HomeMy WebLinkAbout2019-03-27 Planning & transportation commission Summary Minutes_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Planning & Transportation Commission 1
Action Agenda: March 27, 2019 2
Council Chambers 3
250 Hamilton Avenue 4
6:00 PM 5
6
Call to Order / Roll Call 7
8
Chair Riggs: I’d like to call us to order. Welcome to the March 27th meeting of the Planning and 9
Transportation Commission. Would you like to do a roll call? 10
Oral Communications 11
The public may speak to any item not on the agenda. Three (3) minutes per speaker.1,2 12
13
Chair Riggs: Alright so we have a busy evening tonight. Before we get started do we have any 14
oral communications for things that are not on the agenda this evening? And I have one 15
speaker card for that. I have two speak cards for that. If you would like to speak about anything 16
that’s not on the agenda this evening. So, first Mr. Buchanan and if you’d just give a second, 3-17
minutes. 18
19
Mr. Neilson Buchanan: Thank you. I’d like to talk about another Palo Alto process that’s not 20
discussed as much and that’s the difference between setting priorities and having the resources 21
to carry out those priorities. And I’ve been at this game of talking to City Council and Planning 22
Commission for about 7 or 8-years and one consistent thing that causes disappointment is that 23
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
priorities can be set but there are no resources and no Staff to carry them out. And I think that’s 1
going to come up more and more during the next year or so. 2
3
I’m going to illustrate about 2-years ago in March the Planning Department was able to hire a 4
first-class transportation guy by the name of Philip. Philip came 2-years ago in March, he lasted 5
one year and he was gone. He barely got his oar in; he was just superb as far as I’m concerned. 6
Not too very long ago we lost Josh and we’re in a heavy crush of trying to replace Josh with a 7
transportation… Chief Transportation Officer. I don’t know the most current status of that 8
replacement but it’s going to take a while. And no matter what replacement it is, it’s going to 9
take quite a while for the Chief Transportation Officer to get to Palo Alto, begin to learn the 10
ropes, begin to hire up Staff to carry out the priority. So, our hope is as you’re going forward 11
and particularly as the budgets are coming forward with things that you care about from the 12
Planning Commission. That when the budget process is wrapped up at the Finance Committee, 13
we’re all going to take a breath and say all of the things we are aspiring for, the things that 14
we’ve set priorities for, we’re going to have to go back and ask the hard question. In reality, 15
what is the capability of the Staff, of the administration departments to carry those out? 16
Whether it’s from utilities or transportation or traffic, parking, and the whole lot. I am really 17
concerned there’s just such a growing gap between our expectations, the priorities, and the 18
resources that are set aside. That’s my number one ambition this year with a small set of things 19
working through the Finance Committee. I’ve given up on talking to Committees like Planning 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commission and priorities. I’ve decided to follow the money, see the budget wrapped up, and 1
frankly ask is there money set aside for X, Y, and Z? Yes, no, maybe, or don’t know. Stay tuned, 2
thank you. 3
4
Chair Riggs: Thank you, Mr. Buchanan. I’m probably going to stumble through this name so is it 5
Ms. Vrhel? 6
7
Ms. Rita Vrhel: Rita Vrhel. 8
9
Chair Riggs: Thank you. 10
11
Ms. Vrhel: Good evening. So, I… the Clerk gave you each a poster or a handout and as a 12
founding member of Save Palo Alto Groundwater, we and the City of Palo Alto Public Works 13
Department are going to be presenting on April 24th. Doctor Christina Hill who is a leader in 14
planning for sea level rise, she’s going to be speaking at 7:00 to 8:30 at the El Palo Alto Room at 15
the Mitchell Park Community Center. Doors are going to open at 6:30. It’s a free event, we 16
appreciate registration so we can have enough food for all. 17
18
The City Council this year declared that climate change is one of their main priorities. And most 19
people do not realize that as we do have sea level rise, we are also going to have concurrent 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
ground level… groundwater level rise and this is known at inland flooding. So, we’re going to be 1
hit by two things and as the sea level intrudes into the groundwater, we are also going to have 2
some water intrusion which is going to effect Cities like East Palo Alto who get the majority of 3
their water from wells. 4
5
Now I will be sending you this article which is Bay Nature Three, 25 addition and it talks about 6
sea level rise and concurrent groundwater level flooding and it features Dr. Christina Hill who is 7
going to be the speaker at the 4/24 event. So, I’m hoping that all of you will be able to attend. 8
Thank you very much. 9
10
Chair Riggs: Thank you, Ms. Vrhel. Any other items that aren’t listed on the agenda? Ok, seeing 11
none. 12
Agenda Changes, Additions, and Deletions 13
The Chair or Commission majority may modify the agenda order to improve meeting management. 14
15
Chair Riggs: Do we have any additions, changes to the agenda, deletions from Staff? 16
17
Mr. Jonathan Lait, Director of Planning: [unintelligible -off mic] 18
19
Chair Riggs: Ok. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
City Official Reports 1
1. Assistant Directors Report, Meeting Schedule and Assignments 2
3
Chair Riggs: So, are we going to do the Director’s report first or are we going to pull that too? 4
Do we have a Director’s report, Jonathan? 5
6
Mr. Jonathan Lait, Director of Planning: I just have a couple of quick announcements. We can 7
get those out of the way. The City Council is going to host or have a public hearing on a couple 8
items that were recently presented to the Planning and Transportation Commission. One of 9
them has to do… this is on April 1st and Yolanda, maybe you can help me with the… which 10
Commissioners the representative for April to the City Council? We have the Grandfathered 11
Use Ordinance that the Planning Commission had considered and there’s 3200 El Camino Real 12
which was the Parmani Hotel. The Planning Commission considered a text amendment to 13
remove the special setback along Hanson Way. Staff has… I’ll send a link to those reports to the 14
Commission and you’ll find that we forward the Planning Commission’s recommendation on 15
3200 El Camino which had a special condition about the use of the property related to the Zone 16
Change. And on the grandfathered uses we clearly articulated the Planning and Transportation 17
Commission’s perspective on that issue. Staff continues to have some reservations about not 18
including a waiver and that’s been articulated in the Staff report and the recommendation to 19
City Council. So, well make sure that we get you a copy of that so you have that information. 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.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Lastly, I wanted to note that there’s a meeting actually taking place concurrent to this one at 1
the El Palo Alto Room at Mitchell Park. This is at the Community Center and this is the 2
continuing ongoing discussion about connecting Palo Alto and grade separation. And tonight’s 3
meeting is specifically about the Churchill Crossing, so that’s taking place and I think it’s 4
scheduled to end around 8 o’clock tonight. Just FYI so that concludes the report, thank you. 5
6
Study Session 7
Public Comment is Permitted. Five (5) minutes per speaker.1,3 8
9
Action Items 10
Public Comment is Permitted. Applicants/Appellant Teams: Fifteen (15) minutes, plus three (3) minutes rebuttal. 11
All others: Five (5) minutes per speaker.1,3 12
13
2. The Planning and Transportation Commission Will Make a Recommendation to the 14
City Council Regarding the Evaluation and Prioritization of New Residential Parking 15
(RPP) Program Petitions for Old Palo Alto, Green Acres, and Charleston Gardens 16
17
Chair Riggs: Ok so with that I think that we’re ready for our first item which is the study session 18
[note- action item] item and I believe that we have one Commissioner that may want to say 19
something or do we have any conflicts as a part of this? Maybe we just go down the line as part 20
of the first item which is with regard to new residential parking programs; specifically, Old Palo 21
Alto, Green Acres, and Charleston Gardens. So, Chair… Commissioner Lauing. 22
23
Commissioner Lauing: None. 24
25
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Riggs: Commissioner Roohparvar. 1
2
Commissioner Roohparvar: Can you skip me? 3
4
Chair Riggs: Sure. Commissioner Alcheck [note- Vice Chair Alcheck]? No. 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: No conflicts. 7
8
Chair Riggs: Commissioner Summa. 9
10
Commissioner Summa: I did speak with one member of the public and there’s nothing… it 11
wasn’t in the Staff report so. 12
13
Chair Riggs: Commissioner Waldfogel. 14
15
Commissioner Waldfogel: Yeah, I have a conflict, I’m within 500-feet of one of the districts 16
under consideration so I’ll step out for this agenda item. 17
18
Commissioner Roohparvar: (off mic) I may have a conflict [unintelligible]. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Riggs: Ok so you (interrupted) 1
2
Commissioner Roohparvar: I may have a conflict. 3
4
Chair Riggs: Ok so would you like to recuse yourself for this item? 5
6
Commissioner Roohparvar: Yes, please, yes. 7
8
Mr. Jonathan Lait, Director of Planning: So, Chair do you want to just give us a minute on that? 9
10
Chair Riggs: Ok why don’t we… we’d like to confirm with… ok. 11
12
Commissioner Roohparvar: So, I’m going to announce again, I think I might live close to or 13
within Charleston Garden so I’m going to recuse myself. 14
15
Chair Riggs: What did he tell you? 16
17
Commissioner Roohparvar: [unintelligible – off mic] 18
19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Riggs: It’s fine, ok so we’ll come get you. Alright, any other… so I have no conflicts and I 1
have had discussion with a couple members of the public about this and I know that it is an 2
item that a lot of people have an interest in. So, what we’re going to do is we’re going to hear 3
from Staff and you will have… we have a number of members of the public that want to provide 4
some comments about this. You will have that opportunity and I’ll remind you that we just 5
need you to speak with a clear of heart and clear voice, full heart, and we’re going to try to be 6
respectful of everyone that’s in the room. So, with that let’s turn it over to Staff, I think we have 7
a presentation and then we’ll hear from the public. 8
9
Mr. Lait: Great, thank you Chair. So, I want to introduce Sylvia Star-Lack who is the 10
Transportation Planning Manager, she’ll give the presentation. She is joined by Wayne Tanda, a 11
consultant working with the City and Wayne, MRG is the consulting firm? 12
13
Mr. Wayne Tanda: Right. 14
15
Mr. Lait: So, Wayne has been joining us to fill in for some of the vacancies that you heard 16
mentioned during the oral comments. Just to remind the Commission, this procedure is set 17
forth in the Municipal Code, I’m sure we’ll still be able to get to it. There’s… this is a pretty 18
narrow review for the Commission at this point in terms of prioritization about the two-parking 19
district… the parking permit districts that are being presented to you. There’s a whole other 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
piece of this about the implementation and how these things would come together and this is 1
not specifically a conversation about policy setting for RPPs and how we might approach this 2
from a City-wide perspective. So, again, and I think Sylvia will get to this, this is really about 3
prioritization for the two or three districts that are presented. So, Sylvia? Thank you. 4
5
Ms. Sylvia Star-Lack, Transportation Program Manager: Thanks, Jon. Good evening 6
Commissioners and the public, thanks for coming out tonight. Our sole parking Staff person is 7
unable to be here tonight so I’m filling in for him. I’ll give the presentation and afterward 8
Wayne and I can answer your questions. 9
10
This item is to evaluate and prioritize the neighborhoods that have petitioned for new 11
Residential Preferential Parking Programs. RPP Programs are one method for managing parking 12
in a neighborhood. Our Municipal Code lays out three ways to initiate an RPP district, Council 13
initiation, and annexation into an existing district, and resident initiation. Tonight, we’re 14
considering the petitions submitted to the City by residents. I’ll go over the process for petition, 15
initiated zones, discuss the factors to include in your decision and summarize the petitions 16
we’ve received and finally finish up with next steps. The action asked of you today per the 17
Municipal Code is to recommend to Council a prioritized list of the petitions submitted for a 18
new RPP Program. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
RPP Programs have benefits and drawbacks. They can help improve quality of life, increase 1
parking availability, and may reduce traffic and congestion caused by drivers who are looking 2
for scarce parking. Some drawbacks of our RPP Program include the fact that all cars parked 3
long term on the street would need permits, including residents’ vehicles. In addition, RPP 4
Programs limit the public use of public rights of way and as practiced in Palo Alto since 2009 5
there is no uniform RPP Program. Each of the five RPP zones is unique and that adds an 6
administrative burden for Staff. 7
8
Our Transportation Element lists the following policy and programs regarding parking impacts 9
on residential areas. Policy T-5.11 states that the City should work to protect residential areas 10
from parking impacts of nearby businesses and uses, recognizing that that fully addressing 11
some existing intrusions may take time. Program T5.11.1 states that the City should coordinate 12
with neighborhood groups and local businesses and other stakeholders to evaluate the need for 13
a Residential Parking Permit Program in areas without existing programs. 14
15
Our Municipal Code for RPP Programs aligns with those Transportation Element policies and 16
the process to petition for an RPP district is at followed in our Municipal Code. Residents will 17
self-organize and submit a petition. The PTC evaluates, makes a recommendation to Council, 18
Council considers the recommendation and direct Staff to begin work based on available 19
resources. Staff then begins a community outreach and stakeholder process that includes data 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
collection during the school year if applicable. Staff then brings a proposed RPP district and 1
draft resolution to PTC and then that goes to Council for a public hearing to review a proposed 2
resolution for a new district. 3
4
The Municipal Code spells out the factors that the PTC should consider when prioritizing RPP 5
petitions. These are the severity of the non-residential parking impact, the demonstrated level 6
of neighborhood support, and the Staff resources needed to process requests. Regarding the 7
first two criteria of severity and neighborhood support, PTC can use the Staff report, this 8
presentation, correspondence sent to the PTC, and your knowledge of these neighborhoods. As 9
noted in the Staff currently there are not adequate Staff resources but the Council will be asked 10
to make a determination about Staffing for parking during the upcoming budget process. 11
12
And ultimately the Council will have to make the following findings in order to establish an RPP 13
Zone and these are the things that will be investigated by Staff once the priority list has been 14
established. Essentially Staff will need to document that there is a significant non-residential 15
parking intrusion on a regular frequent basis that creates a disruption of neighborhood life and 16
that alternative parking strategies are not feasible or practical. 17
18
Your job tonight is to set the priority list so that Council can direct Staff to begin working to 19
document the extent of the parking problem and craft an RPP Zone to manage it. Whether or 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
not a neighborhood should be annexed to an existing zone or should be set up as a stand along 1
RPP Program will be determined as part of the community stakeholder and outreach process. 2
3
The three petitions for review tonight are Old Palo Alto, Green Acres, and Charleston Gardens. 4
Here’s the map of the Old Palo Alto area proposed… as proposed by the petitioners. This area is 5
east of the California Avenue Caltrain station and currently has no on-street parking restrictions 6
except for no parking allowed on Alma Street and some 2-hour parking restrictions at Bowden 7
Park where a number of the perpendicular spots on High have been converted to 2-hour 8
parking. Parking overflow occurs primarily on weekdays. Residents cite safety concerns for 9
families unable to park near Bowden Park through the new parking restriction at the 10
perpendicular parking area has eased some of this concern. Pedestrian safety in the area while 11
commuters are looking for parking has also been cited by residents. Photos of this area taken 12
this past Monday morning in the 11:00 am hour show curbside parking utilization near the 13
California Avenue tunnel which is used to access the Caltrain station and the adjacent business 14
district. The PTC and Council will need to consider many things in the process of implementing 15
and RPP program and I’ll highlight four items for Old Palo Alto. A resident only program may 16
move commuters to other adjacent streets creating a hot scotch effect for non-resident 17
parking. Second and third, they’re related, this is a small area for a standalone district in terms 18
of administrative burden and cost. And because of this, the area’s proximity to… because of this 19
and the area’s proximity to another RPP Zone, there’s a possibility that this area could be 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
annexed into the Evergreen Park-Mayfield RPP Program. Finally, the 50 space so perpendicular 1
parking at Bowden Park that I mentioned early would need to be folded into any RPP Zone 2
established here. 3
4
Here’s a map of the second area submitted by petitioners in the Green Acres Neighborhood. 5
This area is adjacent to Arastradero Road and Gunn High School. The streets proposed for 6
inclusion are Georgia Avenue, Hubbartt Avenue, and Donald Drive. Wilmar Drive is not 7
proposed for inclusion. There’s the bicycle and pedestrian Spur Trail that links Georgia Avenue 8
to a path to Gunn High School and this Spur Trails acts as a back door to Gunn High School. Due 9
to student overflow parking on Georgia and adjacent streets, in 2004 the City Council adopted a 10
parking restriction on the 600 block of Georgia Avenue, the 4100 block of Donald and 4100 11
block of Hubbartt which is essentially the area that was shown on the map but a little bit less. 12
The restriction prohibits parking from 9:00 am to 10:00 am on school days. The parking rule was 13
instituted before the City introduced RPPs specifically to College Terrance in 2009 and well 14
before the City-wide RPP Ordinance in 2014. For the past 15-years this restriction has been in 15
place and residences today cite frustration with the need to move their cars parked on street in 16
order to avoid parking tickets between 9:00 and 10:00 am. These photos show Georgia Avenue 17
that were taken this Monday morning in the 10:00 am hour which is just during or just after the 18
parking restriction occurs. Things to note about this area include the fact that it is also a small 19
area for an RPP district. The existing parking prohibition provides both parking relief and 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
citation frustration for residents and enforcement by PAPD has caused student parking to 1
decrease. A large number of Gunn High School students’ bike and walk to school using the Spur 2
Trail. Taking into account all the access points to Gunn, over 900 students now bike to the high 3
school representing over 45 percent of the student body. 4
5
The third petition received came from Charleston Gardens. Specifically, this petition was 6
concerned about the unrestricted angled parking structure along the 800 blocks of San Antonio 7
Road between Charleston and Fabian Way. The petition did not meet the minimum 8
requirements for RPP prioritization because the initiator was not a resident and the parking 9
congestion is in a commercial zone. The petition was signed by eight tenants of one building. 10
Staff are investigating the area for code compliance and will work with the businesses to find 11
solutions to the parking issue. Just to be complete we also show photos of the parking strip. 12
13
So now that we’ve reviewed the petitions, only two remain to be prioritized; Old Palo Alto and 14
Green Acres. As a reminder, the Muni [note – Municipal] Code states that PTC should consider 15
the severity of the non-residential parking impact, the demonstrated level of neighborhood 16
support and the Staff resources needed to process requests and your priority list will be 17
referred to the City Council. Once the Council directs Staff to work on the priority 18
neighborhood, Staff will commence community outreach and stakeholder process that also 19
includes data collection, parking occupancy, and a mail survey of residents who could be 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
included in the new zone. The Municipal Code specifies that a new or expanded RPP Zone 1
should be recommended to the PTC and Council in September for final adoption. In fact, this 2
process could take longer than what is specified in the code due to Staff’s ability to contract for 3
parking occupancy studies within the school year or due to the availability of stakeholders to 4
meet to work out a program. For example, it may be difficult to convene folks for meetings 5
during the summer months. In addition, the Council budget process may alter this schedule. 6
And finally, transportation Staff are actively planning to bring to Council in May a review of the 7
City’s Parking Program approach of which RPP is an element. At this meeting, Staff will engage 8
the Council in a broader discussion of the RPP Program with suggestions for improvement and 9
efficiencies. Thank you for your attention. Wayne and I are available to answer your questions. 10
11
Chair Riggs: Right so any questions from the Commission before we go to the public hearing? 12
Alright, so Commissioner Summa. 13
14
Commissioner Summa: Just a couple question for Staff. What time do the kids get… what time 15
does Gunn High School start in the morning? 16
17
Ms. Star-Lack: 8:30 (interrupted) 18
19
Commissioner Summa: 8:30. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Ms. Star-Lack: Or right around 8:30, yeah, they moved to a later start. 2
3
Commissioner Summa: Ok and so you said that the person… the individual that initiated the San 4
Antonio one was not a resident in the area. 5
6
Ms. Star-Lack: Correct. 7
8
Commissioner Summa: Do you… that… is it a business person in the area or? 9
10
Ms. Star-Lack: Yes. The code states that RPP Programs are for residential areas and the petition-11
initiated zones have to be initiated by residents in a residential area. 12
13
Commissioner Summa: Ok but it was not a resident? 14
15
Ms. Star-Lack: It was not a resident. The address that was put down was not a resident. 16
17
Commissioner Summa: Thank you very much. 18
19
Chair Riggs: Ok, Commissioner Templeton and then Commissioner Lauing. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Templeton: Hi, thank you for this presentation. Just to follow up on 2
Commissioner Summa’s question, is there another avenue that you’ve suggested for the 3
business owner to resolve their issue? 4
5
Ms. Star-Lack: Yes, as I stated in the presentation Staff is working to identify the source of the 6
parking incursion. I guess you could say why is that parking area always parked up and we are 7
looking into code compliance issues with some of the businesses nearby. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: So, they have a resolution path just not through the residential 10
program. 11
12
Ms. Star-Lack: Correct, correct. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: Ok great and then my question about the Old Palo Alto area was 15
around the Caltrain complaints. The residents asserted that Caltrain is responsible for a lot of 16
this. Have we… has anyone in the City Staff reached out to Caltrain to maybe negotiate to make 17
that lot free so that people can park there? 18
19
Ms. Star-Lack: No, we haven’t done that. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Templeton: Is that… ok, well it’s something to think about. Ok, thank you. 2
3
Ms. Star-Lack: Thanks. 4
5
Chair Riggs: Commissioner Lauing. 6
7
Commissioner Lauing: Just a couple quick ones. You’re definitely under Staffed so it’s very 8
appropriate that you mention that. I take it that the point is you’d like to Staff up and if you 9
can’t then it’s just going to take longer. Not that our prioritization will go away or that we 10
shouldn’t approve those. Jonathan left just at the right time so you (interrupted) 11
12
Ms. Star-Lack: Right, that’s how I understand it but (interrupted) 13
14
Mr. Tanda: I apologize, Commissioner, could you restate your question again. 15
16
Commissioner Lauing: Basically, you definitely have a – there’s definitely a shortage but I take it 17
that the idea is just it’s going to get pushed out if you don’t get more Staff but it’s not going to 18
change the prioritization once Council decides on. Is that correct? 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Tanda: That’s exactly correct. 1
2
Commissioner Lauing: Ok, fine. 3
4
Chair Riggs: Ok, let’s just make sure that we keep these… ok. Any other questions? 5
Commissioner Alcheck [note- Vice-Chair Alcheck], do you have any questions? Oh, 6
Commissioner Lauing, you still… sorry [unintelligible]. 7
8
Commissioner Lauing: One quick one, on the Packet where you describe on Page 8, the 9
following received the petitions of Director review. These are the steps that we have to go 10
through and if some reason PTC does not prioritize this, I understand that well, that 11
recommendation as such will still go to Council. But at what point can the public from one of 12
those districts come back and reapply? Is there any limitation like they have to wait a year 13
before they can come back or just get more data or what? 14
15
Mr. Tanda: Commissioner if the PTC takes a position to not prioritize either one, we would 16
report that to the City Council and I’m sure that they would take appropriate action. But I 17
believe they really do you want you to make a recommendation to them. 18
19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Lauing: Right, my question was slightly different. It was sort of it we said you 1
know you don’t have this and you don’t have that so we really can’t prioritize it now. Could the 2
same neighborhood come back in a month? There’s no limitation that they can’t come back for 3
a year or anything by statute, right? 4
5
Ms. Star-Lack: Oh, so ok I understand your question now. So, the Muni Code [note - municipal] 6
allows for prioritization to happen once a year in March basically. So that’s the… once this 7
March is… once this meeting is over then if people were to submit a petition in May, for 8
example, they would have to wait until this meeting occurs next March. 9
10
Commissioner Lauing: Ok good then that answers an important clarification. That’s all. 11
12
Chair Riggs: Ok, I have a quick question as well and then we’ll go to the public hearing. 13
Transportation Manager Star-Lack, can you go to Slide 21. I just want to ask a question about 14
your timeline. Am I correct in understanding the Muni [note – municipal] Code in that August… 15
July/August may or may not be within the academic year and may or may not be eligible for 16
data collection? Am I… so I just… I’m seeing data collection there but I… is that… could it be 17
possible that’s overstating the time we would do data collection? 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Ms. Star-Lack: Well it depends on… so the Muni [note- municipal] Code allows for data 1
collection to occur during the school year if that… if the school calendar applies to the parking 2
problem that is happening. So, we would (interrupted) 3
4
Chair Riggs: Ok so is the Muni Code [note- municipal] that vague that one of these sites may be 5
impacted my schools and the other may not because I mean I think I would have an opinion 6
about that but? 7
8
Ms. Star-Lack: It would be my preference to do the data collection during the school year 9
because that’s when you see the worst of the parking so yeah. 10
11
Chair Riggs: Right, so theoretically that could be data collection might be more appropriate in 12
September or October. Ok. I just want to make that question clear too. Alright, other 13
questions? Ok, we’ll go to our hearing; we’ll have time to talk about this more. So, as we open 14
the hearing, I just want to remind people that speakers are limited to 3-minutes. You can 15
combine so you need a minimum of five speakers. You can combine four 15-minutes if you’d 16
like to do that. We would respect our time to do so but we want to hear from all of you so feel 17
free. If anyone else has a card for this item feel free to get it in right now. With that said, seeing 18
no other cards coming in, we will start with… and I’m not exactly sure that I’m going to need 19
this but its Buecneler, Mr. Buecneler. Is that correct? Alright. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Mr. Kurt Buecneler: Good evening, my name is Kurt Buecneler, I live at 2200 Emerson, and in 2
the area… I’m here to show support for the RPP in Old Palo Alto. As a 25-year resident, I can 3
assure you I’m a relative newbie to the neighborhood but there’s enough data certainly to 4
know that in the last 2 to 3-years the problem has gotten quite severe. So, it’s become a pain, 5
to put it bluntly. So, I think there two huge cases that I’ve observed, one is the daily parkers 6
where three cars come in front of our house at 8 o’clock and they leave at 8 o’clock at night or 7
7 o’clock at night or we just completed the fourth I know in our immediate one block 8
neighborhood of cars staying. We just got a car towed yesterday that had been there 12-days 9
so I think the car… the [unintelligible] case is maybe they go to… take the train to SFO. I 10
certainly don’t know what the use case is but that becomes a real problem and I’ve been that 11
four times. 12
13
The concerns that I have certainly one, late parkers come in, they can’t find a place in our 14
neighborhood and they’ll park in often and partly in front of our driveway. So certainly, we have 15
an accident problem which is an issue. We certainly could call enforcement but we’ve pondered 16
