feel based on what time 16
you've had to look at the document whether those have been adequately addressed or maybe 17
new ideas have come to mind. The City is going to put together with your input and the input 18
from the technical and staff we're going to put together a comment letter that will go to the 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Council for their review and action at a public meeting and then will be submitted to the County 1
within the required 60 days. 2
3
The next steps from the County's point of view either the Santa Clara County representatives 4
have indicated that they expect the final Environmental Impact Report (EIR) to be available for 5
review in the spring of 2018. That's a pretty big window, but that's what they're saying. And 6
that the Board of Supervisors would consider the final EIR and that would include its 7
certification and the project in mid-2018 and that might go into the fall of 2018. I would hope 8
that your discussion this evening might center on these technical issues and the policy issues 9
and any additional concerns you might have. I'm happy to take any questions you might have. 10
11
Chair Alcheck: Thank you so much. Ok, who would like to kick us off tonight? Commissioner 12
Gardias. 13
14
Commissioner Gardias: Thank you; Margaret, thank you very much for your presentation. So 15
my understanding after this was just said is that technical issues are coming from Dudek. 16
17
Ms. Monroe: They're going… yes, they're going through. They are a technical person is 18
reviewing the technical if you're talking about traffic. The traffic comes through Hexagon and 19
the other things go through Dudek. 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Gardias: Have they gone through the notes, meeting minutes from our meeting, 2
our review with Stanford. 3
4
Ms. Monroe: Yes. Yes, right. 5
6
Commissioner Gardias: Has this been included? So there was a concern that I made at the time 7
of the hearing and I went through the through this letter. I couldn't find this so maybe I just 8
didn't locate this in the right paragraph. Maybe it's there, but if you remember and I couldn't 9
find because I just couldn't pull out the documents before the meeting. So I couldn't find the 10
specific table that I was referring to, but then if you remember our meeting I pointed at a table 11
that was showing that the rate of the decrease of the rate of the single vehicle trips or some 12
other related measure hasn’t, has stagnated throughout the last three years and then pretty 13
much looking into the continuous improvement requirement that Stanford should have as a 14
internal policy. It was not meeting internal objectives pretty much with the growing number of 15
the residents and visitors and so forth. Was the meaning of this table was very clear that pretty 16
much we would be seeing more trips, single trips because of just a simple increase in the 17
population and it was also sending the signal that pretty much farther improvement is not 18
possible or maybe they couldn’t obtain it because of some reason. So I am I was really 19
concerned and I would like to ask you to pretty much include in this letter a statement that 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.
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2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
pretty much that of my concern or our concern of following farther or following of continuing 1
farther improvements of the single vehicle trips. 2
3
Ms. Monroe: Yeah. 4
5
Commissioner Gardias: No there was different it was a bar. Thank you. 6
7
Ms. Monroe: Yeah, sure thing. 8
9
Chair Alcheck: Do you have any more comments? Ok. Would you like to? Ok, Commissioner 10
Summa. 11
12
Commissioner Summa: Thank you very much. I have a question and given the size of the EIR I 13
am not saying I know where this is, but there are two questions I have about changes that 14
Stanford was asking for. One is with in regards to impact fees from development and currently 15
I think that they were supposed… so I think they go into different pots. One of the pots they go 16
into is affordable housing within six that has to be built within six miles of Stanford. And I have, 17
I understand that the GUP language would like to change that to not within six miles, but near 18
transit locations (interrupted) 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Ms. Monroe: Within a mile and a half of transit. 1
2
Commissioner Summa: Benefits, but all over the Bay Area, right? No longer within six miles? 3
4
Ms. Monroe: I’ll double check that. 5
6
Commissioner Summa: Because the way I understood it was transit center locations that 7
benefit Stanford and that could take the money we the impacts are felt, borne most heavily by 8
our communities that live closest to Stanford and if it goes to pay for housing very far away I 9
don't think it would have the same benefit. So that was one thing. 10
11
Ms. Monroe: Right. 12
13
Commissioner Summa: And then I think there's also a phrase somewhere about currently to 14
change to add something to the GUP or change something they need a majority of the Board of 15
Supervisors which is three of five. I also understand they're trying to reduce that to two of five 16
which I also… Is that incorrect? 17
18
Ms. Monroe: No. The issue was to extend use into the foothill area and there is presently in the 19
2000 GUP a provision that says they have to have a five-eighths, why they use that number 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,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
don't know. A five-eighths of the Board of Supervisors voting in favor of a change to allow 1
development into the foothill area. And in 2005 that requirement goes away and a simple 2
majority of the board could make that decision. 3
4
Commissioner Summa: So it would be three of five. 5
6
Ms. Monroe: Yeah. 7
8
Commissioner Summa: As opposed to? 9
10
Ms. Monroe: Four of five I think. 11
12
Commissioner Summa: Four of five. 13
14
Ms. Monroe: I don't know what five-eighths is. I don’t know five-eighths either. 15
16
Commissioner Summa: Well personally I think it's the changing any use in the foothills is 17
something of such grave concern to most people that I think the more I think the stricter 18
standard is more beneficial, but I wanted to understand those things too. So in general I 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
thought the staff report captured a lot of concerns. Do you want questions from other or 1
should I just go? Jump in? Ok. 2
3
So I still have a lot of concerns about mitigations. It seems like a massive amount of growth for 4
Stanford and so I'm concerned about the way they measure the traffic, the cordon counts, and 5
how they represent the measurement. I'm particularly concerned that they have ways that 6
they can actually by making improvements to say like bike parking in San Carlos they reduce 7
their numbers of parked drivers to Stanford. I'm concerned that those traffic counting 8
measures should be tightened up to more accurately reflect the real number of drivers coming 9
to Sanford. I'm concerned that the school impacts that will be shared by growth in Palo Alto 10
and Stanford growth have not been looked at carefully enough. 11
12
I think if we want to give I think if Stanford if the we want to as the City recommend the Board 13
of Supervisors approve this GUP I think that Stanford should be participating financially and in 14
terms of efforts to huge issues that face the City and the region such as grade separations. I 15
think and that could include looking at platform lengths and all sorts of things going on with 16
Caltrain. Their no net new trips depends so heavily on Caltrain that and I just don't know where 17
all this capacity is coming from on Caltrain. One thing that I have tried really hard to look for 18
and have never found is an understanding of the capacity and ridership along the whole 19
corridor of Caltrains and the claims made against it. For instance my husband has a what's it 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
called? Not a Go Pass a Clipper Card which I think is used twice in nine months just because a 1
company issues a Clipper Card does not mean people are using it. So I think we need to see 2
some real numbers particularly more accurate and informative and complete numbers 3
particularly around Caltrain capacity and ridership and Stanford's claims of people using Go 4
Passes and Clipper Cards and such things. 5
6
And the parking issues that I mentioned, transportation issues I would... I also am very 7
concerned I was on the Comp Plan group, the Citizen Advisory Committee (CAC) and I'm on the 8
Planning and Transportation (PTC) now and I'm very concerned that our own environmental 9
review of our Comprehensive Plan did not take into consideration the growth at Stanford. I 10
also think that in for the 2000 GUP I understand that Stanford was required to provide 11
something that's called like the total all time Stanford build out which was never done and 12
they’ve that various bodies have suggested, have asked for it again. It's never been done. I 13
would say that should definitely be done as a condition required as a condition of any GUP 14
being approved. 15
16
Another important step might be for Stanford to and the City of Palo Alto to come to an 17
understanding about whether the approximately 1,000,000 square feet left in the Research 18
Park whether the best use of that is still at this point office. The [chain] the original purpose of 19
the Research Park was laboratories and Research and Development (R&D). It has really 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
changed from that to mostly be large law firms and software companies that don't provide the 1
same scientific and technological good for everybody and I think that we should look very 2
seriously at using that space for housing and that Stanford should be designating Stanford 3
owned lands whether it's in the Research Park or elsewhere for the increase in schools that 4
we're going to need. I don't know what that mix is exactly whether it's elementary, middle 5