that and say, not that’s not the way we want to use our precious enforcement resources so we 17
tolerate it which… and we leave a note saying please don’t park in front of our driveway. Two 18
we see these extended parkings either… when they’re parked all day, even if they leave at 19
night, towing doesn’t happen or street sweeping doesn’t happen during the night. So, I’ve seen 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
piles as deep as 12-inches deep on the corner of California and Emerson and now you say A) 1
either they are going to rot and become a slipping problem for pedestrians. Slipping problem 2
for the homeowners, slipping problem for the City or they made a sewer there and it’s going to 3
wash in there, plug the sewer, that’s going to cause a flood potentially or certainly a costly 4
event for the City to clear that sewer. 5
6
So, the last concern around safety is for my kids. They’re… ones in Pally, drives home and with 7
the increased crime that’s… you know street crime in Palo Alto they can’t park near their homes 8
so they are walking at night several blocks. And I… all things being equal, you know it’s all free 9
parking but by the same token, I care about my kids. So, we’d very much like to see that they 10
could actually come home at night from Pally and park in front of their own house. Not that it’s 11
a right for them, it certainly is a convenience and safety issue. So, I think in summary the train 12
issue has become very real. I think it also is simply transferring a maximum convenience and 13
minimal cost for the Caltrain person to other people but we’re the ones that have to bare that 14
inconvenience for our own selves. So, it really is just a net zero sum game and we’re just 15
transferring one problem… person’s problem to another person who’s invested in Palo Alto. So, 16
thank you very much. 17
18
Chair Riggs: Thank you, Mr. Buecneler. So now I have Mr. Robell and Mr. Robell will be speaking 19
for a number of speakers and if I could just see a show of hands in terms who Mr. Robell who 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
you are speaking for. I have Mr. Herman? If you could just raise your hand when I call your 1
name. I just need to make sure we’re here because… Mr. Herman? Thank you. Mr. Diamond? 2
Ms. Diamond? Thank you. Ms. Robell? Thank you, Ms. Robell. Mr. Robell… Sarah Robell? 3
4
Mr. Chris Robell: Oh, that’s my daughter, she [unintelligible]. 5
6
Chair Riggs: She couldn’t make it? Ok. Mr. Stein? 7
8
Mr. Elliot Stein: (off mic from the audience) I’m here but we’re not related [unintelligible]. 9
10
Chair Riggs: Ok so I have (interrupted) 11
12
Mr. Robell: There’s five. 13
14
Chair Riggs: Ok so I had your (interrupted) 15
16
[note-many people started speaking at one time] 17
18
Chair Riggs: Card grouped so… ok, so I do have five so that’s fine. We’re good to go so 15-19
minutes. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Mr. Robell: Thank you, thank you, Commissioners, my name again is Chris Robell, and I’m the 2
designated speaker for this group of five. Our neighborhoods is self-organized and it requesting 3
obviously that you prioritize our neighborhood for the residential parking permit. We don’t 4
really want to call it an RPP because we are open to annexing and so whatever the fastest way 5
that we can implement this to give us some parking relief would be great. It’s a section of Old 6
Palo Alto as outlined in… as Sylvia outlined and we really are seeing more and more spillover 7
and parking intrusion from Caltrain commuters into a less extent the business… the workers 8
from California Avenue Business District. It is clear that Caltrain riders prefer to park for free in 9
our neighborhood versus pay $5.50 a day in a Caltrain lot. If you were to go to the Caltrain lot 10
any given weekday you would see that it was utilized less than 25 percent. And number one 11
and number two why does a Caltrain rider park in our neighborhood and this is… please don’t 12
share this but for the risk of giving anybody ideas. It’s a lot more convenient to park in our 13
neighborhoods because you just go right down Oregon Express Way, turn right on High Street 14
and 20-feet later you’re in a spot and it’s right by the tunnel. You walk into the tunnel and 15
you’re right at the Caltrain station, the boarding place. So, it’s free and it’s convenient and 16
that’s not… and then on top of that, of course, you have the Evergreen-Mayfield District 17
where… to the extent they were parking there before, right? They were allowed to park there 18
before when that was established in 2017. Now that has pushed into our neighborhood and so 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
all those people that were parking there now park over here, over in our neighborhood. So 1
that’s the predicament we’re faced with. 2
3
I think unlike other… the other RPP proposals we have no existing parking restrictions. We are 4
faced with maximum loading all day from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm. It’s not just during school hours, 5
it's not summers off, it’s every single day from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm. And one of the emails… I 6
apologize for a prolific set of emails I sent you the last few days but one of them was a pretty 7
insightful report that was sent to the PTC or shared with the PTC that I believe Josh Mello and 8
City Staff put together from January 2017. That contained a Parking Utilization Study showing 9
that our area of Palo Alto, parts… it didn’t have all of it, the area that we’re talking about but 10
actually the less busy part of our area that we’re requesting… had designated with yellow and 11
red lines indicating all of it, over 50 percent parking utilization and in some cases 85 percent on 12
High Street. And so, keep in mind that that Parking Utilization Study was done in May of 2016, 13
so almost 3-years ago, and since then there’s been a commercial development obviously and 14
secondly there’s been an RPP implemented. So, all that, it doesn’t take a triple-digit IQ person 15
to figure out that ok, what’s happened since… in the past 3-years since the implementation of 16
the RPP. It’s probably all red and double red and thanks god cars can’t park on top of each 17
other. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
So, I think George sent you pictures, Georgie Herman, the other day, and I believe Sylvia 1
showed you some pictures as well. I did want to clarify on Page 12 of the pictures she sent, it 2
looks like there’s an open spot, it’s actually not open. That’s a red curbed area with a fire 3
hydrant so I wanted to make… so there are no open spots in our neighborhood. 4
5
And so, like I said we self-organize, we’ve had multiple neighborhood meetings, we had Mayor 6
Filseth at my house, 50 people over a couple of meetings, and everybody understands these 7
impacts. And some of the feedback that I’m going to give, Kurt already talked about some of 8
them but we have the safety risks by the California Avenue tunnel, the confluence of students 9
biking and walking from Green and Pally both directions and the hurried Caltrain workers… 10
excuse me commuters trying to quickly get and they are not focused on looking out for 11
anybody. They’re trying to get a spot in these perpendicular spots by Bowden Park or the 12
surrounding streets and there’s been accidents, right? There’s been I understand one serious 13
and I believe many close calls that happen on a regular basis so that’s a safety issue. On top of 14
that we have a quality of life issue which is pretty well understood, I think. You know Kurt 15
mentioned that we have… almost everybody has a narrow one car driveway. If you have a 16
secondary car you want to put it on a spot on the street. I realize that these streets are not the 17
property of owners and we share them but it would be nice to be able to park within close 18
proximity to one’s home. And personally, I just bought my house last year and I thought long 19
and hard about buying it. It was on the market for a few weeks because of all the traffic I will 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
say that and my parents live at Channing House. My mom is here and my dads not here but 1
they want to park… she sent you an email so they can’t even park near my house. They can get 2
with placards… they can park closer to a retail spot than they can in front of my own house and 3
they want to visit me during the day and not at night. She doesn’t… I’m surprised… it’s almost 4
bedtime. 5
6
Anyway, so many… I’ve had personally a couple of calls to the police. Somebody blocking my 7
spot, blocking my driveway, I can’t get in my driveway and I’ve also called one because there’s 8
been… and I know Kurt had somebody, somebody parks with a towing or excuse me, with a… I 9
see them with a suitcase and they’re going underneath and using it at free long-term parking 10
for the airport. And I don’t blame them because there’s no restrictions and why not? It saves 11
money but that’s not something I don’t think we want. 12
13
Children can’t play ball in the streets; some people have cited that. The street sweeping issue 14
was mentioned so people have put their own signs up saying don’t park on Tuesdays, 15
handmade signs because otherwise, you won’t get your street cleaned. And I just over think the 16
aesthetics and the character of the neighborhood is very different than it is just a few blocks 17
over and I don’t think… I know Sylvia mentioned that this might push out to another 18
neighborhood which normally is true. When you have an RPP it transfers the problems to 19
someone else. I don’t think it would, I don’t have data on that but because you’re talking about 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Caltrain commuters at some point they’re not going to park 5-blocks away. They are going to 1
park a 5-minute walk away but at some point, they’re Uber or do something else I believe or 2
maybe I might take transit to the train. That’s a hypothesis, I don’t have data to support that 3
but that’s my belief. Ok, so it’s… those are the impacts that we talked about. 4
5
I think it’s important we talk about the some of the data and I don’t know if you all read the 6
signature. I had a couple emails on the number of signatures and I’m happy to be… if anybody 7
from Staff thinks I am in the wrong of these I was transparent. I gave you these as soon as I 8
calculated them but we have… the Staff report listed that we have 26 signatures and as of right 9
now and it honestly keeps increasing each day, I just got a signature today. There are now 57 10
households, right? If there’s two people from one house, they don’t count, it counts as one; 57 11
households that have signed. There were two pages from the Staff report that I believe were 12
missing. I know they were missing that was sent to you and that was included in our August 13
2018 petition and that would have brought the number to 44 but we have since picked up an 14
additional 13 signatures so we have 57. We have six people who are not interested right now in 15
doing the permit program and we have 24 homes that we were not able to contact; vacant 16
homes or what have you, despite multiple attempts. So, doing the math on all that it comes out 17
to 90 percent support in our neighborhood, just over 90 percent, a 72 percent participation rate 18
so we’ve been able to reach everybody. A good chunk but not everybody, 72 percent and you 19
compare that with the Evergreen Park-Mayfield RPP that was shared when it was being 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
evaluated in January 2017 and that was 68 percent support versus ours 90 and 20 percent 1
participation versus our 72. So, I think we’ve got that criteria of stakeholder neighborhood 2
support down cold. 3
4
The second issue that I want to clarify is that we have been asking this for a long time. This is 5
not… it’s true that our… the second petition came forth to the City in August of 2018 but that’s 6
the second one. There was a first one and we revised it based on feedback to expand the 7
number of streets and why don’t you consider annexing and I have emails from Josh Mello that 8
in May 24, 2018, saying consider annexing. So, we are totally open to all those ideas, the point 9
is we’ve been doing this a long time and it’s been years. I think George and Lloyd were both 10
involved; 2016- 2017. So, it’s… and it’s getting worse. 11
12
And the last clarification I want to also just make and it’s in this presentation also for some 13
reason. It says on Page 13, “resident only program may move commuter vehicles to other 14
adjacent streets.” This is not… we’re not… we are actually flexible on that too. So, we have said 15
all along we’re open to business permits. We realize the public streets don’t belong to us and 16
there’s a lot of people who say we’re crazy for doing this outside of our neighborhood. We 17
shouldn’t insist on it, even Council Members but I will tell you we are open because we want to 18
flexible and we just want relief as soon as possible; the most expedient way. If you want to 19
annex us, great. You want to have… we already… our petition says 20 business permits, great. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
You know not great but we’ll take them. We just don’t want it to be a commercial parking lot 1
like it is now and I… so please note that that’s the case. That we are being… trying to be super 2
flexible and the... I think the problem is self-evident, I think it’s understood, it’s serious, it’s 3
getting worse for all of the reasons that I mentioned, it’s all day long 7:00 am to 7:00 pm. 4
5
And we’re really asking on the annexing side I hope it doesn’t take… now I’m going to kind of 6
say this in a respectful way but I really want you to know this. This is not rocket science, I’m 7
sorry, but we’re talking about… if we annex, we’re… and it supposed to be a streamlined 8
process and that’s what we were told. It will streamline it so we’re talking about Evergreen-9
Mayfield has Zones A through G and we’re talking about adding H. We’re talking about adding a 10
zone to an existing. There’s not a new whole website for it, it’s not a new RPP, and we just… 11
we’re just tacked on to that and we don’t… we’re not… it doesn’t need… the parking analysis 12
was done. I think I mentioned this, yeah, the loading analysis was done in 2016 and we can… if 13
we just get added to H I think that… and the signs up it… bottom line I’m asking for 14
prioritization. And also, not waiting for some grandiose, revamped, Citywide plan that’s going 15
to solve the problems that’s going to take 2-years. My parents are in their 70s and 80s, I’d like 16
them to be able to park in my house before they die. So that’s… I’m voicing a lot of frustration, 17
honestly its kind of, to me, it’s unreasonable for it to take this long and it should be an 18
embarrassment for the City for it to go for something as simple as this to go for a year. So, I’m 19
asking for the prioritization and the allocations of resources. Multiple residents have 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
volunteered resources, whatever you want, tell me what you want, I’m fulltime, free, whatever, 1
money, tell us what you want to make this happen. Putting up signs in a couple blocks shouldn’t 2
be a big deal. I’m sorry to vent on that but I wanted to underscore that and I know that 3
there’s… well, I’ll leave it at that. 4
5
So, I think we can talk and chew gum at the same time and acknowledge this is the basic City 6
service; a right to be able to park somewhere near your house. Does anybody else want to add 7
anything? Let me just ask, how many people are from Old Palo Alto supporting this petition? So, 8
we’ve got… I mean this is… these are people that are busy and you’ve got twice or three times 9
as many as Commissioners all wanting this done so please make this happen. Thank you so 10
much. 11
12
Chair Riggs: Thank you, Mr. Robell. Mr. Stein. 13
14
Mr. Elliot Stein: Thank you Mr. Chairmen and Mr. Chairmen and members of the Commission, 15
I’m Elliot Stein, I am a resident of Palo Alto for some 34-years, and I live on Georgia Avenue. 16
That’s in the Green Acre’s area so in your Packages where you saw the map of Georgia Avenue 17
and you saw what’s referred to as a Spur that connects Georgia Avenue to Gunn. What that is, 18
is basically a lot across the street from me and one door over that connects Georgia Avenue to 19
the playing fields of Gunn High School. It leads right to the tennis courts specially and it’s where 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
there is a significant flow of bodies, student bodies, every morning, and every afternoon. Many 1
parks in our neighborhood and walk into school. Many rides their bicycles and use our street 2
and that path and many, many are dropped off by their parents at that location. 3
4
Now what I wanted to do is I think first of all to tell you that I do greatly appreciate the work 5
that you’re doing to preserve and enhance the livability of our City. For 3 ½-decades this has 6
been a great City for me, for my family to live in and it’s not often… in fact, there’s never been 7
an occasion when I come either the Planning Commission or City Council to make a request like 8
this. But on the subject of parking on Georgia Avenue, number one I submitted a letter to the 9
Commission about a week ago which hopefully you received in your Packets. I was asked to do 10
that to outline why perspective on this. What I’d like to do right now is basically summarize just 11
a couple points and I know I only have 3-minutes within which to do that. It’s actually helpful 12
sitting here for the last half hour because a lot of information was shared, including by you 13
Sylvia, and this Package that caused me to scratch a lot of things out on my notes and write a 14
few new things. There’s only so much I can get to but I would like to point something out to 15
you. If you look at the Package, the slides that Sylvia presented, and look at Page 8. My 16
understanding is that after you prioritize here and make a recommendation to the Council to 17
take the next step one of the things that the ordinance says is that certain findings have to be 18
made. I will state right here that based on my 34-years of familiarity with this situation in 19
Greenacres and on Georgia Avenue all of these four very clearly stated criteria about the need 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
for non-residential vehicles to be substantially interfering with the use of the street. The 1
reference to the interference occurring at regular and frequent intervals; yes, yes, to these two. 2
That non-resident vehicles parked in the area create traffic congestion, noise, other disruption, 3
and disrupt neighborhood life; yes again. And finally, other alternative parking strategies are 4
not feasible or particle. So, I’m stating to you that my particular area does meet all of these 5
criteria and unlike the presentation you just heard about the are near the Cal. Avenue train 6
station where the streets are full of cars from 7:00 to 7:00, we have a different situation. I’ll 7
sum up quickly here. Our situation and I’m afraid it’s a little bit misleadingly represented in the 8
photographs that you have in your Package on Slide Number 12. I do thin Sylvia characterized… 9
actually, it’s not 12 (interrupted) 10
11
Chair Riggs: Mr. Stein, I need you to wrap up, ok? We got to respect the rest of the speakers. 12
13
Mr. Stein: Sure, if you look at 15 it shows no cars on the street. I believe she did say this picture 14
but I want to be sure you interrupted it this way. This picture was taken right after that no 15
parking from 9:00 to 10:00 am expired. So, that’s why there are no cars in the streets, no 16
students there but also no one like me who’s a resident of the street who is prohibited from 17
parking in front of our house in the morning. So, I hope you will give serious consideration to 18
including Green Acres in your high priorities. Thank you. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Riggs: Thank you, Mr. Stein. We’re going to go with Ms. Vrhel again. 1
2
Ms. Rita Vrhel: Thank you. I just wanted to say congratulation to Chris Robell because that was 3
a fantastic presentation that really highlighted the need for more parking. You know their 4
situation is only going to get worse. You have Caltrain going through revision and their ridership 5
is supposed to increase so when that happens there are going to be more people that don’t 6
want to pay the $5.25 per parking per day. The thing is that you have to realize that with the 7
new garage over on Sherman and also the Public Safety Building construction, all of those 8
parking spots were taken. So, it would be reasonable to assume that not only are Caltrain 9
people riders parking over there but possibly people that were parking in the previously 10
provided Sherman Avenue lot are then also then seeking the closest parking lot which may be 11
actually on the other side of the railroad track. 12
13
I think since Staff is shorthanded this really does once again emphasize the need to consider a 14
Business Tax. You know I’ve sat at City Council meetings for so long and also some PTC 15
meetings but probably not enough where apartments are under parked. Everybody only has a 16
half of a car or businesses are under parked and after years and years and years of under 17
parking everybody but the residential neighborhoods we are now seeing the consequences of 18
all those cars, including commuters, jamming the neighborhoods. And my god, what do the 19
residents have to do? This is an amazing process, that residents who are supporting 75 percent 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
of the City’s cost have to round up all their neighbors, have to present it and get all the data 1
together, and then beg, literally beg that the Staff, who they are supporting and paying for, do 2
their job. I just think it’s really probably a disgrace and so I hope that you prioritize their request 3
and get this going. Thank you. 4
5
Chair Riggs: Thank you, Ms. Vrhel. Mr. Johnson. Mr. Johnson? Alright, seeing none, last call? Mr. 6
Alloy or Alloy. 7
8
Mr. Mark Alloy: Hi, good evening, my name is Mark Alloy, and I’m here to speak on in support 9
of the Green Acre’s RPP Program. My wife and I have lived here since 1994 and in present we 10
have four adults living at our house. You know we face a common problem of many parents in 11
Palo Alto of having older kids wanting to live in the area but can’t afford it so they live with us. 12
And all of these people in the house have cars so we have four cars, sometimes five if we have 13
kids visiting us but we only have a two-car driveway. So right now, we don’t park our cars in 14
front of our own house. If there’s a chance that we can’t move them by 9:00 am the next 15
morning we found out the hard way having to pay hundreds of dollars of parking tickets in the 16
last 15-years not to take a chance that we can’t move our cars by 9:00 am. When we come 17
home in the evening, even though the street in front of our house may be completely empty, 18
we park two-blocks away on Wilmar. It could be raining, sometimes we have things to carry like 19
groceries or packages, but we still park two-blocks away. I find this situation is just illogical that 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
we can’t park in front of our own house because of this 9:00 to 10:00 am restriction. I know the 1
neighbors on Wilmar are bothered by it because I’ve received comments from some of them 2
when they see me parking my cars there. So, with that said I would fully support and give 3
priority to the Green Acres Restricted Parking Program. Thank you. 4
5
Chair Riggs: Thank you, Mr. Alloy, I really appreciate your brevity and thank you for those 6
comments. Mr. Hirsch. 7
8
Mr. Joe Hirsch: Thank you, excuse me for a minute here, the first thing I have to say is I can’t 9
help you with your prioritization. All I can do is describe the problems we have and I have and 10
others have in the Green Acres area. And I think first we need to characterize this as Green 11
Acres 2 as opposed to Green Acres 1 across the street, don’t get the other people concerned. 12
13
I’m glad to see that the Staff report suggests that study and outreach is needed and that 14
hopefully, that will include, as Chairmen Riggs suggested, data collection when school is in 15
process. The picture of Georgia Avenue, I can tell you I have never seen and I’ve lived on 16
Georgia for 45-years. I’ve never seen the street empty. I come back in the morning around 8:45 17
to 9 o’clock and cars are parked there. Notwithstanding the 9 am to 10 am no parking 18
restriction. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
10-years ago after the 9:00am-10:00 am no parking restriction was instituted, nine of us 1
requested that four signs regarding that be removed from in front of our homes. We still prefer 2
to keep it that way. We understand that students and other people can park there and we’re 3
comfortable with it, it’s a public street. That way we don’t get tickets, our guests don’t get 4
tickets, our neighbors don’t get tickets as happened before. So, to the extent that anything is 5
done, we’d like to have it left alone for this little segment right at the corner of Georgia when it 6
makes a bend going toward Hubbartt. 7
8
A question that has been raised by my wife, what happens with gardeners, housekeepers and 9
other guests who come to the house during the RPP Program if it is instituted? They won’t… we 10
can give them one placard as they come if we happen to be there. If we’re not there are, they 11
liable to be ticketed even though they are providing services? Our housekeeper is there once a 12
week for 5 ½-hours, how is that handled? Can the RPP Program end at a certain time like 3 13
o’clock? Our problem is with Gunn students, not with commercial property. There’s no 14
commercial around so if it can end at 3 then people who come after that say for a dinner party 15
in the evening. If we had six other people for a dinner party weren’t worried about that, maybe 16
they would get ticketed which wouldn’t be right. If my wife has five other lady friends over for 17
lunch where do we park those cars during the RPP Program? I think those are the issue that 18
needs to be discussed and resolved in the outreach so that people in our area will know they 19
are getting into if they have an RPP Program. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Final point is that Gunn High School construction is ongoing and presumably with end next 2
month. They have had a staging area that’s taken at 20 to 25 if not more parking spaces. Data 3
collection has to be done after that construction is over and those spaces have been released. 4
5
One final comment, very fast, Bowman construction across the street, the workers there are 6
also parking on Georgia and Hubbartt. So, data collection needs to take into consideration that 7
that construction will end hopefully soon and those people won’t be there taking up spaces. 8
Thank you. 9
10
Chair Riggs: Thank you for your insights, Mr. Hirsch. Could we have Ms. Nammar and I apologize 11
about mispronouncing Ms. Nammar and then Ms. Bricker if you could be ready to speak after 12
that? 13
14
Ms. Jeneen Nammar: Hi, thank you for this opportunity, my name is Jeneen Nammar but that 15
was very close. I live in the Gunn zone as well and I think that the pictures that you have are 16
taken after the 9:00 to 10:00… what time of day was it? 17
18
[Note- Staff member]: 10:00. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Ms. Nammar: It was 10:00 am and if you look down Georgia it will be cleared of the non-1
residents, the teen parkers that try to come into the neighborhood. If you had turned around 2
and looked the other way going up Georgia you would see a different picture where there’s a 3
lot of teen parkers. 4
5
I submitted the petition and I am a resident in the zone. I submitted the petition because I 6
cannot park in front of my own home. I leave for work at 9:15, I’ve gotten two tickets and I find 7
it egregiously objectionable. I need to be able to park in front of my own home just with our 8
personal circumstances and I’m going to have a college student who will need a vehicle as well. 9
When I collected the signatures, I said to my neighbors we could have parking stickers. Pally 10
already has parking stickers, we’re equal to them, and they were like yeah, I want to be able to 11
park in front of my home. There are many ludicrous stories about what it’s like to live in the 12
zone and not be able to park 9:00 to 10:00 am on school mornings for an entire school year. I 13
mean we’ve had neighbors widening their driveways with pavers. We have a really funny story, 14
in the fall some nice neighbor put a letter in every single one of our mailboxes saying they were 15
having a family gathering, there would be a lot of cars, please don’t call the police. So, I’m sure 16
none of us did but our goal is to be able to park in front of our home. I personally didn’t want to 17
try to dismantle the zone which is an option because I’m sure that the teen parkers will park in 18
mass in the neighborhood again. Use it as an extra parking lot and there’s 1,900 students at 19
Gunn just like Pally. There’s a lot of teen drivers that try to show up at the last minute so that’s 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
why I wasn’t trying to dismantle the zone but on the other hand I am sure that my neighbors 1
are not prepared for us to have some sort of parking restriction that is even worse than 9:00 to 2
10:00 in the morning. And we’re open to solutions that are easy to implement, non-invasive. It 3
doesn’t have to be a sticker. 4
5
I’m really unclear about why you can’t just have an excel PDF that a parking attendant can look 6
at in their cell phone to figure out who’s a resident and not a resident? There’s got to be easy 7
technologies to implement. So, when I submitted this petition, we wanted to be able to park in 8
front of our homes from 9:00 to 10:00 am but we’re not prepared for an all-day parking 9
restriction. We just have teen parkers in mass descending upon the neighborhood. I know that 10
street looked empty but again to reiterate, we have… the parking zone has been their 15-years. 11
That’s why it was empty but if you turn the other direction where’s there no parking zone. It is 12
like all teen parkers, massed there. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much. 13
14
Chair Riggs: Thank you, Ms. Nammar. Ms. Bricker and then Ms. Thompson if you could make 15
yourself ready as well. 16
17
Ms. Karin Bricker: My name is Karin Bricker and I live at 683 Georgia Avenue and I thank you for 18
your time. And I realize this is a complicated situation because there are unintended 19
consequences for every solution and that’s what we… and I see the Staff nodding yes… 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.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
that’s what we face. So, what we want to be able to do is have an overnight guest occasionally 1
and not have to go oh we need to wake everybody up to move. If we have some construction 2