school or high school. I don't have that information, but I think we should be looking at that. 6
They're the biggest land owner, Stanford has a lot of land, Palo Alto doesn't have much left at 7
all. And I do think that the protections for the open spaces that run out in I believe 2025 should 8
definitely be extended for a reasonable period of time or even maybe perpetuity, but 50 years, 9
something like that. Those are some of my first thoughts. Thank you. 10
11
Chair Alcheck: Thank you, Commissioner Summa. Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] Waldfogel. 12
13
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: Thank you. Do we have any public comment tonight? 14
15
Chair Alcheck: I did not get any speaker cards. 16
17
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: No speaker cards, ok. Great. So I agree with Commissioner Summa’s 18
comments on several fronts, but I do have two questions for Legal. So echoing Commissioner 19
Summa the Stanford GUP EIR process and the City’s Comp Plan EIR process have been running 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
concurrently and the two agencies haven't coordinated their numbers and analyses. And both 1
plans are still in draft. I mean neither EIR is complete or final. So is there any way at this point 2
to compel coordination between the two plans? I mean for the City's plan to look at Stanford's 3
plan for in the baseline analysis or vice versa. 4
5
[Sandra Lee, __________?]: So I'll respond briefly on this because the City's EIR is not 6
agendized, but we do have a final EIR for the Comp Plan and while the Stanford GUP application 7
was submitted after the (NOP) was issued for the Comp Plan EIR. The growth at Stanford is 8
assumed in the cumulative analysis in the final EIR. So the cumulative analysis was broad 9
enough to encompass the Sanford development which came after the issuance of the NOP; 10
however, we based our analysis, the City based its analysis on regional projections. 11
12
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: Ok, so they are not coordinated. Is there any way to compel the Stanford 13
EIR to coordinate with the City’s EIR? 14
15
[Ms. Lee?]: I’m not sure what you mean about coordinate with. 16
17
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: Well [unintelligible] so to use the baseline numbers from this from the 18
City's new EIR rather than using old baseline numbers for their analysis. 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Ms. Monroe: We can ask for that in their cumulative analysis. 1
2
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: I think that I think it's important to do that. It's important that the 3
numbers be consistent. The other question is could you speak a little bit about the thresholds 4
for significant unavoidable impacts? I mean this is a category that I think confuses people and 5
the argument that nothing should or that growth should be allowed with no mitigation if the 6
impacts are unavoidable does not seem right. So I just wonder if you can explain to us what 7
where the thresholds are for that. 8
9
Ms. Monroe: I think Stephanie who's an environmental expert can help with that a little bit at 10
least from our current analysis. 11
12
Stephanie Sterlow, Dudek: So under CEQA if there's a significant impact identified the agency 13
has to look for either a mitigation measure or an alternative to reduce that impact to less than 14
significant level. Sometimes there is not a mitigation or alternative [unintelligible]. In that case 15
they conclude that it's a significant and unavoidable impact and then an agency in approving a 16
project has to make a what's called statement of overriding considerations and that's where 17
they would weigh other considerations that there is other either economical, feasibility issues, 18
social issues or other considerations that allow them to approve a project with a significant 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
unavoidable impact. So there's not a specific threshold per se, but that's the process when a 1
significant impact is identified. 2
3
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: So now I'm pretty confused about how some of the traffic impacts would 4
fall into that category. So I mean some of the intersections are classified as already at such a 5
low levels of service that we're calling it, we're calling further impacts unavoidable? 6
7
Ms. Monroe: Well, I think we'd have to we usually go through the thresholds and for traffic 8
they’re usually very specific. So they’ll refer to Level of Service (LOS) for intersections and if an 9
intersection is operating at an existing deficit then there sometime soon increments of traffic 10
would be allowed that would be within it and if not then it would be significant unavoidable. If 11
there's other proven measures to reduce the traffic and Transportation Demand Management 12
(TDM) so it gets there's a lot of different layers to look at especially with traffic and that's 13
something we can look at in the letter and go through those thresholds and (interrupted) 14
15
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: [Unintelligible] do that because our experience on the ground is that the 16
cumulative impacts that have from project after project have led to degradation in network 17
performance and this is something that I think has the potential to make it even worse. So I 18
think we really have to sharpen our pencils on whether anything meets that criteria of 19
unavoidable. So I would just strongly recommend that we be very thoughtful about 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Alcheck: Ok, I see lights from Commissioner Gardias. 2
3
Commissioner Gardias: Thank you. So Margaret I have when I'm just I have an impression I 4
would like to convey to you. 5
6
Ms. Monroe: Sure. 7
8
Commissioner Gardias: And I this is regarding the language that's being used throughout this 9
letter. I have some concerns by reading this and I'm just going to pretty much advocate 10
(interrupted) 11
12
Ms. Monroe: This is not the language it's going to be in the letter. This is just a summary. 13
14
Commissioner Gardias: Oh, I see. Ok. 15
16
Ms. Monroe: But if you have concerns about language in the letter please let us know. 17
18
Commissioner Gardias: Yeah, that’s right. So it may be adequate, but so the reason is that 19
when I scanned through this I noticed that the technical issues they pretty much they 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
boiler plate ending which says either it's not adequately addressed, should be reviewed, may 1
not be accurate, needs to be more thoroughly addressed, it's not adequate, needs to be 2
revisited, and are not properly addressed. So when I'm reading things like this this means 3
nothing to me. 4
5
Ms. Monroe: I understand. 6
7
Commissioner Gardias: So I mean we can write for the sake of writing because some people 8
maybe just may need to be paid for writing, but we need to just provide the substance. I think 9
that Stanford is a serious neighbor or part of our City and then I believe that we were 10
impressed or at least I was impressed with the level, with the quality of the materials that they 11
provided to us with the responses and the way that they look into their environmental impact. 12
And then if we address this letter to Stanford it should be really professional. Statements like 13
this that it's not may need to be thoroughly addressed we need to provide thoroughly a reason 14
why we think that this should be done this way. 15
16
Ms. Monroe: I absolutely agree. 17
18
Commissioner Gardias: Otherwise if it’s just an empty statement it just looks not very 19
professional. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Ms. Monroe: I agree. 2
3
Commissioner Gardias: So I would like to just take your attention to this how the sentences 4
were structured and I hope that the final letter would be really pointing Stanford to provide the 5
reason. When we always discuss things like this in the commercial world we always provide the 6
reason. If there is no reason why we don't even say it? There must be a reason. So thank you. 7
8
Ms. Monroe: I agree. 9
10
Chair Alcheck: Ok, I don't see any additional lights. I can ask a couple questions. I noticed that 11
on Packet Page 11 the second bullet says Stanford should to meet more of it housing demand 12
on campus, is it attempt to meet more of its housing? Is that what? 13
14
Ms. Monroe: Well, actually (interrupted) 15
16
Chair Alcheck: No, hold on before… I think I understand what this bullet is. My question was is 17
there any desire from the City to sort of be more specific about what kind of housing? I 18
imagine that Stanford actually is probably dedicated to develop as much housing as it possibly 19
can on their campus to accommodate their employees in an effort to attract top talent because 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
of the cost of housing here. And so I imagine that that effort that they make is part of their sort 1
of recruitment or benefits process. Really that's that for them that's that kind of discussion, but 2
I also wonder if the City is interested or if the City has specific interest in making the suggestion 3
because we're talking here about a Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) allocation which 4
spans the spectrum of housing, right? It's not just housing like for professors and students, but 5
it could also be housing for lower income earners and I imagine that there is some and I would 6
imagine that there are some employees although this is just an assumption of Stanford that 7
may fall into categories of lower income that could theoretically qualify for that strata of 8
housing. And I'm curious to know if we want to be a little bit more specific not just to attempt 9
to meet more of its housing demand on campus, but to satisfy all the… 10
11
Ms. Monroe: The range of incomes. 12
13
Chair Alcheck: The ranges. 14
15
Ms. Monroe: Sure. 16
17
Chair Alcheck: Not just the range of incomes, sort of all the ranges of housing that our RHNA 18
allocation requires. So to be specific to state probably what's obvious for you, but just for the 19