being done our home and the construction workers need to park their truck in our driveway 3
and we have to park on the street, we don’t want to be ticketed at that point. So, we… so the 4
idea of an all-day parking restriction is a problem if it’s limited to just residents. 5
6
The other thing we noted and now that I’m retired is, we take walks and I see that the 9:00 to 7
10:00 when it’s fairly empty on Georgia now but then we walk onto Wilmar and it’s solid. Solid 8
cars and the kids then… if we go out about noon, they’re all driving their cars over to Georgia. 9
So that’s what happening, they are working around it. I mean years they use to park and get 10
tickets but now they are moving their cars. But I would like to be able to have people visit and 11
meetings and have people park in front of the house so thank you for your time. 12
13
Chair Riggs: Thank you very much, Ms. Bricker. Next, we have Jean Thompson. Ms. Thompson 14
are you here? Yeah if you could (interrupted) 15
16
Ms. Jean Thompson: [unintelligible – spoke from the audience off mic] 17
18
Chair Riggs: Oh, thank you, Ms. Thompson. I really appreciate you respecting our time like that. 19
Thank you, it means a lot and I see some other people that may have comment cards. If you 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
have a comment card for this item, Item Number Two, make sure you get it in. We’ll make sure 1
we give everyone a chance. I have a Mr. Heermance and after Mr. Heermance I have Mr. 2
Robinson. 3
4
Mr. Richard Heermance: Good evening Commissioners. I am here to support everything Chris 5
Robell said. We live right across the street from Chris and we’ve lived in the Old Palo Alto 6
neighborhood since 1981 so we’ve seen quite a change in that time. When we first moved in 7
you could certainly park on the street. There were a few cars there but there were some cars 8
there as needed and it really increased dramatically to the point where it’s at today when the 9
Evergreen RPP was approved. It basically moved it from their neighborhood to ours and you 10
just… as it’s been said you just cannot park there during the day. There’s a perfect example 11
there today, I had two cars parked in my driveway and unfortunately one behind was having an 12
issue. So, we managed to solve the issue but I figured I wanted to come here tonight so I had to 13
have a car that would work so I wanted to take it out and put it on the street. Well, that’s easier 14
said than done. I ended up having to go down to Romana which isn’t that far but it’s a block and 15
a half away and that’s where the car is now. So, I was respecting everybody by parking both 16
cars in the driveway, I wanted to move it to the street, impossible. 17
18
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
So, I’ve also run into people, as a matter of fact, I’ve spoken to them and they’ve moved 1
someplace else but where they are just leaving the car and going to pick up Caltrain to go to the 2
airport and stay someplace for a week. We’ve seen that over the years many times. 3
4
The last thing that I wanted to talk about was the inability of the contracted services that clean 5
the streets on Tuesday. When we first moved in there were signs, fixed signs in the parking strip 6
that said don’t park here on Tuesday from 8:00 to 10:00. That’s the day we clean the street and 7
for some unknown reason to us these signs were taken out. So that was ok when there weren’t 8
many cars there. Now it’s totally blocked and it’s a joke. They go down the middle of the street. 9
They just cannot clean the street. 10
11
The last thing that I want to bring up is if we’re going to have… if we’re going to get our RPP 12
which I hope we do and you prioritize us, we can… you can have one sign just like in Mayor 13
Filseth’s neighborhood. You have one sign that says it’s an RPP, you can park here for 2-hours 14
and also on Tuesdays or whatever it happens to be don’t park here at all because it’s a street 15
cleaning day. So, I just encourage you to prioritize our petition because it’s definitely needed 16
and it’s… you know we can tolerate things but it’s becoming intolerable. It’s like we don’t really 17
own property there which we have for a long time so thank you for your attention. 18
19
Chair Riggs: Thank you so much Mr. Heermance. So, Mr. Robinson and then Mr. Kim. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Mr. Matt Robinson: Thank you for the time, I’ll try and be very brief. I’d like to highlight two 2
aspects to the Old Palo Alto parking issue which you have now heard quite a bit about. One is 3
safety. I’m a 13-year resident at 171 Washington, I’m also a business owner at 3225 Ash on the 4
other side of Alma Street. I see this problem from both sides. Practical implication of the 5
parking issue in the Old Palo Alto neighborhood are twofold. One I’ve instructed my kids not to 6
ride their bikes in the street at any time anymore. There’s been too many close calls. My first 7
letter to City Council was 3-years ago on this topic. We’ve been working with Chris and others 8
for a long time now. 9
10
The second is urgency. The practical implication is people are taking things into their own 11
hands. There are signs going up, there’s traffic cones going out, there’s people like me 12
instructing their kids not to ride their bikes or shoot hoops in the street anymore. The 13
neighborhood has changed, yes, it’s a pain not to be able to park there, that’s a big problem. 14
The safety issue is of utmost importance to me as a parent of two 11-year old boys who are 15
trying to get to school and so I would encourage you and the Commission to treat this with 16
urgency, not just from a prioritization perspective but also from an action perspective. Thank 17
you. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Riggs: Thank you very much, Mr. Robinson. We hear those comments loud and clear. Mr. 1
Kim. 2
3
Mr. Young Kim: (off mic) Chris Robell (interrupted) 4
5
Chair Riggs: Thank you, Mr. Kim, thank you. Ms. Shepard. 6
7
Ms. Elizabeth Shepard: Hi, Elizabeth Shepard, I’m here as a resident of Old Palo Alto near 8
Bowden Park and I’ll speak briefly. Chris Robell and others have spoken well on behalf of our 9
neighborhood. I’ll just mention I’ve lived in Palo Alto since 1990, I was a renter here for 20-10
years in two different homes and I was so happy in 2010 when I was finally able to buy a house. 11
I’ve loved the Old Palo Alto neighborhood; I still love it but the quality of life has really changed 12
in the last 2 to 3-years. Starting around 2016 we started seeing an influx of day parkers and that 13
increased significantly in the spring of 2017 when the RPPs went into effect at Mayfield and 14
Evergreen Park. So, I’m concerned about safety of children and bicyclists that are going up and 15
down the streets. I’m concerned about privacy. I feel a little bit less safe in my own home now, I 16
don’t want to open up the curtains, why? Because there’s so many people always parking on 17
the street. I’m concerned about not being able to park in front of my sidewalk or going up to my 18
house when I need to unload things that are heavy and also have people coming in and out of 19
my house sometimes during the week. So, I’d ask that you please prioritize Old Palo Alto and 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
also consider that we’re currently the only neighborhood within easy walking distance of 1
California Avenue that has free parking. So, just in for the sake of fairness, it would be helpful to 2
also implement some type of payment program or parking restriction for our neighborhood. 3
Thank you for your consideration. 4
5
Chair Riggs: Thank you, Ms. Shepard and I’m going to call Mr. Johnson. If Mr. Johnson is in the 6
room, we… ok, those are all the cards I have. If no other… seeing no other hands and no other 7
cards I’m going to close the public hearing. Ok, the public hearing is closed so back to the 8
Commission. I think I’d like to structure things and focus us a little bit and I think what I’d like to 9
do is I want to remind the Commission that to focus on process and priorities. And for the 10
benefit of the audience, I want to… I’d like us to… we hear your frustration, we hear the 11
urgency, the need for enforcement, the safety concerns, the details that you’re articulating, 12
those are not in our purview to discuss tonight. We’re going to talk about policy and process 13
and so bear with us. Those are within our purview this evening so I’d like for us to focus our 14
comments, not on those very tangible and specific things the audience brought up but, on the 15
policy, we heard at dialog and on the process by which the Staff would go about if there is 16
insight with regard to that policy. And I think some of the public members talked about some of 17
the things they would like to think about but so let’s talk about policy, process, and priorities. 18
So, with that said I want to start with Commissioner Summa and we’ll go down the line. If you 19
could just say what you’re thinking with regard to the policy process and priorities. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Summa: [unintelligible- off mic] 2
3
Chair Riggs: Well, so your question was do we want to talk about all three areas? That’s fine 4
but keep in mind that one area hasn’t me the policy threshold being the Charleston Meadow… 5
yeah, feel free to talk about all three… Commissioner Summa, if you’d like to talk about all 6
three that’s fine. 7
8
Commissioner Summa: Ok I just wasn’t sure how you were doing it so thank you to Staff and 9
thank you for all of you who came out tonight. I think it’s clear that the Old Palo Alto 10
neighborhood needs to be addressed and in a timely fashion. As to the details they’ll be worked 11
out later but that would be my priority. 12
13
It seems to me that the Gunn situation might be better solved by a different solution than a full 14
RPP that restricts parking and also opens up parking to commercial parkers. I don’t… there 15
aren’t any commercial parkers really that would park there. Maybe there would be spillover 16
from schools but that seems sort of unnecessary and it seems like there might be a simple 17
solution that would allow for any residences to not be ticketed during the 9:00 to 10:00 time. I 18
wonder if the start time is early enough for that program, at 9:00, given that the students… that 19
school starts at 8:30. It just might be more effective, something to think about. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
It does not seem to me as if the third area on San Antonio, it’s a little confusing to me what’s 2
going on there based on Staff’s presentation but it’s not clear that that meets the standards we 3
would have for addressing it. And if there’s specific… I don’t even understand from the Staff 4
presentation what the problem is with the parking there and who’s it’s a problem for. So, I 5
would need a lot more information to really comment effectively on that situation so. 6
7
Chair Riggs: That’s great, Commissioner Summa, thank you so much. Commissioner Templeton. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you all for coming out here tonight and sharing the 10
experience you had with the RPP and the other restrictions on parking in both of these 11
neighborhoods. 12
13
Regarding Green Acres, I find it unacceptable that people are being ticketed and having their 14
activities restricted in front of their own house so I urge the Staff to find a way to address this 15
as soon as possible outside the RPP process. I agree with Commissioner Summa that there may 16
be another way. 17
18
I also find it unacceptable that the Old Palo Alto area is being drowned in parking that as a side 19
effect of RPP in nearby neighborhood so I definitely see a need for us to address that. One of 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
the speakers mentioned some interim mitigations that might be possible outside the RPP 1
process or if they could be fast-tracked to join in the Evergreen RPP. That might provide them 2
some relief faster so I would definitely want to… I would like to prioritize both of these to be 3
addressed. I would love to see a fast track solution for Old Palo Alto and I would love to see 4
some mitigations around the ticketing of neighbors in their own neighborhood in Green Acres. 5
6
Chair Riggs: Thank you, Commissioner Templeton. Commissioner Alcheck or Vice-Chair Alcheck, 7
excuse me. 8
9
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you all for joining us tonight. I’ll start at the end and then make 10
my way back. I would support a recommendation that the RPP process begins for the Old Palo 11
Alto petition tonight. I would base that on the Policy T5.11 which is sort of explicitly instructs us 12
to protect. I’m not making a motion, I’m just (interrupted) 13
14
Chair Riggs: May we put up Slide 5, please? 15
16
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Yeah, which instructs us to protect residential areas from parking impacts 17
of nearby businesses. I would suggest that the Green Acres petition has a different nuance. I 18
would not describe the Gunn High School utilization, student utilization of that parking area as 19
falling within the same category of a business. So, I wouldn’t recommend that we start an RPP 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
process for Green Acres and I don’t think Charleston Gardens as demonstrated by the report 1
even rises to the level of consideration. And so, my recommendation to Council would begin 2
the RPP process for Old Palo Alto, do not begin a process for Green Acres, and don’t spend any 3
further Staff time on Green Acres or I mean Charleston Gardens, excuse me. 4
5
I want to just address a few other comments. I think that the pace of addressing resident needs 6
can be very difficult to endure. I don’t disagree that parking permits is not rocket science. I 7
don’t think rocket science is rocket science, to be honest. I think if you study it then it’s not that 8
complicated but I will suggest that we really struggle to create programs that don’t cause 9
ancillary and negative impacts. And our Palo Alto process I designed to at least hear all the 10
potential individuals who may find a problem with whatever plan we come up with and for that 11
reason, it will… there will be a process and it will take time. 12
13
And to Staff, I would just say a few comments which is I am not… I was… tonight is the first time 14
I think I’ve been presented on the situation in Green Acres. I don’t think that ever came before 15
the Commission. That might have been… that to 9 to 10 o’clock program might have been 16
instituted at the Staff level. That… knowing the little that I know seems like a terrible program. I 17
feel like if you create a parking program that immediately penalizes the residents then it’s not 18
really working. Likewise, the notion that we would create a program that suggested people not 19
park during a street sweeper day, I can imagine a number of Palo Alto residents who 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.
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
much rather prefer to sweep their own gutter than have to move their car from 8:00 to 10:00 in 1
the morning on a given day. So, I actually like the flexibility we have with respect to the street 2
sweeping program but to me, I think if the Green Acres program was initiated without Council 3
oversight and Commission involvement… 4
5
[note – Staff Member:] [unintelligible – off mic] 6
7
Vice-Chair Alcheck: It was Council adopted but not Commission involvement? I guess what I’d 8
like to suggest is that… and maybe this is a separate motion… that Council unwinds that 9
decision. It just doesn’t… the 9:00 to 10:00 limitation doesn’t even make sense to me. And 10
there’s got to be a different system that may be easier to implement that’s not a full RPP. 11
12
I also think that there could be an opportunity here to have a dialog with the school and maybe 13
the school district. If you look at the Gunn campus, there’s actually a lot of unutilized space. Are 14
they having a parking problem on campus? How many spots do they have? I think they… maybe 15
we can… maybe Staff can reach out to them and help them appreciate the problem. So, that if 16
you could unwind this 9:00 to 10:00 restriction… I’m not saying that’s what the residents want 17
but I’d like us to work hard at creating a program that penalizes residents. The residents 18
shouldn’t immediately suffer some parking inconvenience simply so that they don’t have to… so 19
that they can access the parking in front of their homes or near their homes. And so, it seems 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
almost… it’s almost inconceivable that the City Council would approve this 9:00 to 10:00 block 1
and then not also allow parking hang tags so that residents could be excluded from ticketing. 2
3
Chair Riggs: Commissioner Alcheck [note – Vice-Chair Alcheck] I’m going to ask you to respect 4
our time. 5
6
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Yeah, no, I’m respecting the time. I don’t know how to address this 7
Charleston thing without starting a full RPP Program. Excuse me, the Green Acres thing without 8
a full RPP Program and I think that that would be a waste of resources because it seems like a 9
quick fix to an already approved Council program would be to give residents hanging tags. And 10
if residents have a hanging tag then they can park from 9:00 to 10:00 in front of their home. So, 11
I would support a second motion tonight that would recommend that the Council grant within 12
the program that they’ve already created a resident exception that wouldn’t incur the same 13
RPP study and same lengthy process and so that’s where I am right now. 14
15
Chair Riggs: Ok can I… I’m just going… before I come to you Chair Lauing [note – Commissioner 16
Lauing] I just want to ask a procedural question to Staff. Would there be a scenario where we 17
could recommend an annexation for Old Palo Alto and also ask for prioritization of Green Acres 18
RPP? They are two separate processes that may have two separate timelines. What would that 19
look like in terms of a path forward? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Mr. Tanda: Chair Riggs, Members of the Commission, I’ll take a crack at that. If you were to 2
recommend that the City move and annex the Old Palo Alto into the Evergreen Park -Mayfield. 3
That would be contrary to the policy that you had earlier mentioned that you’re here to follow. 4
The downside of doing that too is that there could be issues on the Evergreen Park-Mayfield. 5
They may have concerns about an annexation across the road, maybe. There could be concerns 6
actually that would be addressed of people who live within that district wanting to be in that 7
district; I’m referring to Old Palo Alto. There could be people outside of Old Palo Alto that after 8
hearing the program would very much like to be part of the program realizing that really what 9
Caltrain riders are going to do is they’re probably going to move a couple minutes to the north 10
to walk to the train station. That is why we really have a policy where there’s community 11
outreach, there’s an evaluation, there’s the gathering of the data, there’s a sharing so that 12
really going outside of that is really not what the Council has in mind. 13
14
Chair Riggs: I understand that. I want to know what the path would be for the annexation as 15
opposed to the RPP process. 16
17
Mr. Tanda: That would be done as part of the study that we would refer to as an RPP 18
evaluation. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Riggs: So irrespectively our Muni Code [note- municipal] would suggest that the same 1
level study and the same study would have to occur for both scenarios. Am I hearing correct? Is 2
that correct? Does our attorney agree with that? 3
4
Mr. Tanda: Well, yeah, not necessarily a legal point of view but from a practical point of view it 5
would be the same. The same information would be provided to the people who had ultimately 6
either benefit or not benefit from the program and so we’d be gathering the same information 7
on parking and traffic and other impacts. 8
9
Chair Riggs: Ok I’m just trying to get… is there a tactical solution? You’ve heard that from every 10
Commissioner, is there a tactical as opposed to a procedural solution? And what you’re telling 11
me is no and I just want to validate that no is in fact no. 12
13
Mr. Tanda: You do have a solution that probably is the most efficient that’s being presented to 14
you and that would prioritization and you have the option of not prioritizing either one but I 15
don’t hear that at all. Prioritizing and move it forward. (interrupted) 16
17
Chair Riggs: I think you’re telling me… no, you’re saying politically efficient but I mean I think 18
what we heard from some of the members of the public is that politically they’ve garnered 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
quite a bit of support. And what I’m asking is procedurally is there a different procedure for the 1
annexation than the RPP process? 2
3
Mr. Albert Yang, Senior Deputy Attorney: So, under the code, the difference procedurally is 4
probably the part that we’re going through right now but ultimately the Council would still 5
need to make the same findings of need based on the same sort of evidence that would be 6
accumulated after this meeting. So, annexation is maybe faster than this process if you go with 7
the annexation route from the very start but ultimately its pretty similar. 8
9
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Ok I’ll just conclude my time by saying that I actually don’t support an 10
annexation effort. I support an RPP process for the Old Palo Alto petition. I don’t support an 11
RPP process for Green Acres although I do think Council should expeditiously review whether or 12
not to create a resident exception to what they’ve already created. They’ve essentially created 13
a program and it’s not working well and I think they could fix it expeditiously. 14
15
The difference with the… why I wouldn’t recommend that Council just from the dais correct the 16
issue for Old Palo Alto is because there’s actually these interesting considerations that need to 17
take place. For example, Bowden Park, what’s going to happen around Bowden Park? How will 18
residents of Palo Alto who don’t live in your neighborhood and don’t have a potentially a 19
permit be able to access that park during the day for multiple hours if an RPP Program is set 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
up? So, there are some considerations that need to take place, there’s some conversations that 1
need to happen, and I think that process should take place as we do all of our RPPs; in that 2
open, transparent, community outreach process. That’s it, that will conclude my comments 3
there. 4
5
Chair Riggs: Commissioner Lauing. 6
7
Commissioner Lauing: Yes, you’re hearing a lot of unanimities up here on trying to serve our 8
residents. I’d like to ask on Slide 21, that community outreach stakeholder process May through 9
August, how extensive is that in terms of the car counts things like that and who does that? Is 10
Staff involved in that or is that all consultants? 11
12
Mr. Tanda: Yes, that would be Staff lead. It would obviously be meeting with those people who 13
are interested, in otherwise impacted, it would be sharing information that we have. You heard 14
actually tonight the questions that would typically come up in that process about how many 15
permits, does it include visitors, guests, you know what are my options there? They’ll probably 16
inevitably come up with how much does it cost? What type of permits are you using; hang tags 17
or decals? The outreach can be somewhat extensive but everybody who would be affected 18
really needs to have all of their questions answered and it would involve Staff, which was as 19
early pointed out, we don’t really have the Staff available to do that now. You need to 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
appreciate that almost 30 percent of City of Palo Alto is now covered with RPPs and some of 1
them to a degree of difficulty is very high on some of those RPPs in terms of balancing things. 2
So, I apologize for belaboring that response but it would be done City Staff, not a consultant. 3
4
Commissioner Lauing: Ok, you know the City of Palo Alto has a lot of large problems; traffic; 5
housing. I think the big problem in the City of Palo Alto is lack of Staff in the City of Palo Alto; 6
vacancies. It’s a massive problem, we know that, so but that also isn’t going to change 7
overnight. So, I think what you’re hearing from this dais is that we’d like to kind of get on with 8
some of these things. So, for example, Chair Riggs had an idea, it didn’t work, ok. What about if 9
we said we recommend Palo Alto [note – Old Palo Alto?] do the RPP and by the way, as we’re 10
doing it, let’s set them up as a pilot integrated with the one that’s there because then you’re 11
testing relive data. So that they can have it today essentially while you’re doing the studies and 12
so on. That’s been done before, there was a pilot put up on a roundabout on Churchill and 13
Cowper by the Transportation Department, there was a lot of debate about it, at the end of the 14
time this group decided that it was wrong and so it was taken down. But at least while it was 15
happening, we had some real data as opposed to just speculation. We’re in April now, we’re 16
saying the Council is not even going to get this till May but it’s pretty simple. If we’re just going 17
to recommend one. And then these people don’t get any relief until November? I mean 18
[unintelligible] because there’s not as much Staff we have to find efficient creative ways to try 19
to get some other things done and this is completely with respect to what I think is the biggest 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
problem of all these openings. So, I guess if you’re ready Chair, I’m happy to make a motion on 1
this? 2
3
Chair Riggs: Yeah, I would just like to say though there’s no… only prioritize one or this is a 4
prioritization of one verse two based on Slide 5 and Slide 8. So, if you want… if we could see 5
Slide 5 again and this is going back to our General Plan and so I want to emphasize that these 6
are based on some of the City values that we’ve established as part of our General Planning 7
process. So, I guess I would entertain a series of motions or a motion and then we can open 8
that for discussion. 9
10
MOTION #1 11
12
Commissioner Lauing: So, I would move that we prioritize Old Palo Alto as one in this and 13
Green Acres as two but with the… I don’t want to call it an amendment but with the request to 14
find a way quicker without the extensive RPP study to solve that probably much more narrow 15
problem; so that would be my motion. 16
17
Chair Riggs: Do I have a second for that motion? 18
19
SECOND 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Summa: I’ll second it. 2
3
Chair Riggs: Ok so the motion on the floor to prioritize Old Palo Alto first, Green Acres second 4
with some type of potential for intervention. I want to go back to Staff, is there an 5
enforcement-based intervention that is feasible or could there be some type of intermediary? 6
That’s a vague motion so is that actionable? 7
8
Mr. Tanda: Are you referring to enforcing the existing parking time limits? 9
10
Chair Riggs: Well I think what we heard from the public was a little different but I’m just asking 11
generally could we solve what appears to be a community outcry in a neighborhood that 12
necessarily wouldn’t prioritize? We have a motion on the floor that would prioritize one 13
neighborhood over another, both have acute issues. Can we address some of those acute issues 14
for… well really for both but particularly for the one that may or may not be a priority? 15
16
Commissioner Lauing: Yeah can I just clarify that by speaking to the motion? I think the Old 17
Palo Alto has been demonstrated visually in over the course of the months and years as being a 18
serious problem justifying the study to do an RPP. Because we have to prioritize these, we 19
make the other one second but there might a much quicker, more simple efficient workaround. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
So that you don’t have to go through eight more months of studying the RPP with a much more 1
efficient single solution so that’s what’s contained in the motion. 2
3
Chair Riggs: Ok so hold on, I think we… I asked Staff question and I think Mr.… Chair… 4
Commissioner Lauing might want some clarification. 5
6
Mr. Tanda: Ok I think the question was can we have almost selective enforcement for those 7
who don’t live within the area to enforce the regulations and for those who do to cut them 8
some slack. I don’t know about the City of Palo Alto but in all the other jurisdictions that I’ve 9
been involved in as a Director of Transportation, the answer would be no. Please… would not 10
do that and I don’t think how… see how that could be done. If I didn’t answer your question 11
because that’s the way I heard it, that there be some kind of special [unintelligible] 12
enforcement it’s a… I guess the best term would be that’s problematic. 13
14
Commissioner Lauing: That’s not it at all. 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: Ok, can I try? 17
18
[many Commissioners started speaking at once] 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Lauing: I mean that’s just not it at all. What we’re saying is if we have to 1
prioritize these as one and two, one to me is terribly obvious and we should get on with it. The 2
second one I think has a simpler solution that won’t take seven months to do an RPP study 3
when we probably don’t need an RPP but has to figure out the proper way to do that. 4
5
Chair Riggs: Alright so I want us to be… we have a couple other comments. I want us to be really 6
disciplined in this discussion because we’re talking about something that is peripheral to the 7
agenda. Now with your add on of the motion that is specifically not our purpose. We are to 8
prioritize these two things so these additional solutions we’re talking about, that you’ve 9
embedded into your motion, they are… they may or may not be actionable and they are not 10
apart of what we’ve been tasked with tonight. So, I want to make that clear but so I have 11
Commissioner Summa and then Commissioner Alcheck or Vice-Chair Alcheck. 12
13
Commissioner Summa: Yeah just wanting to speak to my second. I do think that Old Palo Alto 14
has clearly demonstrated a problem for years now so they should be number one. I do think 15
that… I do think it behooves us to suggest that there might be an easier solution for what’s 16
going on in Green Acres and actually, not everyone spoke in favor of the RPP role out there. 17
And at the risk of bothering… irritating the Chair, I think you could actually give everybody in 18
that area who wanted a residential sticker… a residential… anybody who felt they were being 19
impacted by the school parking and just let them have a sticker. The police are apparently going 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
out already and enforcing the 9:00 to 10:00 so it doesn’t seem to add any cost to the City; 1