benefit of this conversation our RHNA allocation requires, puts forth that we provide 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
opportunity for the development of several different types of housing. And I guess I do I'm 1
unaware of whether Stanford has ever participate, I know that you make a point here that in 2
the 2007 to 2014 cycle they accepted some of our RHNA allocation. 3
4
Ms. Monroe: Yeah, in the past. Yes. 5
6
Chair Alcheck: Yeah. 7
8
Ms. Monroe: Yeah. 9
10
Chair Alcheck: But to what extent was that in all of the... was it just (interrupted) 11
12
Ms. Monroe: That they make a contribution to affordable housing and they’d provide 13
affordable housing. Of the 3,100 units they're talking about a significant number of them are 14
for graduate students, post-doctoral students, medical students, people who and I don't know 15
how many of their faculty meet the income, but they provide a substantial amount of 16
affordable housing. And that the City negotiates with the County about how that will be 17
distributed in terms of RHNA. Now if they were to provide more housing on campus for 18
example like the Escondido Village project that they've got that's principally for graduate 19
students and post-doctoral students and those are among their lower income people. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Alcheck: Right. No, I get it. 2
3
Ms. Monroe: So (interrupted) 4
5
Chair Alcheck: I guess what I'm trying to say is there and I don't mean this I'm just sort of 6
curious to sort of appreciate if there is a distinction from their perspective between housing 7
their students which is sort of akin to housing their customers, right? Subsidizing the housing of 8
the individuals that are paying them in some regard probably for tuition and housing maybe 9
individuals who work in their hospitals or in their cafeterias, their employees essentially who 10
are not necessarily higher income professors or educational staff; you see I don't even really 11
have enough information to sort of appreciate the to create articulate question, but the idea is 12
one of the things that we've grappled with on the Commission a lot is that our retail just for 13
example, our retail establishments have a very difficult time hiring staff and the lower wage 14
levels. 15
16
Ms. Monroe: Sure. 17
18
Chair Alcheck: Because they can't seem to find housing anywhere nearby and the commute 19
doesn't make sense. I think that Stanford also has probably grapples with that same problem 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
that when they have everything from custodial to landscaping to hospital staff that may occupy 1
certain income levels that aren't high enough to find housing in the immediate vicinity. They… 2
so the question is whether or not they provide that housing sort of to all members of their all 3
stakeholders in their community or just their students and staff of the institution. 4
5
Ms. Monroe: No. In the document itself it talks about housing for undergraduates, graduate 6
students, post-doctoral students, faculty, and staff. 7
8
Chair Alcheck: Ok. 9
10
Ms. Monroe: And that would include… 11
12
Chair Alcheck: Anybody. 13
14
Ms. Monroe: Yeah, anybody. Yeah. 15
16
Chair Alcheck: Yeah. No, I get it. Ok. So any other comments? I can come back to me. I have 17
Commissioner Summa and then Commissioner Gardias, sorry, [unintelligible] wrong lights on. 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Summa: Couple other questions and comments. On the staff report on Page 9 1
you mention the Draper District and I just wasn't familiar I couldn't quite picture what that I had 2
never heard that term. Is that the area along El Camino that has to remain as open space? 3
4
Ms. Monroe: The Arbore… the Draper District is between the Arboretum and the Stanford 5
housing to the to the at the very south corner that's on Stanford Avenue. 6
7
Commissioner Summa: Ok. 8
9
Ms. Monroe: It's that area where the fields are, the rugby stadium, and that kind of thing. 10
That's the Draper District and the Arboretum is classified as open space and (interrupted) 11
12
Commissioner Summa: Right. 13
14
Ms. Monroe: That would be preserved separately, but they're talking about 200,000 square feet 15
in the Draper District and that would be in that area between the existing housing development 16
and the edge of the Arboretum. 17
18
Commissioner Summa: Ok. 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Ms. Monroe: And backed from El Camino toward the campus, the main campus. 1
2
Commissioner Summa: And so the issue is that they weren't previously they weren't going to 3
build in that and now they are, is that the issue or? 4
5
Ms. Monroe: I don't know that they were going to build anything in the 2000 GUP. I didn't 6
check that. They are now proposing to build 200,000 square feet of academic and academic 7
support space. 8
9
Commissioner Summa: Ok. 10
11
Ms. Monroe: In that area. 12
13
Commissioner Summa: But it's not Arbor… it's not the unbuilt open space area along 14
(interrupted) 15
16
Ms. Monroe: It's where the green fields are. 17
18
Commissioner Summa: Ok. 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Ms. Monroe: It's where the sports activity fields are. 1
2
Commissioner Summa: Ok. 3
4
Ms. Monroe: The open space. 5
6
Commissioner Summa: Ok. 7
8
Ms. Monroe: And there's a eucalyptus grove down along the south end. 9
10
Commissioner Summa: Ok. Couple other questions. I think that some of the mitigations if 11
Stanford doesn't meet its new net trips one of the things that will happen is that they will be 12
charged a fee per vehicle and that seems very a very inadequate thing when it doesn't reduce, 13
it doesn't take a vehicle away. It just says oh, you have to pay a little fee. So I don't understand 14
why that would be desirable from anyone's point of view. And then Table 5 15-30 I mean there 15
are that is the table of intersection with significant impacts. I mean that's a pretty daunting 16
table right there. 17
18
So and then something else I thought of is that I understand that Stanford because of their 19
expansion and needs and desire to have people live closer to campus who work there that 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
they've bought a lot of houses all around Palo Alto. And they I live in College Terrace. They've 1
certainly recently bought a lot of houses in College Terrace and in a discussion at a residence 2
association with senior Stanford people they said oh no, it's not just College Terrace, it's all over 3
town. So one thing that I also think could be, should be a part of this is that I think Stanford 4
does a wonderful job with the Marguerite system, but I think it could should be expanded to 5
serve the whole town and residents can use it also. It's actually sort of disappointing how 6
limited it is in various directions at various times. So I think that would be another thing that 7
should be asked of Stanford if we're going to consider giving them a GUP because my 8
understanding is that an alternative to the GUP is that Stanford would just have to apply project 9
by project which I think is I think that's a very different kind of process for them. Oh, I had a 10
question for you. Was the 2000 GUP the first time they had a GUP or do those go back 11
historically? 12
13
Ms. Monroe: I think the first one was in 1985. 14
15
Commissioner Summa: 95? 16
17
Ms. Monroe: 85. 18
19
Commissioner Summa: 85, ok. Ok. And then let me just look… 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Ms. Monroe: I’m not sure it was called a GUP at that time. I don't know quite what it was 2
called, but that was their first. 3
4
Commissioner Summa: The first time they ok. And I think… yeah so at this time I actually I find 5
that the impacts in the growth and the traffic and the claim of train ridership and versus train 6
capacity and the… I just think there's way at this point the impacts are way too many and that I 7
would just encourage that the Council send a letter that is strong about some of these things 8
because it's very hard once you get this ball rolling down hill to stop it so and I will leave it at 9
that. Thank you. 10
11
Ms. Monroe: Thank you. 12
13
Chair Alcheck: Commissioner Gardias. 14
15
Commissioner Gardias: Thank you. So first I have to give kudos to my colleague Commissioner 16
Summa who after a first round of series after 10 minutes of substantial comments she with a 17
smile she said this is what I just want to say in the first round. So I knew that more would be 18
coming back then. 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
So a couple of minor comments. So I agree with the suggestion about expanding Marguerite 1
because and I will give you a story. A couple of weeks ago I was coming back from work to 2
home and then I was cutting through Professorville and then I noticed a man that should not be 3
there so I asked him if I may help him somehow and he said yes. So it's after a couple of 4
moments he ended up sitting in my car and me driving him toward Emerson because somebody 5
had a Bed and Breakfast over there or Airbnb farther away from the campus. He was a visiting 6
professor from Argentina and then pretty much he found himself renting a space for a couple of 7
days on Emerson where somebody had a Airbnb location, but this pretty much it just leads me 8
to the substantive comment that pretty much that growth of Stanford has impact on our town. 9
10
And then one of the it is because it just a it extracts or it uses our infrastructure, it uses our 11
housing capacity. And a good example could be that part of this Commission is not present 12
because they have some relationship with Stanford. And I think there was a saying that that 50 13
percent of Stanford graduates they never lose sight of Hoover’s Tower. I’m not sure about 50 14
percent. I think that maybe it's higher, but then it just it's if it's serious then probably growth of 15
Stanford would mean a higher demand for housing at the higher and their and higher prices of 16
the housing stock of Palo Alto. So it creates immediate impact on our town not only because of 17
their students or faculty members, but because of the graduates that because of different 18