virtually the cost of a sticker. So, I just wanted to add that and I did… I also wanted to say that I 2
do think there… that Commissioner Lauing meant some sort of pilot to get a quicker solution in 3
Old Palo Alto. And I think that might be good because you could get some real information 4
including how far the creep might be and who was going to be impacted by having the program 5
in those seven blocks. So, I just wanted to lend some support to that creative suggestion. 6
7
Chair Riggs: Commissioner Alcheck [note- Vice-Chair Alcheck] and I will challenge my 8
Commissioners, we… I do want to take a vote on this motion on the floor but if you have any 9
dialog in terms of the process. We heard a lot from the community about process, I think that 10
would be a good time to add any thoughts you had for Staff in terms of specific aspects of the 11
process that they should pay attention too in terms of pursuing the RPP. 12
13
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Ok so I’ll make these comments in the hopes that they might lead to a 14
slight adjustment of the motion. This is not the motion I would have made. I think we should 15
recommend that the RPP process begins in Old Palo Alto. I think we should recognize that we 16
created this RPP process simply because the demand for RPP has become extreme and if we… 17
we’ve barely gone through the process we’ve created a few times. So, if we’re already fast-18
tracking… we need to create consistency because we’re going to see more and more of these 19
applications and I think it’s not unreasonable for the City to create a timeline that... for 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
anything to happen less than a year in the City. And I know you’ve begun working on this before 1
tonight but for this recommendation to lead to a potential permit program that might begin in 2
November does not… or October does not seem like a significant period of time. So, I think we 3
should be cautious about tossing into the bin this system that we’ve only just essentially create. 4
5
I also think that we’re being a little bit naive in suggesting a pilot program because we’re talking 6
about signage that needs to get made and enforcing a process that has to be made and it’s not 7
that simple. We’ve been through this process in other neighborhoods and it takes significant 8
time and resources allocation. I think that if Staff doesn’t speak to that then they should 9
because it’s an unrealistic suggest to assume it would take… that this could be done faster. 10
11
And I also think that with respect to Green Acres you have a program, there is a parking 12
restricted program. Maybe it’s not an RPP but a program was put in place by Council and I’m 13
curious to at least hear Staff’s thoughts. Do you think it would be unreasonable if or do you 14
think it would be somehow outside of the normal order of business if Council immediately 15
amended that at the next meeting that they have? It seems to me that they have the authority 16
to do that and I’m guessing that they didn’t anticipate the pain that’s being experienced by the 17
program they’ve put in place. So, for Green Acres, it seems like they need to amend what’s 18
already there as opposed to begin a new RPP which is why I think we should have a separate 19
motion recommending that Council consider amending it and including some sort of hang tag 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
process. Similar to what you have in Crescent Park, for example, the overnight parking ban is a 1
2-hour parking ban. I don’t know if you would call it an RPP but from 2:00 to 5:00 in the 2
morning you can’t park in Crescent Park anywhere except if you have a hang tag. So, that exact 3
same program could be implemented in Green Acres which is to say if you have this hang tag 4
then you can park in front of your house form 9:00 to 10:00. So, it seems entirely possible that 5
Council could make that adjustment to the existing program. 6
7
I don’t know that I heard tonight that this group wants to be annexed and so piloting an annex… 8
and I also understood that maybe there are concerns that by including this other… what are we 9
calling that? This other community that has its own concerns, that that might raise issues for 10
that… we may be broadening the entire number of people who may want to comment on an 11
annexation. So, I think we can make this simpler, I doubt Council will expedite this and say go 12
ahead put some signs up, let’s pilot it until November. It’s just (interrupted) 13
14
Chair Riggs: I think there’s a point of clarification on the motion because I didn’t understand 15
Commissioner Lauing’s motion. Commissioner Lauing, I took it as a simple prioritization in that 16
you are ideating on the pilot process. Is that correct? 17
18
Commissioner Lauing: Exactly. The essence of the motion doesn’t disagree with that 19
Commissioner Alcheck [note – Vice-Chair Alcheck] just said. It’s just a motion to move forward 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
on priority one. The Chair said we had to act on priority two so I said we’ll include that but if we 1
can look at more efficient ways, which is what he just said, then that would be a way to get 2
around it faster. 3
4
Chair Riggs: Ok so a motion on the floor. I have Commissioner Templeton would like to make 5
some comments. 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: Could you clarify what the program was that Commissioner Alcheck 8
or Vice-Chair Alcheck just referred to in Crescent Park? 9
10
Ms. Star-Lack: So, I’m not normally the parking person but there is a no overnight parking 11
restriction in Crescent Park that (interrupted) 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: Do you know what the turnaround time was on that? 14
15
Ms. Star-Lack: I don’t. 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: It was rather quick, yeah. The reason I ask is just to make sure that 18
we’re communicating clearly to Staff that we want to see quick solutions, interim mitigations, 19
and we do… I think many of us… all of us here want to see you have the time to do the studies 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
that you need to do for a long-term program as well. So, with that, I support the prioritization 1
of Old Palo Alto one and Green Acres two with the caveat that I would love to see some kind of 2
community meeting with Staff to brainstorm solutions as soon as possible for Green Acres. 3
Thank you. 4
5
VOTE 6
7
Chair Riggs: Do I have any other comments from my fellow Commissioners? So, I have a couple 8
additional comments on the process. I think we heard from the public that there… this should 9
be conducted in the school year as we heard from you and I think that was… that should be a 10
part of the process. We did hear concerns about spillover and think that needs to be apart of 11
the analysis in terms of the appropriate walk or bike [unintelligible] from Cal Ave. It sounds like 12
in particularly Old Palo Alto that there’s an openness to Business Permits and that’s a really 13
creative approach and I think that we should look at a creative alternative for pricing that might 14
benefit this in terms of the benefits district. It potentially could go for more community assets 15
in this area and I think that’s all the comments I have in terms of process. Any other comments 16
in terms of the process from Commissioners? Ok, so I’d like to call a vote. All in favor? Any 17
opposed? Motion carries 5-0 with two abstaining. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
MOTION PASSED 5(Lauing, Alcheck, Riggs, Templeton, Summa)-0-2(Roohparvar and Waldfogel 1
recused) 2
3
Chair Riggs: Thank you all for being here. 4
5
Vice-Chair Alcheck: I’d like to make a second motion. 6
7
Chair Riggs: Ok yeah so Commissioner Alcheck [note -Vice-Chair Alcheck]. 8
9
MOTION #2 10
11
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Yeah so, I would also move that we recommend that Council address what 12
appears to be a mistake with the 1-hour parking restriction in Green Acres and direct Staff to 13
replicate the Crescent Park parking restriction exclusion with a hang tag permit that residents 14
could purchase. I would make that recommendation that Council consider that at the next… at 15
this… when they review this item, I would recommend that they consider it when they review 16
this item. Regardless of whether or not they want to start an RPP because it doesn’t seem like 17
addressing that issue would necessarily undermine an RPP process if they deemed that that 18
was also a good idea. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Summa: I’ll second. 1
2
Chair Riggs: Ok wait, wait, so I would like the motion to be repeated in two sentences. 3
4
MOTION #2 RESTATED 5
6
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Where you place a period is really subjective. I would recommend that 7
Council approve an exception to the parking restriction in Green Acres for Green Acres 8
residents. That is similar to the hang tag exception that is currently in place at Crescent Park to 9
accommodate the pain regardless of whether or not they decide to implement an RPP process 10
for the interim. 11
12
Chair Riggs: And second? 13
14
SECOND 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: I’d like to second that. 17
18
Mr. Tanda: Mr. Chair? 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Riggs: Ok, yes sir? 1
2
Mr. Tanda: Yes, I think it’s a very creative idea but I’d like to ask the City Attorney if we can 3
even consider a motion like that since it’s not duly noted in the report that is public. 4
5
Chair Riggs: I believe we can make a recommendation that Council considers it. That’s within 6
our purview. 7
8
Mr. Yang: Yeah, I think it’s within the scope of this discussion. Thanks. 9
10
Chair Riggs: Motion on the floor, do we have any discussion on the motion? 11
12
Commissioner Lauing: Just a question, so is your intent Commissioner Alcheck [note- Vice-Chair 13
Alcheck] to basically move this directly to Council for consideration as opposed to have Staff 14
consider it? Is that the primary intent? 15
16
Vice-Chair Alcheck: I’m suggesting that at whatever meeting this item is heard at, that 17
following weekday, that following… however soon the resident could purchase a hang tag pass 18
that would exempt them from that restriction. So, that whoever’s citing these cars can stop 19
should take place so yeah, I’m suggesting that just as they, I assume, initiated this program 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
from the dais outside of an RPP process they can amend this item from the dais without an RPP 1
process. 2
3
Chair Riggs: I think I’m seeing Staff squirm because they don’t know how they’re going to do 4
this. [unintelligible](interrupted) 5
6
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Look, all I’m suggesting is that the Staff report includes this 7
recommendation and then when Council reviews it may be the community members will say 8
we really like that recommendation that the Commission gave you. Can you please address this 9
regardless whether you start an RPP process and the Council can make that determination on 10
the spot? It’s not complicated. The Staff does not need to create the program, they can just 11
allow the Council to review the concept and decided whether or not they want to direct Staff to 12
do it. 13
14
Chair Riggs: Alright Commissioner Alcheck, Commissioner Summa has a comment. 15
16
FRIENDLY AMENDMENT #1 17
18
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Summa: I think it’s a little prescriptive to tell Staff when they should present it to 1
Council. I think we should leave that open. Staff has already told us, we know how short Staffed 2
they are so I think if you just take that prescriptive timing off, the motion is improved. 3
4
Vice-Chair Alcheck: The only prescription was that it be with this item. So, when they review an 5
RPP for the area then they should review this [unintelligible](interrupted) 6
7
Chair Riggs: Alright Commissioner Alcheck [note-Vice-Chair Alcheck] the motions on the floor, 8
we have a second, if there’s no other discussion from the rest of the Commissioners I think we 9
should… oh, Commissioner Templeton, do you have another comment? 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: I just have a quick question, does it need… it does need to go to 12
Council to make any changes to that program? 13
14
Mr. Tanda: Yes. In fact, what you’re saying I think is that one or more of these requests be 15
exempted from the existing City Council policy on how you’d evaluate and ultimately approve 16
an RPP. 17
18
Vice-Chair Alcheck: What I’m suggesting is that Council initiated a parking program, a parking 19
restriction program, and they also are the sole entity in this community that can amend it. And 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.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
don’t think that we should go through an entire RPP process simply to correct this one mistake 1
in the current parking program. So that’s all I’m suggesting. Actually, all I’m suggesting is that 2
they consider it, that we think they ought to consider fixing this 9:00 to 10:00 citation issue. 3
4
Chair Riggs: Commissioner Templeton. 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: I think we should… I’m in favor of making the amendment that 7
Commissioner Summa suggested. I don’t know if it was formalized as an amendment but to 8
take the time restriction out of the motion and just include this with the recommendation. 9
10
FRIENDLY AMENDMENT #1 FAILED 11
12
Vice-Chair Alcheck: I guess I’m not clear, I don’t have a time restriction. All I’m suggesting is if 13
when they hear out other motion that we made tonight about prioritizing RPPs, that’s the same 14
time they should hear this one. I’m not suggesting at the next meeting; I mean at the next time 15
they see this stuff they should also hear this recommendation. It’s pretty simple. 16
17
Chair Riggs: So, I guess I’m going to take Chair’s prerogative, we need to vote on this item. I’m 18
strongly… I’m not supportive of this. I think it conflates to the prioritization. Clearly, this dialog 19
will be embedded in this… in our dialog. A second priority is a second priority. We have limited 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Staff resources. This is extremely hard to action… this is not actionable for Staff so I think it’s a 1
great and admirable suggestion but it’s really beyond what our scope is but (interrupted) 2
3
Vice-Chair Alcheck: (off mic) Can I respond to that real quick? 4
5
Chair Riggs: Happily. 6
7
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Right here’s what I’m suggesting. When you create an RPP Program you 8
need signage, you need to determine your hours, you need to determine how much you’re 9
going to charge for permits that exempt people, you have to figure out enforcement. There is a 10
parking program in place already in this Gunn High School perimeter that is being enforced, 11
that has a citation amount, and people know it. The signs are there so it’s already in place and I 12
can tell you from prior experience that they resolved the Crescent Park situation virtually 13
completely informally in conjunction with the City Manager and then-Mayor Scharff’s review. 14
So, to me the notion that we couldn’t create some accommodation for residents so that they’re 15
not literally ticketed for using the very space that the City was attempting to help them use 16
seems crazy. So, I’m not being prescriptive, I’m not trying to be insulting, I just think that the 17
Council could address this issue. And in a full-blown RPP Program, not even as a second priority, 18
seems… maybe Council will find that irrelevant but they can still solve this citation issue today 19
or when they hear this item. That’s all I’m suggesting. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Riggs: Any other comments? Ok, call the question. All in favor? All opposed? Motion 2
doesn’t carry; 2-3-0 3
4
MOTION #2 FAILED 2(Alcheck, Templeton)-3(Lauing, Riggs, Summa)-2 (Roohparvar and 5
Waldfogel recused) 6
7
Chair Riggs: Any other comments on this item? 8
9
Mr. Hirsch: Just for the record (interrupted) 10
11
Chair Riggs: Yeah, a quick comment. I’m sorry the public hearing is closed if you’d like to 12
comment on another item (interrupted) 13
14
Mr. Hirsch: I have one bit of information that may respond to Commissioner Alcheck’s [note- 15
Vice-Chair Alcheck] 16
17
Chair Riggs: I’m sorry sir the hearing is closed so if you want to talk offline you can. 18
19
Mr. ??: Ok. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Riggs: Thanks Mr. Hirsch, appreciate it. Commissioner Summa. 2
3
Commissioner Summa: I’m very sympathetic with solving the problem in Green Acres as quickly 4
as possible and I don’t think the answer is a full RPP. And I think the way the Newell Bridge 5
problem and Crescent Park parking problem is the residents went and spoke to Council and 6
Council fixed it overnight. And I think that’s maybe a better process here, is for the residents to 7
go to Council. 8
9
Chair Riggs: Thank you, any other comments? 10
11
Mr. Yang: Yeah, just for the record who… which Commissioner seconded the first motion? 12
Great thank you. 13
14
Chair Riggs: Ok that concludes this item. 15
16
Commissioner Summa: [unintelligible – off mic] 17
18
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Riggs: I think that concludes this item. I think we’re going to… can we take about a 10-1
minute break? Alright, so we’re going to take about a 10-minute break before we take up Item 2
Number Three which is a quasi-judicial hearing of 1700 and 1730 Embarcadero Road. 3
4
[the Commission took a 10-minute break] 5
6
Commission Action: 7
3. PUBLIC HEARING / QUASI-JUDICIAL. 1700 & 1730 Embarcadero Road [18PLN-00186]: 8
Recommendation on Applicant’s Request for Approval of 1) Zoning Amendment to 9
Change the Zoning of the Site From CS(D) and PC to CS(D)(AD) and 2) Site and Design 10
Review and a Design Enhancement Exception to Allow the Demolition of an Existing 11
18,000 Square Foot Vacant Restaurant Building and a 15,700 Square Foot Audi 12
Service Building and the Construction of a Two-Story 84,900 Square Foot Automobile 13
Dealership That Combines two Brands (Mercedes/Audi). Environmental Assessment: 14
An Initial Study/Mitigated Negative Declaration was Circulated for Public Comment 15
From March 15, 2019 to April 22, 2019. Zoning Districts: CS(D) & PC-4846. For More 16
Information Contact the Project Planner Sheldon S. Affordable housing Sing at 17
sahsing@m-group.us 18
19
Chair Riggs: It’s 8:19 and we’re going to be cognizant of time so thank you all for being here. If 20
you’re still talking, we need to continue our meeting so you’re… we’ve got a great place to sit 21
right out here out front. 22
23
Alright, so we’re… our third item of the evening is a quasi-judicial item at 1700 and 1730 24
Embarcadero Road. A recommendation on an applicant’s request for approval of the Zoning 25
Amendment to change the zoning site form CS(D) to PC and PC (2) to CS(D)(AD), and a Site and 26
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Design Review, and Design Enhancement Exception to allow for the demolition of the current 1
1,800-square foot building and vacant restaurant building. As well a 1,500-square foot Audi 2
service building and construction of a two-story 84,000-square foot automobile dealership. The 3
Mitigated Negative Declaration was circulated for public comment and it was available from 4
March until April… March 15th until April 22nd. Is that a typo? 5
6
Mr. Jonathan Lait, Director of Planning: Maybe. 7
8
Chair Riggs: And I think before we have public comment, we have a presentation from Staff. 9
10
Mr. Lait: Maybe even before that if want to… because it’s quasi-judicial if you want to just go 11
down the line and see if there’s (interrupted) 12
13
Chair Riggs: Ok, do you want to do that first? 14
15
Mr. Lait: Sure. 16
17
Chair Riggs: Ok so let’s… given that I started on the left this last time I’ll start on the right. Oh, 18
no I did start on the right last… I can’t remember. So, let’s start with Commissioner Waldfogel. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Waldfogel: No conflict and no communication with any of the parties. 1
2
Commissioner Summa: No communication. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: Nothing to declare, no communication, no conflict. 5
6
Chair Riggs: Vice-Chair Alcheck? 7
8
Vice-Chair Alcheck: No disclosure. 9
10
Commissioner Roohparvar: No disclosure. 11
12
Commissioner Lauing: No disclosures. 13
14
Chair Riggs: And no disclosures for me either. 15
16
Mr. Lait: Great, thanks Chair. We’ll have Sheldon Ah Sing our contract planner who’s been 17
managing this project present a report. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Sheldon Ah Sing: Yes, thank you and good evening Commissioners. So, to start it off with a 1
site context, give you familiar with the area. The project does include two separate parcels as 2
something to think about, it’s not just one parcel. They are not planning on merging the parcels 3
so two parcels will remain separate. We’ll have two separate buildings. Subject parcels are 4
located within the Baylands Master Plan area and actually within the private Baylands area. This 5
outie site, which is 1730 Embarcadero site, actually is adjacent to the Baylands Reserve Area 6
and is most visible from the Renzel Trail. In the areas characterized by low-intensity type of 7
buildings with large setbacks. To be of note that these are two parcels that would be CS zoned. 8
The Honda dealership next door is PS zoned so that would also be a commercially zoned 9
property but the others in the area and would be and remain manufacturing office type of 10
buildings. It is near 101 but also you can’t see the property from 101 and it is also within the 11
vicinity of the airport. 12
13
As articulated earlier our projects request some of those would be under the purview of this 14
Commission. That would be the Zoning Amendment for the two parcels as well as a Site and 15
Design Review that would also include a stop with the ARB and we’re planning on going there 16
next week with this project. And then you have the Design Enhancement Exception, that is with 17
the ARB and the City Council. That includes exceptions to the build to lines setback that comes 18
along with the CS District as well as the parking lot tree shading requirement. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
So, this is the site plan of the project. We do want to highlight the 8-foot easement, that’s a big 1
constraint for the site. It is actually for the PG&E overhead powerlines as well as the City does 2
have underground storm drain easement there. So, that really dictates the placement of the 3
building on that site. That site currently has a former restaurant that would be demolished and, 4
in its place, would have the Mercedes Bends Dealership; that would be Phase One. The second 5
phase would be to retain the existing Audi showroom which is a relatively new building and 6
demolish the service building behind it and have a new service building in its places along with 7
the detached carwash. 8
9
So, the ARB did ask the applicants to look at orienting the showroom so it’s not along 10
Embarcadero but taking advantage of that set back along East Bayshore. The applicant did look 11
at that throughout their design. And their primary customers would be coming from 12
Embarcadero and the frontage for the other two dealerships there also take their frontage off 13
of Embarcadero. So, there’s… it makes more sense for the dealer and their site operations to 14
orient their building towards Embarcadero rather than Bayshore. 15
16
So, these are some of the project perspectives for the project and the two buildings. When we 17
went to the ARB previously, they had mentioned to provide a pallet that was more consistent 18
with the Baylands. So, you have much more muted colors, khakis, and a little bit of white in 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
there. They also have to retain some of the brandings for the dealership so that’s why you have 1
some of the darker colors to a limited extent. 2
3
So, one of the things that we’ve been discussing with the applicant is the rear of the project as 4
that is most adjacent to the Baylands. Recently they did add some flow through planters that 5
are attached to the rear façade of the building. We’re thinking, Staff’s perspective, that it would 6
be better to add more vegetation there. We’ve provided some examples of that so we do have 7
a Condition of Approval to enhance that elevation and we’ll see how that goes as we work 8
through the process. 9
10
This is a table that describes the floor area and the Floor Area Ratio. Dealerships have a base of 11
.4:1 Floor Area Ratio and a bonus of .2:1 for the showroom space. This describes how the 12
project meets that. In the Staff report, we did mention the project did have some updated 13
plans to reflect the true floor area and those are depicted in these plans that we’re showing 14
here. The purple area is the dealership square footage and then pink or in this case it looks like 15
a light purple actually is the showroom space. So, the project does include an automated 16
vehicle stacking system where they are in the floors and so this place is kind of akin to say 17
you’re in a Costco where you have high pile storage. You’re only going to count really that first 18
floor and above it, the volume space would just have merchandise or in this case cars kind of 19
stacked in the machine. So, the benefits of this system is that you don’t have a large parking lot 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
around a building. And so, given the sensitivity of the area in the Baylands probably the tradeoff 1
there is to have everything kind of more internalized with respect to having cars out in parking 2
lot having it internalized in the building. And this is the floor area for the Audi, again that… the 3
Audi showroom would remain and then beyond that would be a new building that would 4
include more of the service components for the project. 5
6
So, something for you guys to consider is a Site and Design Review and the Findings and to 7
ensure that the construction, operation use, and manner will be orderly. To ensure desirability 8
of the investment, ensure the sound principle of environmental design, ensure that these are in 9
accordance with the City’s Comprehensive Plan. Along with that you’ll be also making a 10
recommendation of the zone change and that the pros of the amendment is in the public’s 11
interest. So, by adding the AD Combining District allows for a dealership operation to apply the 12
unique development standards that are provided for dealerships and the change to CS from the 13
PC Zoning provides that consistency in the area. 14
15
So, the key issues here we have aesthetics and compatibility, consistency with the Baylands and 16
also the Mitigated Negative Declaration. As I mentioned before the project will include an 17
integrated sale, service, inventory, customer parking. And I mentioned the AD Combine District 18
allows for that extra floor room space for the showroom and the building is horizontal in nature 19
and use and design and it includes muted colors consistent with the Baylands Master Plan. And 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
some of those same principles apply with the consistency with the Master Plan with the 1
condition that there be lighting addressed for any spillover and also having a condition 2
regarding the re-elevation [note – sounds like] of the buildings, having more vegetation. 3
4
And right now, we have the environmental document in circulation. If you have any questions 5
on that we do have the environmental consultant here as well as the traffic consultant for that 6
document. Some of the potential impacts are the impacts to biological resources, cultural 7
resources, geologic and soils, as well as noise and transportation. And the document is being 8
circulated through April 22nd so we haven’t received any comments, particularly on that 9
document just yet. 10
11
We have however received some comments from the public on just the project itself regarding 12
the car wash. It’s adjacency with the building next and so we do have these cross sections here 13
that show the relationship there, the distance. There are mitigation measures regarding the 14
noise so when the project does get built, we would be able to address that. Stormwater and 15
that has been addressed in the plans recently. FAR, as I mentioned, we did address those in the 16
updated plans and there was a comment about the fence between the two properties and that 17
was cleared up as well. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
So next steps is to complete the circulation of the environmental document, respond to any 1
comments that we have, we’re going to the ARB next week, they will recommend on the 2
architectural review and DEE, and then after that will be a City Council meeting which we are 3
targeting the end of June. So, with that, we recommend that the City Council adoption of the 4
Mitigated Negative Declaration, approval of the Zoning Amendment and Site and Design 5
Review for the project subject to conditions. I’d be happy to answer any questions you may 6
have, thank you. 7
8
Chair Riggs: Thank you very much. Any questions from my Commissioners? Commissioner 9
Templeton. 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: Hi, thank you for your presentation. Regarding the environmental 12
item on the list, I notice that your design has a lot of large plate glass windows and I’ve worked 13
in some buildings in Palo Alto with those. And we had a lot of stunned birds and things like that 14
and worse. Given the location on the Baylands with all the birds that are migrating through that 15
space, does part of your design have any mitigation for dealing with the plate glass and the 16
birds? 17
18
Mr. Ah Sing: So, the architect has included on the plans the bird safe glazing. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Templeton: Excellent, that’s wonderful, and then the other question that I had 1
was about the bike path, it’s going to cause the removal of some trees. Do you want to say 2
anything more about that or like why did you feel that was the right trade-off? 3
4
Mr. Ah Sing: Let me bring that back to just the site plans and see what’s happening there. That 5
was a suggestion from City Staff to include the bike path as an essential connection. In that 6
area, there’s a lot of people that use bicycles. 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: I get the bike path, yeah. 9
10
Mr. Ah Sing: And so, in doing so the trees are along that East Bayshore. The street trees are 11
actually located on the property and there’s a conflict with (interrupted) 12
13
Mr. Lait: Yeah if I can just interrupt? So, I think Commissioner that’s exactly why we’re 14
presenting it to you, the Commission, for consideration. There’s clearly a tradeoff (interrupted) 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: Oh ok. 17
18
Mr. Lait: And we’re… we’ve worked with the transportation office and the applicant to see if a 19