reasons just want to live in Palo Alto. So this has to be also stated clearly and then for this 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
reason if there is any infrastructure expansion that would help the City to accommodate those 1
Stanford graduates living here that should be somehow addressed. 2
3
So that was the comment about relationship of the City and Stanford. And I had also one item 4
here that was related to known traffic and known housing paragraph. In the letter when it says 5
about hydrology and water quality I think that just looking at the volatile weather patterns that 6
we were observing recently and although I'm not a scientist, but I heard a number of comments 7
that because of the climate warning that volatility may continue. What I'm saying is that the 8
paragraph about hydrology/water quality should also include comments that about potential 9
flood control that should go beyond the current capacity as it's currently required. Thank you. 10
11
Ms. Monroe: Thank you. 12
13
Chair Alcheck: Commissioner [Note Vice-Chair] Waldfogel. 14
15
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: Just a quick follow up on one of Commissioner Summa’s, just a question 16
for staff. When Stanford buys a parcel outside the campus and say in a neighborhood what 17
happens to it from a property tax perspective? 18
19
Ms. Monroe: I don’t know. 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Mr. Lait: No. We don't know. We’ll have to look into that. 2
3
Vice-Chair Waldfogel: Yeah, I mean if it falls off the tax rolls we should be tracking this in some 4
fashion. 5
6
Chair Alcheck: Ok, does anybody else wish to make more comments? Please, Commissioner 7
Summa. 8
9
Commissioner Summa: I also wanted to thank staff for the technical issues and the assumptions 10
at the baseline and I thought many of those comments were very good that you’ve included. 11
And so I just wanted to thank you for that and that’s it. 12
13
Ms. Monroe: Thank you. 14
15
Chair Alcheck: Ok, seeing no more lights I think we've come to the conclusion of this agenda 16
item. I am looking forward to seeing how this final letter comes together. I know this is now 17
our second meeting on the topic so I think that means that we won't actually see a draft. 18
19
Ms. Monroe: No, not the draft of the actual letter. It will be in the Council packet. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Alcheck: Ok, so hopefully the content from the two meetings we've had will serve as a 2
good basis for the draft letter. 3
4
Ms. Monroe: We’ll do our best. 5
6
Chair Alcheck: And we’ll look forward to seeing it at the Council although I think it's on 7
November 27th? 8
9
Ms. Monroe: Before December 4th. We’re not quite sure yet. 10
11
Chair Alcheck: Ok. Fantastic, alright. 12
13
Ms. Monroe: We’ll let you know. 14
15
Chair Alcheck: I think with that we conclude this item. 16
17
Commission Action: There was no action taken by the Commission. 18
Approval of Minutes 19
Public Comment is Permitted. Five (5) minutes per speaker.1,3 20
3. September 27, 2017 Draft Planning & Transportation Commission Meeting Minutes 21
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commission Action: Motion to approve the minutes made by Commissioner Lauing 1
Seconded by Commissioner Summa, motion passed (5-0) (Monk, Rosenblum absent) 2
4. October 11, 2017 Draft Planning & Transportation Commission Meeting Minutes 3
Commission Action: Motion to approve the minutes made by Commissioner Lauing 4
Seconded by Commissioner Summa, motion passed (5-0) (Monk, Rosenblum absent) 5
6
Committee Items 7
Commissioner Questions, Comments or Announcements 8
Adjournment 9
10
Chair Alcheck: I'm just going to lump it together, are there any Committee Items, Commissioner 11
questions, comments or announcements before adjourn the meeting tonight? I have a 12
Commissioner, a light from Commissioner Gardias. 13
14
Commissioner Gardias: One change I would like to propose to the meeting agendas. I'd like to 15
propose that we include planning for two thousand, for the next planning year 2018 in the 16
agenda of this Commission and also newly appointed Commission. So concretely I would like to 17
see topics about a plan for 2018 discuss under this Commission and the newly elected or the 18
Commission with the new members. 19
20
Chair Alcheck: Ok, so I thank you for making that recommendation. In an effort to be 21
responsive to you I think the one of the things I heard tonight was that our upcoming review of 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
the by-laws will include a discussion as Assistant Director Lait suggested on how we propose 1
items for agendas. Is that, did I hear that right? And so if what I’m at this point it's not entirely 2
clear to me how we can add items to agendas. And so I suspect that during that discussion 3
maybe we'll be able to shed some more light on it. I'm not sure what else to say; hopefully 4
maybe at the next meeting (interrupted) 5
6
Commissioner Gardias: Well so let me respond. I think that we have the authority to add items 7
or requests so the reason that I’m proposing this because and I think that I already spoke about 8
this. 9
10
Chair Alcheck: Yeah. 11
12
Commissioner Gardias: It would be proper to reach out to the Council at the beginning of the 13
new calendar year with the number of the items that Planning Commission wishes to take on 14
and work on. 15
16
Chair Alcheck: Actually I'm really happy to have the discussion. I guess my question Jonathan 17
would it be appropriate to add to our agenda for the next meeting just a quick item to discuss 18
adding items to the agenda? I understand that you're a little frustrated because you don't want 19
us to have a discussion right now about something that hasn’t been agendized so I'm trying 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
be very sensitive to that feeling that I'm getting from you. So I'm trying to accommodate his 1
request in a way that makes sense. 2
3
Jonathan Lait, Assistant Director: Yes and we could schedule that. It was my intention to have 4
that specific conversation when we did the Planning and Transportation Commission (PTC) rules 5
of order. 6
7
Chair Alcheck: In January? 8
9
Mr. Lait: In January. I think that's a different statement than the request to have a 2018 10
discussion about topics that are going to be discussed. 11
12
Chair Alcheck: Yeah. What I would suggest is that if we put it on the if we put a discussion 13
about having that take place that gives Commissioners a chance to decide if they want to make 14
those choices and then maybe creates an opportunity for the Commissioners to think about it. 15
What how do you want to make the decision on what could… you know I mean? Like is do we 16
want to create a process so hopefully again, we don’t want to have a discussion tonight. So 17
we're going to calendar the opportunity to have a discussion. 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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Gardias: Well yeah, but it's just I mean it's just pretty much it's just I think all of 1
this it just falls perfectly under the discussion about the by-laws or I mean I'm not even sure this 2
is the matter of the by-laws because we can just pretty much number of the topics were 3
proposed or discussed probably between you and Mike at some other meeting, right? So 4
(interrupted) 5
6
Mr. Lait: So if I’m hearing you correctly you want to have a conversation about the year ahead? 7
Right? 8
9
Commissioner Gardias: That’s correct. 10
11
Mr. Lait: With the incoming Commissioners when they're seated? 12
13
Commissioner Gardias: I’m sorry, what did you say about what? 14
15
Mr. Lait: It's about timing. When did you want to have that discussion? 16
17
Commissioner Gardias: No, no. So the discussion would be about the plan for 2018. 18
19
Mr. Lait: Sure. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Gardias: With the old or the current Commission and with the new. It's going to 2
probably take a couple of sessions just to go around the table, understand what items they 3
would like to discuss or they would like to see agendized for the next calendar year and then 4
pretty much discuss it with staff what's feasible from different proposals. 5
6
Mr. Lait: Ok, so I would offer that when you consider the Annual Report that you also have a 7
conversation about the year ahead; a look forward. 8
9
Chair Alcheck: You know what? I'm going to try to work on a agenda, like a sub-agenda for that 10
item with Assistant Director Lait and we can add a discussion about priorities or whatever. And 11
then you (Interrupted) 12
13
Commissioner Gardias: That’s fine. That’s fine. 14
15
Chair Alcheck: And then in theory in January they could continue that discussion with the new 16
Commission because the new people and the old people will never be on the same night so… 17
18
Commissioner Gardias: Sure, sure, sure, but there was a I think that the Commission may be 19
even the same next calendar year, right? Because (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.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Alcheck: We’ll know by (interrupted) 2
3
Commissioner Gardias: We’ll know very soon, right? But yes, maybe yes, maybe no, but there 4
is of course value that you and (interrupted) 5
6
Chair Alcheck: If for some reason that meeting doesn't take place in the right time or we don't 7
get to it I will, we will can we also encourage Eric to send his opinions. No need to send 8
opinions to you, you know. 9
10
Commissioner Gardias: hold on a second, Eric will still be attending the meetings I believe, 11
right? 12
13
Chair Alcheck: Until December (interrupted) 14
15
Commissioner Gardias: Yes, ok. So yes that's what I meant that pretty much that you and Eric 16
would still provide the value about this what topics should be on the agenda next year. 17
18
Chair Alcheck: I think we can accommodate a discussion in our in that agenda item. Ok, alright 19
with that we are we are adjourned. Thank you everyone, see you on the 29th. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
7:31pm 2
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
2. 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
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