bike path could be accommodated here. We think it achieves the objectives of the Bike/Ped 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Plan but we recognize that there’s the removal of I think 11 trees; mature trees. That clearly 1
will have an impact on that sort of local environment so we’re asking the Commission to help us 2
to solve that. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: Excellent, well I’m really excited about the bike path idea but was 5
wondering if it… if you were able to have an alternative design that didn’t remove the trees? 6
7
Mr. Ah Sing: Yeah, I mean we looked at various options. One was going through the parking lot 8
and just for security reasons, I think the applicant didn’t want to do that. But there’s… on the 9
street there wasn’t any room to do anything different and the limitations that PG&E has, they 10
only allow vegetation to be at a limit of 15-feet so you can’t get really good canopy in that area. 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: I see, ok that’s great, thank you for that information and then the 13
final question I had was about the proposal you had for the roundabout. Is that something we 14
will be discussing as well? I didn’t see it in the presentation so? 15
16
Mr. Ah Sing: Yeah, I mean that’s one of the mitigations for the project’s accumulative impacts, 17
long terms impacts but the projects obligations would be to pay the City’s Traffic Impact Fee. 18
19
Commissioner Templeton: Ah ok. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Mr. Ah Sing: And that would be their… that would be their fair share contribution to that. They 2
have a near term improvements that they have to do but that’s just striping and that’s detailed 3
in the document. 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: Ok. 6
7
Chair Riggs: And I’ll remind Commissioners, we do have a presentation from the applicant as 8
well so if you (interrupted) 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: Ok, thanks. 11
12
Mr. Lait: Yeah, I’m not sure (interrupted) 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: I didn’t realize that. 15
16
Mr. Lait: I don’t think there’s any formal presentation. I think the applicant is here to answer 17
any questions that you have but you do have members of the public (interrupted) 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Riggs: Ok so any other comments and then we need to open up a public hearing. Ok, I 1
have a question actually, the… was a separate ingress and egress or not using the 2
ingress/egress on Bayshore explored as part of the Circulation Study? 3
4
Mr. Ah Sing: Yeah so, you’re speaking to the one driveway that’s off of Bayshore? 5
6
Chair Riggs: That’s correct. 7
8
Mr. Ah Sing: And what was your question, I’m sorry? 9
10
Chair Riggs: Was it… was not having that ingress or egress explored? That’s a… that’s probably 11
the most congested thoroughfare in and around this intersection. Was that… removing that 12
ingress and egress from the site explored? 13
14
Mr. Ah Sing: Yeah, I think we’d have to have the applicant and as well as we could have our 15
traffic consultant look at that but (interrupted) 16
17
Chair Riggs: Ok that’d be great. 18
19
Mr. Ah Sing: Perhaps (interrupted) 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Riggs: We can talk… we can hear from them then. Any other questions? 2
3
Commissioner Waldfogel: One question. 4
5
Chair Riggs: Commissioner Waldfogel. 6
7
Commissioner Waldfogel: Just a quick question, could you just spend a minute describing the 8
history of the zoning on this parcel? 9
10
Ms. Jodie Gerhardt, Manager of Current Planning: Yes, so thank you, Jodie Gerhardt, Manager 11
of Current Planning. So, we do… this site had been Ming’s Restaurant for many, many years. 12
That goes back to the late ’60s and when… before Ming’s when in the property was zoned LM 13
with a D Overlay. And so then in the late 60’s it was rezoned to Planned Community and that 14
was to allow the restaurant and it’s been that until current. And now it’s being requested to 15
change to CS with the AD Overlay and the D Site and Design Overlay as well. 16
17
Commissioner Waldfogel: (off mic) What’s the current zoning? 18
19
Chair Riggs: Commissioner Waldfogel, could you use your mic, please. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Waldfogel: No, just a point of clarification, isn’t the Ming’s parcel CS today? 2
3
Mr. Ah Sing: Yeah, the Ming’s is already designated CS because of the prior hotel proposal that 4
was there. 5
6
Commissioner Waldfogel: [unintelligible – off mic] 7
8
Chair Riggs: Seeing no other lights I’d like to open the public hearing and I want to give the 9
applicant, Mr. Hutson, a chance to speak or any of his representatives. 10
11
Mr. Lyle Hutson: Good evening Commissioners, my name is Lyle Hutson, I represent the project 12
as the project architect. We’re here tonight as a process that we’ve been going through in this 13
City to bring upon this new dealership. The Audi is already existing, the proposed Mercedes 14
dealership would be a new facility, and the struggle has been to integrate this into the 15
community and into an area where we have a huge easement that we’ve been dealt with. And 16
our solution has been pretty innovative in that we are keeping… if you look at this, this doesn’t 17
look like most dealership with the sea of cars out in front. And we’re keeping 100 percent of 18
our inventory inside the building in a car delivery system and storage system for new vehicles 19
and so I just wanted to highlight that. We did have a short movie if maybe Sheldon you could 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
play that because I think it’s important to understand how the internals of this building work 1
and how it’s related to the outside of the facility and the circulation on site. This is real quick as 2
it relates to the parking system. So, vehicles would be offloaded on site not out in the street. 3
They’d be tagged, they’d be put into the system inside the showroom, they’d be logged in, 4
they’d be scanned for their tag making sure that no one was in the space, that space would 5
then close up and deliver that car to its parking space. And we’ve… the numbers have been a 6
little bit different, back and forth, but we have some 300 to 400 cars stacked inside; 300 cars 7
inside. When a salesman wants to retrieve a vehicle he’ll go to the kiosk… he or she will go to 8
the kiosk, identify a vehicle, select which model, select which options, it will match up with a 9
vehicle if it’s in inventory, that car will be selected, and it will then be retrieved by the system 10
and delivered to the same bay that you saw the cars get delivered into if their being input into 11
the system. These… all of these slots are going to be… have EV charge capability as we move 12
forward so that’s also integrated into this proposal. That these vehicles be able to be EV 13
charged as well while they’re sitting waiting for to be purchased. So anyway, I wanted 14
everybody to see that real quickly so that it kind of gives a little bit of an insight of how this 15
system works along with the building. And I can certainly answer any questions as it relates to 16
the building and process. So, with that thank, you very much, appreciate it. 17
18
Chair Riggs: I think there are a couple questions from the Commissioners. Commissioner 19
Alcheck [note-Vice-Chair Alcheck]. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Yeah, I’m just curious, is this a first of kind facility? 2
3
Mr. Hutson: Yes, it is. There are… this system… this type of system is used quite extensively in 4
residential applications but never that we’re aware of any retail environment; a retail sales 5
environment. 6
7
Vice-Chair Alcheck: So, first dealership in the states or maybe even abroad. 8
9
Mr. Hutson: That’s absolutely true. 10
11
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Wow. 12
13
Mr. Hutson: Now you’ve seen the car stacking… Carvana maybe systems that are displaying 14
vehicles and have a few of them but this is a true retail environment where it’s utilized within 15
the facility both for offloading the cars and storing the new inventory. Not to mention the fact 16
that it’s going to help keep car off of the… from the outside and the elements. They stay clean, 17
they stay dry, they stay as nice as we can keep them until they are ready to be delivered. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Riggs: Any other questions from Commissioners for the applicant or the applicant’s 1
consultant? 2
3
Commissioner Waldfogel: [unintelligible – off mic] 4
5
Chair Riggs: We can, yeah. Alright, thank you, Mr. Hutson. So, without further ado, I’ll call on 6
the public and as before speak clearly and loudly and we look forward to hearing from you. 7
You’ll have 3-minutes and we’ll start with Mr. Stone and I’m going to… next up we will have… 8
and I’m… it’s very hard to read this, is Ms. Suzanne Keehn, is this correct? 9
10
Ms. Suzanne Keehn: [from the audience – off mic] Keehn, [unintelligible]. 11
12
Chair Riggs: Keehn, ok so if you could be ready after Mr. Stone. 13
14
Mr. Greer Stone: Good evening, my name is Greer Stone, I want to thank you for the 15
opportunity of being able to speak to you tonight. I first want to take note that a rezoning is a 16
purely discretionary action and fully within the purview of this Commission’s responsibility. You 17
have control in order to propose conditions on this proposed project and to bring it within the 18
spirit and letter of the Baylands Master Plan. The Baylands Master Plan includes an all-inclusive 19
list of zoning districts in the Baylands. Service Commercial, CS, is not among those listed. CS 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Zoning is the City’s more permissive commercial zone found along El Camino Real and San 1
Antonio Road. Palo Alto most intense commercial and developed areas. It was not intended for 2
or appropriate in the Baylands and it does not exist except for this one parcel. 1700 East 3
Bayshore was zoned CS to accommodate a hotel project that was not perused to competition. 4
The CS designation is a remnant of that unfortunate action. In that case, the CS Zoning was 5
applied to allow for a 2.0 FAR hotel. FAR which are exceeds the FAR of other parcels found in 6
the Baylands. CS in this location is spot zoning. Spot zoning is generally considered to be the 7
antithesis of land use planning. Courts have held that spot zoning includes situations which a 8
single parcel receives greater rights than those around it. Courts have further held that 9
determine whether spot zoning has taken place a court must apply a two-part analysis. First, 10
whether spot zoning actually occurred and then second whether the spot zoning serves the 11
public interest. Public interest is considered things like amenities as public parks, a school, etc. 12
so unless they plan to give every Palo Altan a free Mercedes or an Audi, I don’t see how this 13
really serves the public interest. So why go into this much detail at this time? Because there are 14
still issue with the CS Zoning as spot zoning allows great development than any other zoning in 15
the area. What is this Commission to do? Ideally, recommend that the zoning be changed to 16
ROLM(E) which also allows automobile services just as CS does and which is consistent with the 17
zoning in the area other than a few PC parcels. Is the zoning designation that’s been approved 18
for the ordinance development over time and appropriate to the Baylands? At a minimum 19
please do not recommend expansion of the CS Zoning to yet another parcel thus exacerbating 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
the spot zoning expansion of a commercial zoning district intend for El Camino and San Antonio 1
Road, not the Baylands. Such an action could be compared to increasing a nonconformity. 2
Thank you so much for your time. 3
4
Chair Riggs: Thank you, Mr. Stone. Ms. Keehn and then Mr. Holzmer. 5
6
Ms. Keehn: Yes, I too don’t feel like there should be any change in zoning. I think the Baylands is 7
a beautiful resource for our City and that anything that disturbs it like these lights. Maybe now 8
they have safety glasses… glass on them but it will still disturb migratory birds and be lighting 9
up the Baylands at night so it does change the whole tenor of that area. I think this spot zoning 10
is really, really wrong and I feel that the Baylands themselves should take priority here. So, I 11
really urge you not to change the zoning and to keep the Baylands intact and safe. It’s very 12
important for all of us to keep the livability in this City that we still have. Thank you. 13
14
Chair Riggs: Thank you, Ms. Keehn. Mr. Holzmer and then Ms. Vrhel. 15
16
Mr. Terry Holzmer: Good Evening Commissioners. I encourage you tonight to not make any 17
changes at all to the zoning at 1700 or 1730 Embarcadero. Even though the Staff report does 18
mention that 1700 Bayshore is within the City’s Baylands Master Plan I believe the report 19
neglects seriously and does not mention that the site is identified as a gateway, an important 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
gateway, to the Baylands. That designation to myself and more Palo Altans is extremely 1
important. As the City code on the site says… on the Site and Design Review states it is critical 2
that any development planned in an environmental or ecological area be compatible with those 3
areas. This building does not. I would encourage the Commission to review and follow the site 4
assessment and Design Guidelines that were established in the Palo Alto Baylands Native 5
Preserve… Nature Preserve that were developed in 2005. And those are intended to be used 6
when designing or reviewing projects located on any part of the Baylands, including projects 7
that are on privately held land as this is. In all honesty, this project which is truly massive and 8
out of place in this area of Palo Alto in one of our most important ecological areas. One would 9
be… putting this building there would be truly obscene and show that we aren’t conserved 10
about protecting our environment. And we should be more concerned about protecting the 11
Baylands, especially on that side of the freeway on 101. Thank you. 12
13
Chair Riggs: Ms. Vrhel and then Mr. Ross. 14
15
Ms. Rita Vrhel: Some of the previous speakers have already said some of the things that I was 16
going to say. You know I would encourage all of you to go out to the Baylands at night and see 17
as you drive down Embarcadero Road exactly how bright it is now with all the lights. The Audi 18
building which appears to be the only reference in this report to nearby structures is an 19
adnominally. It is not… it’s an exception, it is not the rule of what is out there. Most of what is 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
out there are kind of brown, low buildings that are set back and are truly respective… respectful 1
of this area’s wildness and unique landscape. This building will be brighter than the current 2
Audi building which is way too bright and you know it reminds me of do you remember when 3
the City Manager Jim Keene suggested that the City could make a million dollars a year by 4
having a jumbotron TV screen on the right side of 101. And everybody was absolutely shocked 5
and that idea went… was shot down very quickly. So, this is kind of like the jumbotron on the 6
left side of the freeway. It’s not appropriate. If you go up to… by Redwood City, you can see a 7
Mercedes building up there that is a lot of glass and is quite attractive but it’s not appropriate 8
for the Baylands. Please do not make zoning exception to make it so that you could build as 9
much as you can out there. Please do not see the Audi as what should be in the Baylands and 10
please don’t expand any building that you put in there. The building should not be rezoned as 11
far as you can build right up to the… to the… was it the site limit or something like that. There… 12
this should be a very attractive building, not a lot of glass, not a lot of lights. If they can do it 13
and not be rezoned and not ask for exceptions that’s fine but this is the Baylands and you know 14
what, it’s a very busy intersection also. Thank you very much. 15
16
Chair Riggs: Thank you, Ms. Vrhel. Mr. Ross and then Mr. Kumagai. 17
18
Mr. Ross: Good evening. The Staff report before you tonight is incomplete on both the land use 19
analysis basis and environmentally. On a land use analysis basis if you’re going to justify the 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
consistency of the zoning you can’t cherry pick elements of the Comprehensive Plan; land use 1
and design. You have to also look at things like conservation which incorporates the Baylands 2
provisions concerning conservation that aren’t analyzed in terms of General Plan consistency. I 3
would also respectfully suggest that the Mitigated Negative Declaration is insufficient as a 4
matter of law. A responsible agency for this project contrary to what’s represented in the Staff 5
report is the Santa Clara County Land Use… excuse me Airport Land Use Commission. 6
Specifically, it should be analyzed with respect to, on a land use basis and an environmental 7
basis, their report dated November 16th, 2016. This area, the project site, is within the flight 8
path for both runway 31 and runway 13. It’s within the height limitation area, all the parcel. The 9
point is they have jurisdiction as a matter of law. It should have been referred to them for their 10
comment. Is the environmental analysis adequate in either the land use or the conservation or 11
the public safety area? It isn’t even identified with respect to public safety. That has to be cured 12
before this project could go forward. 13
14
I would also question then the accuracy of the project description in the initial study. I don’t 15
think that the Floor Area Ratios are accurate. Period. There aren’t plans here as there should be 16
for this public hearing to verify that fact. Without an adequate project description, you don’t 17
have an adequate initial study, you don’t have an adequate environmental analysis. So, both on 18
a General Plan consistency basis you can’t cherry pick the elements with which this project is to 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
be consistent in a non-environmental basis. You need to have more information before you 1
make a decision. Thanks. 2
3
Chair Riggs: Thank you, Mr. Ross. Wayne Kuma… am I pronouncing your name…Kumagai? 4
5
Mr. Wayne Kumagai: Kumagai, that’s right. 6
7
Chair Riggs: Yeah, thank you. 8
9
Mr. Kumagai: Thank you. 10
11
Chair Riggs: And Mr. Hu after Mr. Kumagai. Thank you so much. 12
13
Mr. Kumagai: Yeah, hi I’m Wayne Kumagai, I’m a commercial real estate broker with Newmark 14
Commercial, formally Cornish and Carry, and I sold the building next door to the site 2479 East 15
Bayshore to the current owner about a year and a half ago. And everyone else here so far is 16
contesting the zoning and environmental concerns of the site which is vitally important. But my 17
concern is for my client and the potential devaluation of his building because of the proposed 18
plan and the… really the zero-setback adjacent to their property could really affect the value. 19
The car wash as you see up there on the top… bottom right of the site would back up very close 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
to the property line. Well actually on the property line so there’s a huge concern about the 1
noise and potential smell for the tenants in 2479. All the tenants in the building are professional 2
accountants, attorneys, software developers, so that could present an impact and the 3
desirability of renting the space in the building. 4
5
And also, we have concerns about the aesthetics from the rear of the building and just being an 6
eyesore when you look out from the second floor of our building. And I’m not sure how much 7
they're putting into the aesthetics of the back of the building compares to the front of the 8
building. 9
10
Additionally, we saw the video of the delivery system and I’m not sure how they’re going to 11
service the cars. If that’s going to be the same type of system and just the potential again noise 12
that could be carried through to the adjacent lot. So, those are our concerns and thank you for 13
your time. Bye. 14
15
Chair Riggs: Thank you, Mr. Hu, or sorry, thank you, Mr. Kumagai. Mr. Hu and then Mr. Borock. 16
17
Mr. Eric Hu: Good evening, I’m Eric Hu and I represent the owner of the building next door. And 18
actually, Mr. Kumagai mentioned some of the concerns we have, one of which is again the car 19
wash. We’re concerned that the noise and also potential pollution and wastewater coming out 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
from the car wash. Many of our tenants [unintelligible]… many of them are attorneys and also 1
start-up companies and some of them are not that easy to work with and they have a lot of 2
questions for us. And if we do not manage the property well and they would just… we’re 3
concerned there could be potential lawsuits would come out if we a car wash so close to the 4
building. 5
6
And another thing we have a concern for is the height of the building because it’s a lot taller 7
than our building and we’re concerned about the privacy and also the blocking the sunlight for 8
our building. 9
10
And also, currently, I think based on our evaluation is that the parking lot is also a lot higher 11
than our parking lot and we have a concern about the drainage and water coming out to our 12
side. So, I think these are all pretty much all of the concerns we have and thank you. Thank you 13
for your time. 14
15
Chair Riggs: Thank you, Mr. Hu. Herb Borock and then Jeff Levinsky and if there are any other 16
cards please get them in now. 17
18
Mr. Herb Borock: Chair Riggs and Commissioners I urge you to continue this public hearing 4-19
weeks until your meeting of April 24 which would be after the close of the comment period on 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
the Initial Study and Mitigated Negative Declaration. Closing the public hearing this evening or 1
taking an action this evening would be [unintelligible] abuse of discretion and a violation of the 2
California Environmental Quality Act. It would also be a violation of the Ralph M. Brown Act, the 3
state’s open meeting act. Tonight, you are being asked to make a recommendation after a 4
public hearing but if the public hasn’t had an adequate opportunity that’s provided by the 5
public comment period to review the Initial Study and Negative Declaration and to review the 6
project and its plans, you really can’t have a real public hearing. That’s why you should continue 7
this meeting until April 24th. 8
9
In addition, whenever a legislative body has an item on its agenda and is taking action on it, the 10
public needs and is entitled and it’s required to have available copies of the same documents 11
that you have. There are no plans available for anyone to look at who walks into this meeting. 12
There is no copy of the Initial Study and Mitigated Negative Declaration available for anyone 13
who walks into this meeting to look at. That’s a violation of both the California Environmental 14
Quality Act and the Ralph M. Brown Act. For all of those reasons, I urge you to continue the 15
public hearing until April 24th or a later date. Thank you. 16
17
Chair Riggs: Thank you, Mr. Borock. Mr. Levinsky and that’s the last comment card I have. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Levinsky: Ok I have a handout for the Commissioners so someone could help me with that, 1
that would be great. I wanted to talk tonight about how big this building is going to be. I asked 2
at the ARB hearing last year that the public be given and the Commissions be given information 3
on how big this building is relative to those nearby it. That wasn’t provided to you in any of the 4
documentation so I and David Bubenik went ahead and put this together using information 5
from the City and such documents as we could. And what this shows you is the relative size of 6
these buildings and you can see that the proposed Audi/Mercedes building is about three times 7
the size of the neighboring buildings that it’s adjacent too. Just to be clear I normalized this; the 8
parcels aren’t all quite the same size so I normalized this. So that’s what you’re looking at is as if 9
everybody were on the same Audi/Mercedes combined parcel so I have adjusted for that. It 10
says in the Staff report that the new building would be the largest… would not be the largest in 11
the vicinity and that the office building to the south is larger. I have no idea how the Staff 12
determined that. I’ve looked at every possible way I can think of; I looked at the floor area; I 13
look at the gross square footage; I looked at the height; I looked at the footprint of the building 14
and finally as this graph shows you, the volume of the building in cubic feet. And in all these 15
different measures the proposed building would be larger than the buildings around it. So, I 16
don’t think you were given accurate information about that. 17
18
A few years ago, a smaller project came to the Council, it was just for the Mercedes site and the 19
Council turned it down as being too large and out of scale for the Baylands. And in that case a 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
question came up, how do these things get so large? How is it can it be that these things are 1
subject to the same rules and yet they become so large? The answer is that these auto 2
dealerships buildings they mushroom in size because they get all kinds of special things. They 3
get to have an extra floor area for the showroom, they get to have high ceilings, 43-feet height 4
in this case, but one of the things that magically about this building is they’re not even counting 5
all of their floor area. And I’ve brought this here to demonstrate, this is kind of hard to hold it 6
up and show it but basically the second floor… there’s a second floor part of the stacker and 7
you actually saw it in the fly through and it’s not being counted as floor area at all as far as I can 8
tell and I’ve had discussions with City Staff about that as well. That makes this project… the 9
numbers you were given for the floor area for this project accurate. The project actually 10
exceeds its legal floor area and cannot be approved as is so I ask you to go… delve into that and 11
ask about why not all of the stacker areas is being counted as floor area. 12
13
Let’s see, finally… I know I’m going to run out of time but for decades our City planners have 14
kept giant buildings like this out of the Baylands. There’s no reason tonight to change a decade 15
old practice. Thank you. 16
17
Chair Riggs: Alright thank you. Mr. Hutson, would you like to have a chance for rebuttal? 18
19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Hutson: Good evening Commissioners again. The comments here tonight are certainly… we 1
can start with the glass and the Baylands. Certainly, the glass we’ve included bird strike glass in 2
all of the glass facades on this. Lower levels and upper levels and it matches what’s actually at 3
the Audi building next door. So very respectful of that and wanting to make sure that we’ve 4
spent a lot of time and a lot of effort on being a good neighbor to the Baylands and being a 5
good neighbor to neighboring buildings. The Baylands we took what the ARB said to heart 6
about colors, materials, and finishes. This is a four-sided building; we’re treating all the sides as 7
they’re just as important as the front and that includes finishes as well as landscape with the 8
flow through planters and even more landscape in addition to the trees all along the property 9
line neighboring the building. 10
11
The walkway and the path is a combined path and I think that’s something that we did a trade-12
off with the City. We were requested to give a part of our parcel to a combined pedestrian and 13
bike pathway which we did and that necessitated removing some trees. I would be happy to go 14
back to the original concept where we left all the trees in but did not accommodate any bike 15
path or pedestrian path. 16
17
To address the adjacent neighbor, we are true north to the neighbor so there wouldn’t be any 18
sun shading issues as it relates to our neighbor to the south of the office building. There is a 19
graphic I think that we had shown earlier as far as the distance from the building… the 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
neighbors building and the car wash. We’re… the car wash that’s there is not on the property 1
line, it’s very close and we’ve met with Staff to talk about mitigation measures for that. Now we 2
have a requirement not to exceed a decidable rating at the property line and we will comply 3
with that 100 percent… that’s… and we have some measures. To mitigate that depends on just 4
exactly which ones we had to do to make sure we’re not combining noise or providing noise 5
greater than the 70 decibels as required by the City code. Additionally, with the neighbor there 6
was a mention about wastewater, this is full reclaimed water. We can’t have water running on 7
the site or anywhere else. This is 100 percent recycled water for these car washes. That’s pretty 8
standard these days so there wouldn’t be any water runoff from this car wash outside to the 9
neighbor’s building. 10
11
The comment based on the height of the building itself and the parking lot. We’re required by 12
FEMA to have our building increased in height for the flood plane for our finished floor 13
elevation. That’s a FEMA requirement so yes, we did increase the height of the floor… the 14
building approximately 4-feet I think above what’s existing now but that’s a FEMA requirement. 15
That keeps us above the flood plain and that is why we have a little higher building and 16
ultimately have to get our pedestrians and our cars into the building. 17
18
And the final comments regarding the FAR area is that this… we are counting the floor area that 19
we use as floor. We… the exhaustive time with Staff was spent on making sure that we're 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
meeting the requirements and meeting the guidelines for our Floor Area Ratios. We do have an 1
interesting and innovative way of storing our vehicles on site. I think it was mentioned earlier, 2
they talked about like a Costco or a warehouse. That’s essentially what we’re doing is that we 3
have an aisle that’s automated and no people are inside and those vehicles are stacked. There’s 4
probably 5 ½-feet and sometimes 7-feet depending upon the vehicle. It’s not floor area, it’s not 5
counted, it’s not people, it’s not habitable, and we are not counting the full height and the full 6
volume of the storage system. We are absolutely responded to the Floor Area Ratios. So, with 7
that, if I… I’d be happy to answer any other questions or refer it to Staff. 8
9
Chair Riggs: Was there another comment that [unintelligible]? 10
11
Mr. Austin Hunt: (off mic- spoke from the audience) [unintelligible] address stormwater 12
[unintelligible]? 13
14
Mr. Hutson: Oh sure, that’s fine. 15
16
Mr. Hunt: Hi, my name is Austin Hunt, I’m the civil engineer on the project. There was a concern 17
brought about stormwater and I wanted to address that really briefly. Our design ensures that 18
no stormwater runs from the site in an unmitigated fashion. And in fact, all of the water that 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
falls on the site is treated and is in compliance with C3 and a third-party reviewer as required by 1
the City of Palo Alto who has approved our C3 design and that was submitted with our Package. 2
3
Chair Riggs: Thank you. Will you be around if there are a question for just a little bit or? 4
5
Mr. Hunt: Yes, I will be here for the next 7-minutes. 6
7
Chair Riggs: Ok alright I… so I’m going to close up the hearing (interrupted) 8
9
Mr. Hunt: I have an 11 o’clock flight. 10
11
Chair Riggs: But maybe we can just… before we go into any kind of dialog if we could just… if 12
there are any questions for the applicants after the presents? So, I’m going to close the hearing 13
and if we just go down… let’s actually start with (interrupted) 14
15
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Wait wait wait if you close the hearing they can’t speak. 16
17
Chair Riggs: Yes, they can, they’re the applicant, the applicant can answer questions. 18
19
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Oh ok, 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.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Riggs: So, I’m… any questions for the applicant or the applicant’s (interrupted) 2
3
Commissioner Waldfogel: [unintelligible – off mic] 4
5
Chair Riggs: So, Commissioner Waldfogel? We’ll just go down the line because I know they 6
have some limitations in terms of their ability to be here. 7
8
Commissioner Waldfogel: (off mic) Just one. 9
10
[note -many people started speaking off mic as once] 11
12
[note- male speaker]: (speaking from the audience off mic) [unintelligible] I’ll be here, we’re 13
fine, we’re ok. 14
15
Commissioner Waldfogel: (off mic) Well if I can ask… [unintelligible – off mic] 16
17
Chair Riggs: Ok any civil questions? That’s probably a better way to treat it. 18
19
[note-many people started talking at once off mic] 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Riggs: Commissioner Summa. 2
3
Commissioner Summa: (off mic) No, not for the civil engineer. 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: (off mic) Not for the civil engineer. 6
7
Vice-Chair Alcheck: (off mic) You can go early. 8
9
Chair Riggs: Ok wait wait wait so we heard a little bit about C3, can you just describe what C3 is 10
because I… just for the audience’s sake. I think it’s important to just air that out. 11
12
Mr. Hunt: Sure. Santa Clara Valley regulates stormwater quality and C3 is essentially the 13
treatment of the quality of the water of all rainwater that falls on the site. In this case, we 14
actually have an innovative solution for the way that we’re treating the water because of the 15
overhead easement that PG&E has imposed on the site. We’re not allowed to have your 16
traditional flow-through planters that are landscaping. They have to be able to park their trucks 17
on top of them so we actually proposed flow-through planters that have traffic rated grades 18
that be driven over. We have specific plantings that are proposed in those planters that have 19
been signed off by the landscape architect and also by the third part C3 reviewer. On-site we 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
have mostly flow-through planters, we also have some lined by retention basins. The flow-1
through planters that are on podium are not meant to treat the entire volume. In fact, they 2
only treat a small volume and then we designed a pipe to convey the 100-year flow to 3
downstream treatment. So, it’s essentially a treatment train which is also recommended in the 4
design guidelines for C3. I can answer any other questions on infrastructure. 5
6
Chair Riggs: No, that’s great, it’s an illustration of a study session we had earlier in 2018. So, I 7
actually just want to… it was important for us to listen back to and reiterate back to the public 8
so thank you. Alright so with that said I think we’re ready for some dialog and I’ve gone to my 9
right a couple times so I want to start over here with Commissioner Lauing. 10
11
Commissioner Lauing: Should we do these individually, like zoning first and then Site and Design 12
and then environmental assessment? Just so we’re (interrupted) 13
14
Chair Riggs: Oh actually… well (interrupted) 15
16
Commissioner Lauing: Sort of on target. 17
18
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Riggs: Well, actually we need to have a touch base really fast. Per our bylaws, we need to 1
just touch base that everyone is fine proceeding past 9:00 pm? So, I’m just going to ask for a 2
motion of acclimation that we’re ok to proceed… to continue proceeding? 3
4
Commissioner Lauing: Yeah but ask us again at 10:00. 5
6
Vice-Chair Alcheck: So, moved. 7
8
Chair Riggs: So, all in favor? Any opposed? Ok. So sorry, I just want… that was procedural. I 9
forgot about that. You know Commissioner Lauing I just… I don’t know if it’s going to be more 10
efficient to go one by one. This is a zoning action but I think we just better off getting it all out 11
there one by one. I think it’s going to be a little more efficient so if you just want to just put it 12
out there that’s [unintelligible](interrupted) 13
14
Commissioner Lauing: I think it’s going to be harder to focus but you made a call so we’ll do it 15
that way. So, I just… I have a number of issues on a number of these points so I’ll just start 16
with… first of all, I did go back and read the June 6th, ’16 Council meeting where the former plan 17
was presented and redirected back. So, at that time there seemed to be interested in this plan. 18
I don’t know if it’s been to Council, do you know if it’s been back since June of ’16? 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Ah Sing: No, it has not. 1
2
Commissioner Lauing: Yeah so there are three continuing Council Members from those nine 3
that are still there so I don’t know the appetite. I presume it’s still active but we don’t know the 4
appetite on Council for this. Excuse me. The history of the zoning was instructive because it was 5
an LM(D) and then it went… and part of this is PC because of the restaurant was there. 6
7
Mr. Ah Sing: Right. 8
9
Commissioner Lauing: Is that what you said? 10
11
Mr. Ah Sing: The PC is for the Audi dealership. 12
13
Commissioner Lauing: I’m sorry? 14
15
Mr. Ah Sing: The PC designation is for the Audi dealership. 16
17
Commissioner Lauing: Right but it was there originally for the restaurant is what I heard her say. 18
19
Mr. Ah Sing: That’s CS. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Mr. Gerhardt: The restaurant started out as a Planned Community and then was rezoned to CS 2
when there was the thought to change it to a hotel. 3
4
Commissioner Lauing: Yeah change it to a hotel so that’s… actually, my questions, are we 5
changing zoning just for each project that looks good at the time because now the hotel is gone 6
and there’s a car dealer there. And if that doesn’t work out are we going to put in an 7
amphitheater 2-years from now? I mean it just doesn’t seem like we’re taking the gestalt of the 8
zoning here. 9
10
Mr. Lait: So, thank you, Commissioner, I think there’s been a series of applications over the 11
course of a number of years and the City is responding to the applications requests that come 12
in. So, you have a request before you today to change the zoning and that’s what’s before the 13
Commission. 14
15
Chair Riggs: So, Commissioner Lauing if you could just be… it sounds like you’re airing out some 16
questions. But also make sure that we’re being clear in terms of we’re working towards either 17
recommendation of approval based on the Findings or recommendation of denial based on the 18
findings. So, if you could just be clear about 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.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Lauing: Yeah, I’m talking about the structure (interrupted) 1
2
Chair Riggs: Can we put the Findings back up on the screen if that’s ok? 3
4
Commissioner Lauing: Yeah, I’m talking about our we doing zoning changes now like we did 5
two other times just to address a single project? That’s my question so that was addressed, that 6
was addressed, thank you. And the… is the public benefit, not in a technical way, of this project 7
revenue from the place? Is that the trade-off with some of the mitigations? I mean do you 8
know what the projected revenue is going to be Director Lait? 9
10
Mr. Lait: Well I mean I think that the standard is more for the Zone Change. I think you’re 11
referring to the language in the Zone Change that talks about that the change in zoning is 12
beneficial to… is in the public interest or welfare. Something along those lines and so 13
(interrupted) 14
15
Commissioner Lauing: Correct. 16
17
Mr. Lait: As you contemplate these proposed applications, I suppose you could consider sale tax 18
revenue as some kind of beneficial effect associated with the project. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Lauing: Is there any anticipation of what that is so that we could sort of gage 1
what the public benefit would be? 2
3
Mr. Lait: So again, no, we don’t have that. I don’t know if the applicant has or if you received 4
information Sheldon about the anticipated sale tax revenue which the applicant would project 5
in terms of the proposed inventory and sales volume. But we… so I don’t know that we’ve done 6
any more analysis than… [unintelligible] Sheldon? 7
8
Mr. Ah Sing: Yeah, I mean we’ve been in conversation with the applicant. They’ve worked out 9
some numbers but it would probably be best to have the applicant maybe talk about that more 10
in detail but we haven’t drilled that down totally yet. 11
12
Commissioner Lauing: What about the existing Audi dealer or the Honda dealer? 13
14
Mr. Lait: Yeah so, we don’t have… if you’re asking us about what kind of sales tax revenue is 15
generated by Audi, we don’t have that for you right now. 16
17
Commissioner Lauing: So, it seems that one of the things that we have to decide and Council 18
has to decide is what is the benefit of this particular business and it seems like we don’t have a 19
financial guideline for that. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Mr. Lait: Well so yeah, I mean what we have are the Site and Design Findings and to the extent 2
that that hinges your decision on the Findings based on that analysis. I guess that would be… 3
that’s maybe what you're articulating. 4
5
Commissioner Lauing: Ok do you feel based on some of the public comment that we have 6
accurate and complete information to make a decision? Some of the public comments were 7
that the land use and environmental presentations where incomplete, airport should have been 8
consulted, various things like that. Are you (interrupted) 9
10
Mr. Lait: I heard a number of comments about the MND that is available for public review and 11
comment. It is not unusual for us; in fact, we deliberately schedule a public hearing for the 12
Planning Commission during the public comment periods so that we can receive public input. 13
This does require more public hearings before the Architectural Review Board and ultimately 14
before the City Council. So that’s consistent with our practice and we believe consistent with 15
state law with respect to the environmental analysis and processing. I don’t know that there is 16
any… I didn’t hear of any environmental flaws relative to the MND. If you heard something 17
specific, we have our consultant here to help us with that. 18
19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Lauing: Just that it was incomplete in some way so I’m just trying to double 1
check that. 2
3
Mr. Lait: So, I do think there was an issue relative to floor area that came up toward the end of 4
our… getting our Packet ready and submitting that to the Commission. We noted that in the 5
Staff report. At the… the applicant is requesting a Zone Change and that has a very specific FAR 6
that is… would apply to the property and so they would have to meet that standard. I 7
understand some revised plans may have been submitted since our Packet was produced and 8
we probably still need to go over that a little bit more carefully as this continues to progress to 9
the Architectural Review Board. I’ll note that in the Zoning Code for the procedural 10
requirements for Site and Design Review, conceptual plans are adequate for the Commission’s 11
consideration of the project. And so, in that concept or in that vein I believe that you do have 12
enough information in terms of being able to evaluate the project relative to the Findings. And 13
that as we continue to advance this project to the ARB and ultimately to the City Council, we’ll 14
have to fine tune the numbers to make sure that we’ve got all that stuff dialed in. 15
16
Commissioner Lauing: Ok there was a place in here, two places, where you said one of the 17
goals was to get all of these parcels sort of consistent. And I wasn’t clear why that was a 18
necessary objective because there’s already inconsistency there but the Audi dealer is 19
flourishing so. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Mr. Ah Sing: I think the idea is that the PC designation would go away and you would have two 2
adjacent parcels with the same zoning designation. It was a time to kind of clean that up. 3
4
Commissioner Lauing: I guess I just don’t know why it has to be consistent and is there any 5
concern about giving up PC? Obviously not if it’s just for this building but. 6
7
Mr. Ah Sing: I mean the PC designation is for really project specific. Each PC has their own 8
ordinance and development standards so in this case, it didn’t make any sense to keep it. 9
10
Commissioner Lauing: Right so this project doesn’t need it or doesn’t fit it so that’s why we 11
want to take it away, I think. So, the… why was this CS chosen? Just because it’s there? I mean 12
there was a suggestion that that’s the most permissive and the ROLM might be better. Can 13
somebody opine on that for us? 14
15
Mr. Lait: So, I… what we have is an applicant request and we’re processing it. I think that there’s 16
historically there may have been a more consistent pattern of zoning in this area but I think as 17
you just noted in your previous question the different properties have overtime changed in 18
zoning. The height is probably the bigger issue relative to the ROLM and the proposed zoning 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
distinction where ones limited to 35-feet. The other one is… has a… what is it, 50-foot height 1
limitation? 2
3
Going back further to your initial comment about the earlier project, 2016 project, my 4
recollection was that that building was about 50-feet, 49 and change, and one of the comments 5
that we heard from the City Council was that, an interest in lowering it. And I don’t have the 6
precise number but I think it was in the range of 40 to 42-feet or something like that. There was 7
an interest in reducing the height of that prior Fletcher Jones applications to that height. And I 8
think this applicant has reviewed the administrative record relative to that prior application and 9
is making an attempt to be responsive to the Council’s earlier comments. And like you say, the 10
Council Members themselves have changed over time and so different policy perspectives may 11
exist but I think that’s what’s the attempt here. And clearly, the ROLM Zoning Standard would 12
not meet the height that’s being contemplated here, though the zoning… the FAR is similar I 13
believe. A .4 with an AD Overlay for showrooms getting another .2 FAR so. 14
15
Commissioner Lauing: You said the ROLM isn’t being contemplated because of the necessary 16
height limits? 17
18
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Lait: Well so again I can’t speak for the applicant as to why they didn’t make that request 1
for ROLM but I can tell you that based on the development standards there’s a height 2
restriction of 35-feet in that zone and the proposed zone is not that. 3
4
Commissioner Lauing: Ok. I’m not going to go over all of the stuff because I want colleagues to 5
jump in here. When we get over to some of the mitigations, the thing I want to particularly note 6
was the traffic. So, the idea is… I don’t know how fast I can find that but the idea is that there 7
would be short term and then a longer-term solution and the short-term solution has been 8
done right away. I don’t know how much that costs but that seems to barely make an 9
improvement on the congestion and the vehicle LOS. And you need the long term one to get it 10
up I think it is from an F to an E or F to a D something like that. And what’s the cost and timeline 11
on doing that one? 12
13
Mr. Ah Sing: I’m sorry the long term is that what you’re (interrupted) 14
15
Commissioner Lauing: Yes. 16
17
Mr. Ah Sing: So, the… that is part of the City’s Transportation Impact Fee and that needs to be 18
updated. So, the applicant would be… their obligation would be to pay that fee and that’s their 19
fair of the contribution and that would serve as mitigation for that impact. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Lauing: I get that but in the long term I’m saying it’s going to still be congested 2
even if they do the short term one. It’s going to be massively congested. It was either Director 3
Lait or Josh that once told me that that intersection is the worst intersection in the City in terms 4
of congestion. 5
6
Mr. Lait: Yeah, I don’t know that that would be me (interrupted) 7
8
Commissioner Lauing: I think it was Josh actually. 9
10
Mr. Lait: But I’ve heard that it’s fairly congested along with some other ones that have been 11
noted in the City (interrupted) 12
13
Commissioner Lauing: Right. 14
15
Mr. Lait: But I think Sheldon’s answer is the same. When we do an environmental analysis, we… 16
an impact is identified. This intersection is listed at I believe is an F and so what we do is we 17
look for opportunities to make it improved. 18
19
Commissioner Lauing: Correct. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Mr. Lait: And so, it’s in the vein that we’ve identified an engineering solution to improve it even 2
modestly so. It doesn’t change the LOS category but there is a… I believe it’s the cumulative 3
impact where the applicant through contribution of its Traffic Impact Fee would provide its fair 4
share toward a future intersection improvement. And that’s… when we develop these 5
mitigation measures, they need to be reasonable and tied to the project’s impacts. I mean… ok. 6
7
Commissioner Lauing: I fully understand that one, I was asking about the second one and the 8
reason is because the long term one is the one that starts to fix the problem. 9
10
Mr. Lait: Yes. 11
12
Commissioner Lauing: Until that thing happens, we really haven’t fixed the problem. 13
14
Mr. Lait: Well, right and so what (interrupted) 15
16
Commissioner Lauing: And we’ve added traffic, particularly at rush hour, for people that are 17
dropping off and picking up their cars. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Lait: Yeah, so one last point to that is and I may need some help from my colleagues here 1
but I think that the intersection improvement that is anticipated is… I don’t know if either is 2
present or is planned to be added to a list of projects that the City is seeking to advance 3
throughout the City. And so, it’s a function of prioritization and so by identifying this project, 4
this intersection improvement which is something the City has intended to do, it just hasn’t 5
gone to Council yet but will within the next month or two. By identifying this… and again 6
independent of this project, by identifying this improvement for this intersection we’re able to 7
associate an appropriate Impact Fee that would be assessed to this property. 8
9
Commissioner Lauing: 10-years? 8-years? 10
11
Mr. Lait: I don’t know because the Council has not prioritized it yet so I can’t answer that 12
question. 13
14
Commissioner Lauing: Ok. It just seems like that’s a major implement to this entire project. 15
Minor point but relative to giving up trees for bikes, I think there are other ways that bikes can 16
get through there without taking down trees and it’s not that hard to get around there anyway. 17
18
Chair Riggs: Commissioner Lauing are you near the end of your dialog? 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Lauing: That would actually be Lauing. 1
2
Chair Riggs: I said (interrupted) 3
4
Commissioner Lauing: I think he said Alcheck but yeah. 5
6
Chair Riggs: As for [unintelligible] (interrupted) 7
8
Commissioner Lauing: Yes, I’m racing through all three parts. I think that speaker Mr. Stone is 9
absolutely correct. That intersection is supposed to be the gateway to the Baylands and 10
overtimes, years, it’s supposed to be enhanced. So, instead, we’re going to… with this project, 11
we’re going to have a big Mercedes sign as opposed to the Baylands so I’m not sure that they 12
can go any farther in the design. I’m not being critical of the design but if it goes forward, 13
certainly making the signs smaller and not lit and that issue about trying to enforce lower 14
lighting on the building most of the time I think is problematic but should definitely be done. 15
So, I’ll stop there, thank you. 16
17
Chair Riggs: Thank you and if we could just try to use discretion about sticking with our inability 18
or ability to make the Findings based on what’s in our Staff report I would be very appreciative. 19
So, Commissioner Roohparvar. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Roohparvar: I’m still going to continue mulling this over. I’m going to pass and I’ll 2
[unintelligible -crosstalk] (interrupted) 3
4
Chair Riggs: Ok Commissioner Alcheck or Vice-Chair Alcheck. 5
6
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Ok I’m going to start with zoning because it seems like the first Lego. So, I 7
believe that the proposed amendment to the zoning is completely in the interest of the public. 8
It’s a CS Zone currently and the… if I could draw everyone’s attention to Packet Page 46. CS, 9
Service Commercial is intended to create maintained areas accommodating City-wide and 10
regional services that may be inappropriate for neighborhood or pedestrian-oriented shopping 11
areas in which generally require automotive access for customer convenience. Servicing of 12
vehicles, equipment and loading or unloading parking of commercial service vehicles. So, 13
everything about the zone seems sort of opted and appropriate for this area in our City, 14
particularly a dealership. I think the fact that we’re adding on the designation of D for this 15
combining district also appropriate. It makes sense to do that because all of that basically 16
establishes that this is an area that we have to be a little more sensitive too. So fully 17
appropriate to add that designation to this particular parcel and then finally AD District, the 18
Automobile Dealership Combining District designation, is and was created for the sole purpose 19
of having greater clarity should somebody wish to develop an automobile dealership in 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.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
So, it would make no sense if we didn’t also include that combining district and its particular 1
code requirements. So, I think that those designations are… the Findings can be made and I 2
support the Zone Change. I also support the Zone Change for the adjacent parcel which is 3
currently zoned PC and if I heard you correctly and I read this right. That PC designation was 4
given in the ‘60s, is that right? 5
6
Ms. Gerhardt: No, sorry the 1960s PC was on the Ming’s site. 7
8
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Oh, the 1960s PC was on the Ming’s site which was then turned to CS and 9
when did the Audi dealership get a PC designation? 10
11
Mr. Ah Sing: That was in the early ‘70s and it was updated just several years ago. 12
13
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Alright so the ‘70s so I’ll just highlight (interrupted) 14
15
Mr. Ah Sing: Pretty close. 16
17
Vice-Chair Alcheck: For a minute that the PC Zone was a highly problematic zoning designation 18
when I first joined this Commission and we grappled with it. And almost immediately after the 19
Planning Commission grappled with it at the time the City Council abandoned it completely 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
because it was essentially impossible to put into effect. So, the notion that we have a parcel 1
operating as an automobile dealership that is… as an applicant that is seeking a zoning 2
designation that would essentially bring them in line with a much more specific and appropriate 3
zoning designation makes perfect sense. If we could eliminate all the PC Zones and I shouldn’t 4
say that but the PC Zone has created a lot of tension in our community because of its really 5
mixed results. So, I think it makes sense that you’re essentially assigning a zone that the current 6
use is in line with assuming that you’re comfortable with the current use which I assume the 7
City is. 8
9
Ok, alright, I’ll move onto Site and Design Review. I can make the Findings for Site and Design 10
Review as well. I think that the… we can ensure that the construction operation of the use is in 11
a manner that will be orderly and harmonious and compatible with the existing or potential 12
uses or adjoining or nearby sites. I think it’s really important for example that we have this 13
combining district, this D designation. In order to determine whether or not someone satisfies 14
the combining district whether they are… whether the project is environmentally ecologically 15
appropriate for the area we have to have a process. So, I think the Finding can be made and 16
what I would suggest is that we may add a few conditions to the Site and Design Review to 17
enhance the harmonious existence with the nearby Baylands site. I would encourage 18
Commissioners who feel like maybe there needs to be a little bit more sensitivity here to make 19
a suggestion we condition the Site and Design Review on that. I’ll give you an example of one 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
condition that I’d like to suggest we adopt which would be about lighting. I think we should 1
encourage… I don’t want to do it from the dais but I think Staff should develop a lighting 2
condition that limits maybe… I really don’t want to do this from the dais but I think you 3
understand what I’m trying to say. I think we need to have some specific condition that sets 4
forth the light output at exactly specific times of day. 5
6
Mr. Ah Sing: If I can actually Condition Number Six on Page 3… on 59 excuses me deals with 7
your point. The owner does indeed shall ensure that light does not spill over the property lines 8
(interrupted) 9
10
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Yeah, no I’m familiar (interrupted) 11
12
Mr. Ah Sing: In those hours. 13
14
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Yeah no I’m familiar with that. I’m suggesting that maybe we want to make 15
it a little bit more specific. Maybe 10:00 pm actually isn’t appropriate and I would like to see 16
maybe a Staff suggestion that is more sensitive to the area. And to be perfectly honest I think it 17
would be a little inappropriate if the lighting condition was more… well, I don’t know about if 18
it’s inappropriate but I guess I would love to know what the condition is out there at 7:00 and 19
8:00 pm among the neighboring properties and then trying to bring it into conformance. That’s 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
a little hard because maybe the neighboring properties aren’t subject to the same limitations 1
but I guess more information would be helpful to understand whether we can limit the… that 2
light output. If the hours of the dealership for example, like many dealerships, is still 6:00 pm or 3
7:00 pm or 5:00 pm on the service side and 7:00 pm on the sales side maybe they can have the 4
lights turn off after they close. I just… this site is… we had someone at one point mention the 5
dealership off the 101 which I think is another Mercedes dealership which is a dealership but 6
also in some ways like a billboard. This site is not really facing like a 101 so I think there’s a 7
reasonable suggestion that we could limit the light output further than this particular condition. 8
9
Ok, I’ll move on, Number Two, the desirability of investment or conduct of the business or 10
authorize occupation in the same or adjacent areas. Again, I think this is an appropriate location 11
to have a dealership considering the two that are next door and I think one of the things that 12
came up during Commissioner Lauing’s comment was this idea of revenues. And I am 13
concerned with the approach we’re we value… I mean for sure this is likely to produce stronger 14
revenues than are currently produced at our now closed Ming Restaurant for the City’s Sales 15
Tax Revenues. I’m sure that this is probably among one of the higher revenues producing uses 16
in our City but I also want to suggest that it’s tricky when you start to look into the revenue 17
because the success of this particular sit as a dealership depends in large part on the owner and 18
his business acumen. We don’t typically say to a retail establishment you know we’d like to see 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
how much money you’re going to create as a condition of whether or not we think the use is 1
acceptable. 2
3
So, and then I’ll move on, ensure sound principles and environmental design. I actually think 4
that there are elements of this that are particularly green friendly that I want to highlight. I 5
drive by the Toyota dealership every day on San Antonio and I’m always astonished how many 6
times I find somebody pressure washing vehicles that are outside. That may not be compliant 7
with the C3 drainage approvals but this is interesting. I’ve never seen this stacking solution. It 8
seems like one of the most common things a dealer does it wash the cars on a weekly basis and 9
I imagine that there’s some element of sort of environmentally friendly operation that is the 10
result of this. I think that the… something should be said about the fact that their… that this is a 11
shell but it’s also a parking structure to some extent and so your… there’s a tradeoff here. 12
Instead of a very large parking structure with parking lights and such, they’ve essentially in 13
housed the operation. And it does provide probably some environmental benefit to water use 14
and driving the cars through the carwash so I guess emissions. 15
16
Finally, I think this is in accord with the Comprehensive Plan and I think one of the keys here is 17
that I don’t know that this site currently rises to the distinction of blighted but it is an 18
unfortunate empty lot. And I am excited that there is an intent to invest money to revitalize and 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
create a use there that might be a lot more productive than the current parking lot that it 1
serves as. 2
3
Ok and then I’ll suggest finally that I think that we should also… I agree that we should 4
recommend to the City Council the adoption of the Mitigated Negative Declaration as well. 5
6
Chair Riggs: Thank you, Commissioner Alcheck [note -Vice-Chair Alcheck]. Let’s try to be 7
disciplined folks. Commissioner Templeton. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: I’ll try not to take that personally. 10
11
Chair Riggs: No, no, it’s 9:40 and we still have another item that we really need to get through 12
so let’s just try to be disciplined. I’m… it’s not chastising anyone it just that it is going to be a 13
long evening otherwise. 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: Alright well thank you. I do have a question that Commissioner 16
Summa brought up about the Baylands Plan and that the zones that were… that the applicant is 17
seeking weren’t listed in that plan. Is that correct? 18
19
Ms. Gerhardt: I’ll look for you, I just had it up a minute ago. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Templeton: Oh, ok and to parallel this in the interest in time could our counsel 2
tell us that if it’s not in that plan what implications that has on our decision? 3
4
Mr. Yang: I’ll also need a minute to look at the plan to answer that. 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: Excellent, alright. While you’re looking that up, I also wanted to 7
express my concerns about the lighting situation. Birds are very sensitive to light and as much 8
of the wildlife in the Baylands will be affected by that. I understand there are other properties 9
nearby that may have lighting but I want to make sure that we are more sensitive and we don’t 10
just have a stock answer for lighting but as Commissioner Alcheck [note -Vice-Chair Alcheck] 11
said that we had something that was specifically appropriate for the Baylands. Do we have a 12
reason to believe that the lighting proposal has been customized for the Baylands? 13
14
Mr. Lait: So, while they’re looking up the data, I don’t know that it’s been customized other 15
than the dimming effect or the ability to dim the lights and have that shut off at a certain time. 16
I’m hearing from the Commission maybe we need to go a little bit further and understand what 17
is the existing environment at near sundown or some hour or two past that. I certainly welcome 18
any specific recommendations that you have but in the absence of that, we’ll take this 19
information and see if there’s a need to impose some stricter low-level lighting or even to the 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
extent that we’re turning off the signs… illuminated signs if that’s as far as the Commission even 1
wants to go on that. So, we’re happy to be responsive and we certainly do have a project that is 2
consistent with the area. Inclusion of the Baylands or not it ought to fit in with the surrounding 3
environment. 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: And thank you and in your report, you mention that there was going 6
to be some mitigation if birds were found to be nesting on the properties. Do we know if 7
migratory birds are currently nesting on the properties and by currently, I mean in the last 8
recent years not at this moment today? 9
10
Mr. Ah Sing: Yeah, I don’t think that survey has been conducted but typically that’s done prior 11
to any type of disturbance on the site. 12
13
Mr. Lait: Yeah, we don’t have a… it’s unlikely that we have any historical data about that but at 14
the time of construction… I mean we, the City, right? 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah, I bet Audubon Society might be able to (interrupted) 17
18
Mr. Lait: They might. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Templeton: Provide that. I have heard that from other properties. 1
2
Mr. Lait: The area where we get involved in that is at the time of demolition because we 3
wouldn’t want to have nesting birds… disturb nesting birds at that time right? 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah, I think it’s also important to understand the role that that site 6
is playing because of the change in nature of… by rezoning, it would be changing the nature of 7
the use of the property from the restaurant or the prospected hotel to the auto dealership. And 8
those all have different uses and may affect birds differently so we just need to think about that 9
because it is so close to the Baylands. I’m just… I hope that my line of questioning is conveying 10
the support for the Baylands and finding a way that you can plug in harmoniously as we are 11
meant to find but I’m not hearing the answers yet. 12
13
Mr. Lait: So, let me suggest that maybe there are two responses to your question, one is from 14
an environmental standpoint. We’re trying to address the impact of a redevelopment of this 15
site to the environment and in this particular… and since we’re talking about nesting birds, 16
right? And so, the typically conduct when you are concerned about that when one of the 17
agencies is concerned about that, is to ensure that survey analysis is done before the site is 18
disturbed. That’s one level of analysis and so if… because we don’t have that now we have this 19
mitigation measure that says that shalt do this. So that’s one from a CEQA standpoint, that’s 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
one way to address it. If the Commission in its review of the Finding for a Site and Design 1
application think that there is a… and I don’t know what this is necessary but you could go 2
beyond the environmental standard if you have concerns relative to the project in a Site and 3
Design. Again, I don’t know exactly what you’re heading toward but right now what we’re at is 4
sort of the environmental standard and so if there’s something else that you think would be 5
(interrupted) 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: The environmental standard for anywhere in the City or specifically 8
to the Baylands? I think that’s where I’m driving at. So, there’s a separate plan (interrupted) 9
10
Mr. Lait: We’re looking at (interrupted) 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: For the Baylands, the treatment of development in the Baylands. 13
14
Mr. Lait: Right so there’s a couple of areas, one… and so relative to nesting birds that’s a very 15
specific environmental issue that we’re trying to mitigate through this requirement that a 16
survey be conducted by an authorized or licensed individual to do this. So, that takes care of 17
that issue. There are other elements of the project design that are being implemented or 18
incorporated into the project such as the fritted glass, the bird safe glazing, we’ve talked about 19
lighting, there’s the landscaping that’s proposed around the perimeter of the site. That is to be 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
responsive to the Baylands native landscaping, so I mean there’s elements of the project design 1
that are responsive to the Baylands. If the Commission feels more is needed then we’d be 2
happy to hear what that is and incorporate as appropriate. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: Well one of the things, for example, is our do migratory… seasonally 5
migratory birds’ nest in those 11 trees that we’re going to cut down? These are… it’s hard for 6
me to, base on the lack of information that we have right now, make the Findings that we’re 7
being requested to ask. And I was curious if the information was available and having been 8
presented or if we’re not there yet? 9
10
Mr. Lait: Ok maybe we’re not there yet and now I’m understanding more clearly your specific 11
interest on these trees that are being removed to support the bike path. And I’ll look to our 12
Staff to see if we’ve had any outreach to the Audubon Group, Sheldon, about this specific 13
development? 14
15
Mr. Ah Sing: Yeah, not specifically. 16
17
Mr. Lait: Ok so why don’t we take that comment and as we continue to go through the review 18
process try to get some specific feedback. I mean this is an area where we are seeking input 19
from our appointed officials to guide us on this because we see that there’s some, not 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
necessarily competing, but there’s… we have two policy interests and we just got to see which 1
one sort of wins out in the end. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: Right, right, well I guess then just to close out my comment then I 4
think that given the situation with how fragile our Baylands are and important they are to the 5
City. We really have to mitigate the negative impacts and we have to be very proactive about 6
the use of this space. I think that we have the Baylands Plan which helps guide us to that and it 7
wasn’t referenced very strongly in the report from Staff. I think that might help if it were ever 8
represented to us again so thank you very much. 9
10
Chair Riggs: Thank you, Commissioner Templeton. Commissioner Summa. 11
12
Commissioner Summa: Thank you, thank you to everyone who came out and spoken and to the 13
applicant for showing us your cool system inside the stackers. To follow up on Commissioner 14
Templeton’s question and forgive me I don’t remember but did the Negative Mitigated 15
Declaration consider the concerns to wildlife in the Baylands area which is the western flyway 16
for migrating birds? And just behind it in the ITT site which we have added to our Baylands, we 17
have burrowing owls who I… that I think are migratory and endangered so it’s a very pertinent 18
point 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.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Ah Sing: Right we do have the author of the environmental document here so if we can 1
have Karly Kaufman speak on that issue that would be good. 2
3
Ms. Karly Kaufman: Hi, my name is Karly Kaufman, I’m with Rincon Consultants, we’re assisting 4
the City with a preparation of the CEQA document for this project. The short answer to your 5
question is yes. Our biological resource section of our MND is pretty robust. We look at issues 6
ranging from lighting to the tree removal to tree disturbance, noise especially from the car 7
wash, and potential water quality impacts that might affect nearby habitat. 8
9
We did require two mitigation measures where we found impacts could be potentially 10
significant to wildlife at the Baylands. Bio… mitigation measure Bio-1 deals with the light 11
spillover issue and mitigation measure Bio-2 is about nesting bird protection. 12
13
Chair Riggs: Did you catch that Commissioner Summa? 14
15
Commissioner Summa: Yes, thank you. So well, lots to talk about. I’d first like to ask Staff to 16
comment on some of the members of the public were concerned that there were materials 17
missing from the back of the room. And I found out, many other Commissioners may have 18
noticed is today that there’s also a newer set of plans that are not up on the public website and 19
were not given to the Planning Commission. So, I understand it may just be… it may not be 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
significant but we don’t know if we haven’t seen them so could Staff comment on those sorts of 1
related issues? 2
3
Mr. Ah Sing: Yeah so, we were working with the applicant to try to get some upgraded plans 4
and some of those sheets were included as exhibits in the presentation that are pertinent to 5
the floor area. So that is what… that’s the information that we had that was available. 6
7
Commissioner Summa: Can you comment to the missing materials in the back of the room for 8
the public and also the new plans aren’t up on the website? A member of the public brought 9
this up. 10
11
Mr. Lait: So, as I understand it the plans themselves did they… they didn’t change… so Sheldon 12
maybe you can answer this for me. The building form didn’t change in the plans, it was just 13
some sheets relative to how floor area was calculated, is that correct? 14
15
Mr. Ah Sing: Yes, that is correct. 16
17
Mr. Lait: So, the building plan you have in your Packet are consistent with, in terms of the 18
placement on the lot, the height of the building, the setbacks, all of that information is in the 19
same. And what did change again as we noted in the Staff report there was this confusion 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
about how the applicant was presenting floor area calculations and we had a different take on 1
how that floor area ought to be calculated. And so, once that information was brought to the 2
applicant’s attention, they responded to that by working with Sheldon to get some updated 3
plans to reflect the floor area how we anticipated it. So that’s… you this is a refinement of the 4
project as we continue to go through the process and again, I’ll reiterate what I had said earlier 5
which is through Site and Design these are conceptual drawings. And as we get closer and 6
closer to architectural review and City Council, we would expect to have more detailed 7
drawings and we’re going to need to double check the floor area numbers on that. 8
9
So, with respect to the other question that you had on the plans, I do believe it is our practice 10
to include hard copies, like a public copy of the plans and the environmental document and I’m 11
disappointed to hear that maybe that didn’t happen this evening. We do have copies available 12
here at the Staff table for members of the public that may still be interested in taking a look at 13
the MND and we have a copy of the plans. We’re happy to share those as well but it was also 14
available online as it is all of our Packets through well the City’s website and then throughout 15
Building Eye and Acela program so we do have those information’s available. 16
17
Commissioner Summa: So, I realize it’s available in all those other ways but we do have a 18
standard where we have it available at the public hearing. And I would suggest that maybe even 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
the updated… maybe just the FAR comparison chart, it’s that the only thing that changed but 1
we don’t know because we don’t have it. 2
3
Mr. Lait: I… you know because I just told you that was the change. 4
5
Commissioner Summa: I know but we didn’t know before and the public didn’t know and we 6
don’t a comparison chart we can look at so it’s troubling to me, I’m sorry. 7
8
Mr. Lait: Ok. 9
10
Commissioner Summa: And I understand that we have a practice where we start the public 11
hearing process before the MND comment period is over but I just want to register that I’m not 12
sure that that’s the best idea. I understand why we do it, we’re trying to expedite the process 13
but you know until that period is over, I haven’t had the opportunity, as my colleagues have 14
not, to see all comments and concerns from the public. You know we get emails. I just like to… I 15
like a superabundance of all the information and concerns I can get and that is I think what the 16
point of the MND comment period is, to get those comments before we start making decisions. 17
18
Mr. Lait: So, I’m sorry, is that… maybe you’re not asking for questions but I mean (interrupted) 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Summa: Wait, no if you have an answer. 1
2
Mr. Lait: I mean we deliberately do it so that we can receive public comment at an open 3
public… noticed open public hearing and you, for the Commission, we provided the 4
environmental document I think it was 2-weeks in advance for the MND and… so that you have 5
a forum here where you can hear from the public about any additional concerns that you may 6
not have developed on your own. I mean so this is a very deliberate process that we believe is 7
open and transparent and responsive to the community’s interest. And I mean if we got that 8
wrong, I’m happy to hear how we can improve on that. It’s not for projects expediency, it is to 9
solicit public input so that our consultant could respond to these comments. 10
11
Commissioner Summa: Ok. I just… I guess you could see it either way. This way people have 12
time to comment in the comment period after the first hearing took place and a lot of issues 13
bubbled to the surface. So, I guess one could see it either way. So… and then I wanted a 14
clarification on how much… what the FEMA requirement is at this site in the Baylands for how 15
many… how much hirer it has to be because of the flooding? 16
17
Commissioner Waldfogel: (off mic) I did have a similar question. 18
19
Commissioner Summa: I did. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Mr. Lait: So, I mean I don’t know if we’re… that would have been our civil engineer question 2
that we could have answered. 3
4
Commissioner Summa: I thought the architect could answer it and he… I guess (interrupted) 5
6
Ms. Gerhardt: So, the flood zone it does need to be approximately 11-feet above sea level and 7
the finish floor for the building is 11 ½-feet. Again, not my expertise but it has been reviewed by 8
Public Works and we’ve been assured that it meets the standards. 9
10
Commissioner Summa: So, this building’s first floor is 11 ½-feet above grade on the site? Sea 11
level so how much higher did the building have to be to accommodate the FEMA? And I’m sorry 12
because... oh. 13
14
Mr. Hutson: (off mic -spoke from the audience) I think it was like 3-feet (interrupted) 15
16
Mr. Lait: So maybe you could come to the microphone. I mean we can look for this information 17
but again, just for clarification we’re… it’s a preliminary conceptual plan, there is a review 18
process after Planning Entitlement where we look at these things in more detail but this is 19
clearly a critical issue that we’d want to understand. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Mr. Hutson: So, the finished floor is 11 ½-feet above sea level, that’s the FEMA requirement 2
that’s based on the location and the federal requirements. That’s exactly where we are at. The 3
existing building if you’re talking about the Ming site, floor area or I guess I’m clear on what 4
(interrupted) 5
6
Commissioner Summa: No, I was actually… and thank you for answering. I was actually curious 7
because you… I believe it was you when you spoke referenced it. The FEMA requirement is one 8
of the reasons the building is so much higher. So, in some zones I know it’s 7 or 8 inches, maybe 9
it’s 3-feet where you are there but it just didn’t seem to me like a significant contributor to the 10
building height. 11
12
Mr. Hutson: No, the building height is actually under where the building height is for the bulk of 13
the building is 44-feet so we’re under the 50-foot height limit as I understand it. We do have an 14
elevator tower that goes past but we’re not exceeding any height limit and nor are we raising it 15
high above any more than what the federal requirements are. 16
17
Commissioner Summa: And while you’re there just another quick question, are the cars on the 18
rooftop visible above the parapet? 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Hutson: No. 1
2
Commissioner Summa: Ok thank you. So, let’s see, so I have a lot of reservations about the 3
Zone Change. The CS Zone is not at all consistent with the zoning in the Baylands which is 4
typically ROLM and incidentally, I do believe they could develop an auto dealership at the site 5
under ROLM which would have more appropriate standards for development I think compared 6
to the buildings around it. One member of the public sent us a mechanical rendering, Mr. 7
Bubenik which we all received today, of the… what the building would actually appear to look 8
like in terms of it’s massing and scale which is very compelling. And then another member of 9
the public brought us a graph that showed it by volume and because of the sort of extra and 10
different FAR you get an automobile dealership the buildings get really… can get really huge in 11
their massing and scale compared to just their FAR count. Because the stacker doesn’t count as 12
the same way so I and really troubled by how to reconcile my mind. The size of this building, 13
the massing, and scale compared to the building around it. It’s just… it’s gigantic. It is a sensitive 14
base… as some of my colleagues have mentioned it’s a sensitive location in the Baylands. It’s… 15
on Map 4 in our Comp Plan, it’s called out as a major view corridor and also called out as a 16
gateway to the Baylands. While it might be consistent with some of the goals in the Comp Plan 17
it’s also inconsistent with a lot of the goals. And it is certainly not consistent in my mind with 18
either the Site and Design Review that we have to make or with the Baylands Special 19
Guidelines. I just… I can’t see that this is going to contribute in any good way and incidentally 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
the minute you rezone the PC that the Audi is on, you will be creating a parcel that is out of 1
compliance because the showroom there is 26 ½-feet in showroom and CS can only be 20-feet. 2
So, I don’t know how we reconcile making a Zone Change that creates a non-compliance that 3
didn’t exist before. The whole CS Zoning here has been a fiasco. It’s… one of the reasons it’s 4
really out of place is because of its development standards compared to the typical 5
development pattern in the Baylands. And to increase that by applying it to another site seems 6
almost nonsensical to me. I don’t disagree with the use in terms of dealership. I think it would 7
be appropriate under the ROLM Zoning and I can’t make any of the Findings for the Baylands 8
Design Guidelines which apply to all the parcels in the Baylands including the commercial 9
privately-owned ones. It’s extremely troubling to me from the beginning and I… it’s massively 10
oversized for the site. And I think the back of the building is incredibly under designed in terms 11
of aesthetics and it looks like a prison or something and I’m not sure that’s… how well it will be 12
screened. The FAR counting on the plans I had was just all wrong so maybe that’s all been fixed 13
but and of course, maybe it would be fixed before but I cannot make any of the Findings really 14
for the Zone Change here. The CS Zone there was pretty much a fiasco. It was done because the 15
owner at the time proposed a hotel which Council thought would be a good thing across from 16
the Eye Center that’s across the street, across East Bayshore and when that fell through its kind 17
of made that CS Zoning not very relevant so (interrupted) 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Riggs: So, Commissioner Summa, I just… it’s past 10 o’clock so if you’re about finished, I 1
think… you said that a couple times so just try to be disciplined if you can. 2
3
Commissioner Summa: I am being disciplined, I’m just… I’m actually very surprised that this 4
came as far as it did and I do not recommend the Zone Change. 5
6
Chair Riggs: Commissioner Waldfogel. 7
8
Commissioner Waldfogel: I think I’ve often said nothing good happens after 10:00 pm and here 9
it is 10:04. 10
11
Commissioner Summa: [unintelligible – off mic] 12
13
Commissioner Waldfogel: What’s that? 14
15
Commissioner Summa: We should maybe continue it. 16
17
Commissioner Waldfogel: Yeah that’s possible. Let’s see, we’re on Page 12; projected? Yeah, 18
great thank you, so I want to start with the Zone Change Findings. My colleagues have made a 19
number of good points about the Zone Change and I think it’s fair to say that the Ming site CS 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Zoning was intended for a different purpose. Auto dealer is not what was intended for this site 1
but for better or for worse its consistent with how the parcel is zoned today. And I don’t think 2
tonight’s the right time to revisit those questions but I think there are some lessons here. And 3
one of them is that maybe third times a charm in terms of projects on this site but I’d like the 4
Zone Change, if we approve it, to be time-limited and linked to the project under review. 5
Because I’d hate to make the Zone Change, create a new entitlement, and then have the 6
applicant or a successor applicant return to us next year with a worse project because we’re 7
making these predicated on a whole bunch of plans that we’re looking at tonight. I… admittedly 8
they’re draft form but so one question for Staff is it possible to create any kind of linkage 9
between the Zone Change and the project because we don’t want to just… we don’t want to 10
make this Zone Change and then have a successor come in with a worse project, ask for more 11
concessions, you know enough is enough? 12
13
Mr. Yang: No, I don’t think you can link the Zone Change to a specific project but if a successor 14
project came that you felt was not desirable then the Commission would again be asked to 15
make recommendations on whether the Findings could be made for that project. 16
17
Commissioner Waldfogel: But would we seek… would we get Site and Design Review? I mean 18
suppose that this applicant decided this project doesn’t pencil. That the lift is too expensive or 19
something and then comes back with (interrupted) 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Mr. Yang: So, any material change in the project would require Site and Design Review. 2
3
Commissioner Waldfogel: So, we would see it again and (interrupted) 4
5
Mr. Yang: That’s correct. 6
7
Commissioner Waldfogel: We’d need to make those… we’d need to make these Findings again 8
for another project, any project on this site? 9
10
Mr. Yang: That’s correct. 11
12
Ms. Gerhardt: And that’s assuming that the rezoning includes that D Overlay. 13
14
Commissioner Waldfogel: Ok so on this area, Zone Change, we’re required to make a Public 15
Interest Finding and I’ll be frank. The reason why City’s traditionally want auto dealers is for the 16
revenue. I mean it’s the clear public benefit. I don’t want to delve into this applicant’s business 17
model but I think there’s a secular question about the future of auto sales and what our view is 18
on the future of personally owned automobiles and automotive sales models. We know that 19
Tesla is selling factory direct, we know that many dealers sell online. And in fact, the very same 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
day that I received this Packet, last Thursday I think, the New York Times ran a headline in the 1
Op-Ed page that said, “Owning a car will soon be as quaint as owning a horse.” It was 2
interesting timing. I’ll come back to some questions for the applicant in a second. 3
4
Then can you go back to Page 11? I’m sorry to Slide 11? On-Site and Design Findings Item Three 5
requires sound principles of environmental design and I see in this application a building design 6
that’s very tightly wrapped around a very specific program. You know and this specific program 7
is selling luxury German cars. Nothing wrong with that but when I think about environmental 8
design, I also think about the building life cycle and I’m just curious… and this is a question for 9
the applicant… whether you have any thoughts about a second use of the building? If the 10
headline in the New York Times turns out to be correct that owning a car will soon be as quaint 11
as owning a horse. Then what do you… how do you contemplate this building evolving? Is the 12
applicant still in the room? 13
14
Mr. Hutson: Yes. Again, maybe if you would repeat the question for me? 15
16
Commissioner Waldfogel: I know it’s late. The question is you’ve… you’re bringing to us a 17
design that is very tightly wrapped around a program and the question is if that program turns 18
out to be obsolete. If this headline in the New York Times turns out to be true, that owning a 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
car will soon be as quaint as owning a horse. Then what are you contemplate as a second life 1
for this building as it’s designed? 2
3
Mr. Hutson: I think that’s a larger question actually. You’re talking about the entire industry, 4
not just one building and you’ve got multiple locations and over the years it… you know most all 5
buildings have been repurposed and reused. That’s our goal when we can but as far as a 6
secondary use for this building it’s a very purpose-built building, you are absolutely correct. It is 7
purpose built but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be modified or adjusted. The system that 8
we’re utilizing is an independent system. It’s part of the building but yet it’s also modular in its 9
format. You know there would be multiple uses for this building, evidenced by the fact that we 10
have 20-foot or a large… you know it’s basically a 2-story building. We don’t have… we’re 40-11
feet in the air but we’re a 2-story building. So, we’re not going to add floors in between and not 12
going to create a larger Floor Area Ratio than… in a subsequent use then would be utilized right 13
now. I don’t know if that answers your question but I mean, to be honest, it is a very purposeful 14
built building and that’s we were tasked to do. We weren’t asked to build a spec building that 15
could be utilized for a number of different uses later on if this doesn’t work. That’s not in the 16
business model, that if this doesn’t work that we’ll turn it into something else. That not my 17
client and that’s not this business or this business model. And I think to the New York Times 18
article I think in all fairness we’re moving toward alternative energy options. That’s what 19
Mercedes Benz is doing; 30 percent of their vehicles by 2025 will all be electric and it will 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
probably be even more than that. So, there’s… this industry will evolve, it’s not going to go 1
away, I don’t see that going away any time soon. Maybe that contradicts the New York Times 2
article but in some format, it will still be here. 3
4
Commissioner Waldfogel: Ok that’s a fair point. Yeah and the article… just FYI the article is 5
about ownership models, not fleet electrification so those are different axis in the evolution of 6
the auto industry. 7
8
My take on this is that an affirmative… finding affirmatively on these Findings, interesting 9
syntax is a referendum on our view of the future of auto sales. So that I think that a vote for the 10
Staff recommendation is an endorsement that the private vehicle ownership model is out there 11
for some period of time. And I think that anybody who believes that private vehicle ownership 12
is going away should be troubled voting for a building that really has… is difficult to repurpose 13
and it may or may not generate the revenue that we’ve historically seen from auto dealerships. 14
I mean I happen to think that the future of privately-owned vehicles I fairly robust for some 15
period of time. Probably longer than what the New York Times said but we’ve certainly 16
discussed these matters extensively at the Planning Commission, at City Council. There seem to 17
be some secular views about the future of private vehicle ownership that have been expressed 18
in this building. And so, I would just urge my colleagues to think hard about how this fits in with 19
their views on the future of mobility but thank you for your responses. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Mr. Hutson: I appreciate it, thank you. Anything else? Ok. 2
3
Chair Riggs: You’re complete with your comments? 4
5
Commissioner Waldfogel: (off mic) I’m sorry? 6
7
Chair Riggs: No more comments? 8
9
Commissioner Waldfogel: (off mic) No more. 10
11
Chair Riggs: Ok, I have Commissioner Lauing and Commissioner Alcheck or Vice-Chair Alcheck. 12
I’m sorry, m (interrupted) 13
14
Vice-Chair Alcheck: It’s ok. 15
16
Chair Riggs: Commissioner Lauing. 17
18
Commissioner Lauing: I was just going to comment in the voting process so I’ll wait till 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.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Riggs: That sounds good. Commissioner Alcheck [note – Vice-Chair Alcheck]. 1
2
Vice-Chair Alcheck: A couple comments and then I’ll make a motion. I just want to take this 3
opportunity to acknowledge this is a special moment for me because I feel like this has been a 4
point of contention for me and Commissioner Waldfogel for a long time. I feel like I’ve 5
suggested that car ownership is changing dramatically and that always creates controversy 6
here. I think that your point is extremely interesting and really the… if we adopt that as a 7
component of our review it may complete and dramatically change the way we look at 8
everything from parking standards to well just about anything having to with single-family 9
home development as well. I will say this if a restaurant owner had come to us to develop a 10
restaurant that had a thematic architecture, I think you could arguably say that the restaurant 11
industry is one of the most difficult industries to succeed in and very few restaurants are really 12
long lasting. I’m a little concerned with us creating a… and I guess the question is how do we 13
grapple with the changing environment in this particular industry with an evaluation of the 14
success of one or another business as it pertains to development and investment in our 15
community. So that’s a really complex suggestion but I think we don’t knowingly approve 16
projects that we think will fail. I think we’re not yet ready to suggest that this concept isn’t 17
perfect and I think one of the issues… I mean I’m certainly not an expert in transportation but I 18
don’t think that a dealership is… I’ll just throw this out there. I don’t think a dealership can be 19
exclusively a sales model. It could be a subscription model and there’s no question that there’s 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
a significant number of Mercedes vehicles in our community that could be serviced by this 1
dealership. So, I guess I’m a little hesitant to begin the dialog of evaluating… I am not as 2
comfortable suggesting that an affirmative vote this project is an affirmation that the change 3
that I’ve been suggesting is coming is not coming. So, that was convoluted but I think we can 4
approve this project and allow an investment of the sort that this applicant is trying to make in 5
an industry that is evolving without necessarily also making the statement that we don’t believe 6
the industry is evolving dramatically. 7
8
So, I want to make a motion tonight. 9
10
Chair Riggs: Please, I think we… before you make a motion, I’m going to make sure that there’s 11
no other public comment [note – Commissioner comments?]. So, if you… I will be happy to go 12
back to you if there’s a… to you for a motion. 13
14
Vice-Chair Alcheck: That’s fine. 15
16
Chair Riggs: But I want to make sure there’s not… I actually have a couple comments that 17
weren’t addressed. 18
19
Commissioner Templeton: (off mic) My question wasn’t answered [unintelligible]. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Riggs: And I think Commissioner Templeton if you have a question still this was 2
(interrupted) 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: Were you guys able to find the answer to my question? 5
6
Mr. Yang: Yeah so just based on a quick review of the Baylands Master Plan as far as we can tell 7
there’s no prescriptive set of zone designations set out for private lands. The policy for private 8
land is that the Site and Design Overlay apply and that Site and Design be applied as part of the 9
process for all of those lands. The plan does describe the existing zoning in on private lands in 10
the Baylands Master Plan. 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: And does it recommend that we are consistent in using those 13
existing (interrupted) 14
15
Mr. Yang: It doesn’t, it’s just descriptive. You know it does include CS with the Automotive 16
Overlay because that was one of the existing [unintelligible]. 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: Alright thank you, I appreciate you tracking that down. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Riggs: So, I’d like to just ask… re-ask my question to the traffic consultant if the ingress 1
and the egress on the west side of the lot, if removing that ingress and egress had been 2
explored and if that improved LOS beyond the future scenario of putting in the roundabout? 3
4
Mr. Gary Black: Good evening, Gary Black with Hexagon Transportation Consultants. The brief 5
answer is no, it was not considered. 6
7
Chair Riggs: Is there a reason why not? Is that absolutely necessary for the operation of the 8
facility? 9
10
Mr. Black: The site as presented to us would not work without that driveway so there was not a 11
serious study of removing that driveway. 12
13
Chair Riggs: Can you explain why? Is that because a semi would come in one side and out the 14
other or? 15
16
Mr. Black: Well, the way the site plan was configured is that traffic would come… would enter 17
off of Embarcadero and then would exit to the Bayshore. So… and the entire flow on the site 18
was set up predicated on that circulation pattern. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Riggs: So, there’s not two-way circulation on the site? It’s all one-way circulation? 1
2
Mr. Black: There are portions that are two-way circulation but the overall scheme is a one-way 3
plan. 4
5
Chair Riggs: So that wasn’t even explored? 6
7
Mr. Black: I would say no; it was not explored. 8
9
Mr. Ah Sing: Well I think also going to the point about the loading, their loading spaces are to 10
the rear of the buildings. And so yes, a semi-truck to get around it would be much more difficult 11
to take the Embarcadero road and go around. It’s much easier to go on East Bayshore and take 12
that loop around the rear and then out towards Embarcadero. 13
14
Mr. Black: I could also comment that if the intent of that is to try to offload traffic away from 15
that one intersection, you know removing that driveway I can’t conceive how that would help. 16
17
Chair Riggs: I just no from… well, the volumes on Bayshore are much higher than the volumes 18
on that segment of Embarcadero beyond Bayshore… to the east of Bayshore. So (interrupted) 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Black: Yes, so the question that we answered in our report is would that driveway work? 1
Would you actually be able to get in and out of that driveway given the volume that’s on 2
Bayshore? And our conclusion is yes, you can get in and out of that driveway so there would be 3
no… from our perspective there’s no reason to remove the driveway. It could create some 4
other complications (interrupted) 5
6
Chair Riggs: In peak hours? 7
8
Mr. Black: In peak hours in order to come in and out of that driveway the vehicles would need 9
to allow cars to make turns. 10
11
Chair Riggs: Yeah, it would be yielding and that’s what these existing (interrupted) 12
13
Mr. Black: It would just… it would be reliant on polite drivers but our experience has been that 14
drivers do allow cars to make those maneuvers. 15
16
Chair Riggs: Ok, it’s fine, we can… unless the applicant wants to comment. I prefer… we don’t 17
need to belabor this. It sounds like there are some challenges but I just want to (interrupted) 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Hutson: Yeah, I just wanted… you asked the question you know was that explored as a two-1
way and it was exhaustively explored. And no disrespect intended to the City’s traffic engineer 2
but that’s not our traffic engineer so that’s the City’s hired traffic engineer, Hexagon. So, I can 3
honestly attest to the fact that numerous models were looked at and from not only the 4
application of fire and life safety vehicles getting in and out of that, the requirement for PG&E 5
to have access to their easement, for a number of different reasons that’s that way. And we do 6
have exiting vehicles when cars are delivered from the service department. At the end of the 7
day, they go out onto… they don’t go that way. They go out onto (interrupted) 8
9
Chair Riggs: So, Mr. Hutson I’m going to be respective of my own rules that I’m imposing on the 10
rest of my Commissions here (interrupted) 11
12
Mr. Hutson: That’s fine. 13
14
Chair Riggs: And I’m going to say that you’ve fully answered my question to my satisfaction so 15
I’m going to… sorry, I’m going to shut us both up. I did have on this topic just one more… from a 16
circulation standpoint the… I think that I would strongly favor the roundabout in this location 17
but it sounds like that’s going to be a City prioritization that’s based on… that’s relevant to the… 18
to what would be the fee that would be imposed. Am I correct? 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Lait: Yeah, the City has contemplated two design solutions and we would have to do a little 1
bit more work to see which one is applicable but yeah, that would not affect the fee collection. 2
3
Chair Riggs: Ok I guess unless there are no other comments maybe we could entertain a 4
motion? A question Commissioner Alcheck or Vice-Chair Alcheck. 5
6
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Yeah this actually this issue wasn’t addressed. I was… I am currently not 7
intending to recommend in my motion that we encourage the inclusion of the bike path but 8
that’s based off of some assumptions I’m making so let me just ask this question. There are… 9
there’s access to the Renzel Trail like half a block down, what is it East Bayshore and then 10
around the corner from I guess the Anderson like off Faber. Why are we entertaining this bike 11
path especially considering the trade-off of having to cut down all these really mature trees 12
which to some extent provides significant screening of the building from Renzel Trail? What’s… 13
why did this… why are we entertaining this idea? 14
15
Mr. Lait: So, while Staff may have a more precise explanation, I believe the reason why this was 16
recommended or explored is because the Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan had identified this 17
connection in this area up to Gang Road as a… to improve the just… access. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Ok just for my benefit maybe and I know you’re familiar with the site, the 1
map but there is literally one parcel over is another path to the Renzel Trail. So, we are talking 2
about what is that 200-feet maybe? 3
4
Mr. Lait: Yes, so again we’re trying… it’s (interrupted) 5
6
Vice-Chair Alcheck: I know it’s… I’m just saying from your perspective… I know its not your 7
option but I’m just curious do you think that it makes sense to have another redundant 8
connection in lieu of the trade-off? 9
10
Mr. Lait: So, I’ll answer that by saying the review of this project with other City departments 11
that promote and advance the Bike/Pedestrian Plan thought this a beneficial contribution. I 12
think the interest… the primary interest to have the trail extend on the interior lot line sort of 13
between or at the other end of Audi I think and go through the site. That site designing that 14
created some challenges for the applicant in terms of site and design. And so, this was the next 15
best option and so it’s a fair question and one that we’re actually posing to the Commission to 16
consider. 17
18
Vice-Chair Alcheck: No, it seems little surprising just because the bike bridge connection is 19
significantly closer to the current trail connection than it would be if the trail connection 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
happened where these plans are. So, I guess my conclusion would be that that’s a big tradeoff 1
to cut down these mature trees which also provides screening. 2
3
Mr. Lait: Yeah and I would say and maybe Sheldon could correct me if I’m wrong. I think these 4
trees are within the right of way… the utility right of way? And so even though they are over 15-5
feet now there’s nothing that guarantees that they will stay there right because the utility 6
easement at some point... it’s PG&E, right? PG&E would… could choose to exercise the 7
restrictions in that agreement. 8
9
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Right. 10
11
Mr. Lait: Ok. 12
13
Vice-Chair Alcheck: I see what you’re saying? A bird in the hand, right? Ok. I’m prepared to 14
make a motion. 15
16
Chair Riggs: Please make it. 17
18
[many people started talking at once off mic] 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Riggs: Please I would love (interrupted) 1
2
Vice-Chair Alcheck: No, bird in the tree. 3
4
Chair Riggs: So, it’s 10:26, I’d like a motion, please. 5
6
MOTION #1 7
8
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Yeah, here it goes. I’m going to make an effort to do this the right way. I’d 9
like to move that we recommend the City Council adopt the Mitigated Negative Declaration and 10
that we recommend adoption of the Zoned District suggested by Staff and that we recommend 11
that the City Council approve the Record Land Use Action approving the request for Site and 12
Design Review and the Design Enhancement Exception based on the Findings that we are 13
required to make that I enumerated earlier tonight. And I would also suggest that we include 14
Conditions of Approval that relate to lighting and requiring Staff to put forth a more site-15
specific lighting condition that is responsive to the current and potentially more sensitive light 16
output that might be appropriate for the Baylands. 17
18
Chair Riggs: So, motion on the floor, do I have a second? 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
SECOND 1
2
Commissioner Roohparvar: I’ll second. 3
4
Chair Riggs: Seconded by Commissioner Roohparvar. Any discussion of the motion and the 5
second? 6
7
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Yeah, I’ll just say… I’ll speak to the motion and say the following; you know 8
we spoke a little bit about the ROLM Zone tonight. This project doesn’t work in a ROLM 9
because of the height limit in the ROLM. It is true that the site is surrounded by ROLM zoning 10
but I would suggest that a site doesn’t necessarily have to carry to the same zoning designation 11
as the sites surrounding it. And the reason why is because when we have a code that has such 12
specific zoning designations, we actually put ourselves in a position where we almost have to 13
adjust our code in order to make certain developments and uses possible in areas. You know a 14
perfect example is that in the R-1, for example, we don’t have a district… a zoning designation 15
for uses like schools, right? And so, we have… as we move forward in this process, we have to 16
evaluate trade-offs of the different zoning designations and I think that tonight the CS is not… 17
this zoning designation isn’t problematic simply because it’s in a ROLM heavy area. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Riggs: Any other comments on the motion on the floor? Ok Commissioner Lauing, then 1
Commissioner Waldfogel. Commissioner Waldfogel, is your light on intentionally? Ok. 2
3
Commissioner Lauing: Sorry, was he first? He can (interrupted) 4
5
Chair Riggs: No, Commissioner Lauing go ahead. 6
7
Commissioner Lauing: Ok so you know our main charge on this Commission which might be a 8
slight exacerbation but I don’t think it is, is land use of our limited acres. One of the tools there 9
is zoning and zoning is not supposed to be easy to change and it’s not supposed to be project 10
specific. So, what the maker of the motion just said is the reverse where we’re adjusting zoning 11
to a specific project. This project can still be done with the ROLM but not exactly the same way. 12
I understand that point but anyway the other thing is that when we do a Zoning Change it’s 13
supposed to be a benefit to the City. Tonight, I haven’t heard what it is, we’re guessing that it’s 14
probably because revenue but there’s no understanding there. I certainly understand and I’m 15
not confusing the fact that we weren’t asked to come up with five great options for what 16
should go on that site. So that is not infusing my analysis here which I’ve spent a lot of time 17
before this meeting taking a look at but it is different than just saying wow this is better than 18
Ming’s and by the way, there are couple other dealers there anyway. You know we’re trying to 19
optimize for the site for 50-years because that’s when the building is going to go up and it’s not 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
going to be going the other direction because it’s not usable for any other things. So, I think 1
that… I don’t see evidence of that benefit is, I don’t see any reason why there couldn’t be more 2
consistent zoning and there for consistent massing. I’m… I don’t think we can find that this is 3
mitigated on the traffic issue alone just by the first stage because that’s kind of a guess. It’s 4
going to go from an F to an E and an E is pretty bad because we’re going to have a lot more 5
traffic coming in there for pickups, for drop-offs, for test drives, etc. etc. etc. So, I can’t find that 6
this is consistent with the Master Plan for the Baylands which is part of the Comp Plan or that is 7
can be mitigated specifically on the traffic issue. I have some more optimism on the 8
environmental mitigation but I just don’t see how we get around just exacerbating this problem 9
in the worst intersection in the City and telling our fellow residents that that’s a really good 10
thing. So, I don’t think we should be approving it as is. 11
12
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Commissioner Waldfogel, I think you’re next. 13
14
Commissioner Waldfogel: Let’s see, so actually these are questions for you Commissioner 15
Alcheck [note – Vice-Chair Alcheck] relative to your motion. I think you suggested some lighting 16
restrictions as part of the motion, something more restrictive? Did you include anything on bird 17
protection that Commissioner Templeton mentioned? 18
19
Vice-Chair Alcheck: I did not add a specific condition. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Waldfogel: Well then (interrupted) 2
3
Vice-Chair Alcheck: I also understood from their… from your dialog that the survey for… that 4
there’s already a condition to conduct a survey for nesting that hasn’t been completed yet. So, I 5
just assumed that that was the condition that was appropriate. 6
7
Commissioner Waldfogel: Do you have anything to add to that? 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: Yes, the survey that’s going to be done is going to be time specific 10
and not dealing with the annual migratory. So, it will be there’s not a bird in that tree right or 11
let’s wait until that bird has fledged and not dealing with the long-term patterns. 12
13
Vice-Chair Alcheck: I’m open to a suggestion of alternated condition. 14
15
Commissioner Waldfogel: [unintelligible – off mic] 16
17
Chair Riggs: Yeah, so why don’t you finish Commissioner Waldfogel and then we’ll (interrupted) 18
19
FRIENDLY AMENDMENT #1 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Waldfogel: Yeah, let me just finish that because I would support if… 2
Commissioner Templeton if you have some language you want to propose I would be support… 3
directionally supportive. I’d also just like to check under this Site and Design Review Conditions 4
you would support some logistics conditions because it is a difficult intersection? And I’d like to 5
propose that whatever logistics conditions we impose are restrictive as possible so that we’re 6
not aggravating the traffic conditions at that intersection during the course of construction. So, 7
would you support some conditions in those directions? 8
9
Vice-Chair Alcheck: You’re talking for the duration of construction some sort of building 10
(interrupted) 11
12
Commissioner Waldfogel: Well generally we can set logistic conditions so we may want to set a 13
logistic condition that the construction not block the street during rush hours or I don’t know. 14
There may be some reasonable set of conditions that we can construct that just ensures that 15
we don’t make that intersection substantially worse than it is for the couple of years it will take 16
to build this. 17
18
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Yeah, I’m happy to entertain that as a component of the motion. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Waldfogel: Ok and then just… great so (interrupted) 1
2
Vice-Chair Alcheck: But I’ll say this it might be helpful if Staff… we’ve been down this road 3
before actually. It might be helpful for us to understand what conditions are typically placed by 4
the Building Department when you have intersections like this. So that we know going into it 5
what your limitations are so that we know how to adjust them but I’ll entertain that today. 6
7
Commissioner Waldfogel: I don’t think we’ll get to specific language tonight but I think we can 8
just give Staff some direction. And then I don’t think this is part of your motion but I’ll just 9
speak to. I am generally not supportive of removing trees for the bike path in this… relative to 10
your question but I don’t think that’s part of the motion. 11
12
Vice-Chair Alcheck: I specifically did not include that because I don’t think we should do that. 13
14
Commissioner Waldfogel: [unintelligible – off mic] 15
16
Chair Riggs: Thank you, Commissioner Waldfogel for your comments. Commissioner Summa, do 17
you mind if we just get some comments from Commissioner Templeton that were relative to 18
that past discussion first? And then Commissioner Summa after Commissioner Templeton. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
FRIENDLY AMENDMENT #2 1
2
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. Before I propose the amendment, I just want to say that 3
I’m a bit concerned about the scale of the proposal for the property and that is… I’m reluctant 4
to recommend the zoning that has been requested. One of the side effects of the scale has 5
been that we can’t have both the bike path and the trees. That seems very hard for me to 6
believe that we couldn’t have both of those by scaling down the building very slightly to ensure 7
that there was room for the required parking and the other requirements. So, I think that the 8
tradeoff is really on the applicant to think about how we can have both of those things. 9
10
So, I’ve also heard some concerns from the public about the overall scale of the building 11
compared to the surrounding buildings. And I wonder if we should be considering a different 12
zoning recommendation based on that. That’s not the amendment on the table so we’ll come 13
back to that if this motion fails. So for this motion I would like to amend it to add that we 14
require the applicant to evaluate migratory patterns affecting the site and if the trees 15
scheduled for removal are found to be recurring nesting sites then we ensure the installation of 16
replacement nesting facilities until the replacement trees on the property have matured 17
enough to be used by the birds. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Yeah so just really quickly are we talking about the trees for the bike path? 1
Ok. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: Any trees on the property. 4
5
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Ok, alright I (interrupted) 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: Are you saying your proposal has no trees being cut down at all? 8
9
Vice-Chair Alcheck: My proposal does not support the removal of the trees and the introduction 10
of a bike path but I don’t think that it’s harmful to include that recommendation because if the 11
City Council determines that they do want that bike path despite this motion then as a fall back 12
I think your request is actually within reason. We should know so I’ll accept the motion. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. 15
16
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Ok. 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Vice-Chair Alcheck: I mean I’ll accept the amendment and I hope the seconder does too. 1
2
Commissioner Roohparvar: Yes. 3
4
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Just for clarification are there other trees that are… you know it doesn’t 5
matter because this applies to everything so don’t worry about it. 6
7
Commissioner Waldfogel: [unintelligible – off mic] 8
9
Chair Riggs: Commissioner Templeton are you finished? Did you have anything else that you 10
wanted to add? It sounded like there was some something else. 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: My other amendment would be to downgrade the zoning a bit but I 13
think (interrupted) 14
15
Chair Riggs: I think that’s not what’s on the table right now. 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: Exactly. 18
19
Chair Riggs: Commissioner Summa. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Summa: Yeah so, I appreciate Commissioner Templeton’s concerns about the 2
birds. I think the proposed mitigations are pretty weak. They are based on feasibility and I think 3
they should be more absolute than that. I think our wildlife is to precious to condition that way 4
and I also wanted to say that zoning about use. They can have this use in ROLM which is much 5
more appropriate in the area. Zoning is not about spot zoning, it’s about how an area, the 6
pattern and how it fits in. So, I just don’t really understand Commissioner Alcheck’s [note -Vice-7
Chair Alcheck] comments in its particularly relating it to schools in R-1 which of course isn’t an 8
allowed use in R-1. So, I just want to emphasize again the scale of this building is astonishing. 9
Especially if one looks at the email that we got from Mr. Bubenik I think is his name where he 10
does a rendering based on the FAR calculations and he’s technically an expert to do it I believe 11
given his profession. It’s just not right so I just want to make that comment. 12
13
Chair Riggs: Thank you, Commissioner Summa. Are there other comments? 14
15
Commissioner Waldfogel: [unintelligible – off mic] 16
17
Chair Riggs: Commissioner Waldfogel. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Waldfogel: I’m losing track of which button to push. Let’s see, I just want to 1
speak to support or not support of this motion. I mean I don’t think this is the best possible use 2
for this site. I think that it’s a big building, it’s hard to imagine a second use for the building but 3
all that said I think it’s substantially consistent with the current zoning and I’m not sure that 4
tonight is the night that we can revise and revisit that. And more… but more importantly, I can 5
support this because I believe it will generate a lot of revenue for the City. I think there’s 6
actually a big revenue upside for this but I would urge the City Council to dig much deeper on 7
that question and to explore their views on the future of auto Sale Tax Revenue. We don’t have 8
any information about that tonight but I just want it on the record that, that would be the 9
reason why I would support a building this scale on this site. 10
11
Chair Riggs: So, I’m going to take Chair propagative to echo that last comment and I would 12
encourage Council and for the record encourage Council to really think long and hard about 13
other legislative action that they can take to pivot how we think about revenue for the 14
automotive industry in the future. I have a little way of… a different way of thinking about this 15
in terms… and it’s not necessarily a referendum on automotive sales but more thinking about 16
how we continue to make revenue off of the industry of driving as behavior changes. And so, 17
we know that the sale model may be much different in going forward and so, I think there are 18
legislative actions that we could take that could capture more service-oriented uses in the 19
future. And I think that’s… there’s a rich discussion that Council could have about that and I 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
think that’s a really important thing that Commissioner Waldfogel just brought up that could be 1
dialogued as a part of this item and it could be dialogued as part of a much larger conversation. 2
So, with that said any other comments and if not, I’d like to call the motion or to call the 3
question. 4
5
Vice-Chair Alcheck: (off mic) When you call the question, we have to vote on that. 6
7
Chair Riggs: Ok well I’d like to vote so let’s not call the question. If I could get a vote so motion 8
on the floor to adopt the Negative Declaration, adopt the Zoning Change, to approve the record 9
subject to the conditions that we dialogued and I think there were a number of them. 10
Hopefully, Staff captured most of those? Ok (interrupted) 11
12
Mr. Lait: (off mic) All of them. 13
14
VOTE 15
16
Chair Riggs: Ok, great all of them, so it’s late. Let’s just do… so all in favor? All opposed? So, 17
motion carries 4-3, no abstaining. Do you need to know who the… do you get it? Ok. 18
19
MOTION PASSED 4(Alcheck, Riggs, Roohparvar, Waldfogel) -3(Lauing, Templeton, Summa) 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Summa: No, it was a tie, Carry voted to oppose it. 2
3
Commissioner Roohparvar: (off mic) No, it was four (interrupted) 4
5
[many people started talking at once] 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: (off mic) Asher, Asher [unintelligible]. 8
9
Chair Riggs: So that concludes that item. 10
11
Mr. Lait: So, Chair I know we went through a lot of discussion about the motion before the 12
vote. Typically, we offer the dissenting members an opportunity to express final thoughts. 13
14
Chair Riggs: Alright so comment on the dissent? 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: I’m hopeful that the applicant will appreciate the space that they are 17
going to be developing and think about the future needs of the Bayshore and that important 18
part of our community. I am supportive of developing this site, I voted no because I felt it was 19
slightly out of scale with what the property would fit in with the Bayshore space. Thank you. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Riggs: Any other comments on the dissent? 2
3
Commissioner Lauing: Yeah, I will. Yeah, this is the third change of zoning for three projects. 4
That’s not how I feel zoning should be done. I think there’s some mitigation issue, the biggest 5
one to which is a massive traffic jam at our worst area in the City and the other things are 6
already in the record. Thanks. 7
8
Chair Riggs: Commissioner Summa would you have any comments? 9
10
Commissioner Summa: I don’t think this will contribute in a positive way to our Baylands, I think 11
it’s inconsistent with the Master Plan, I think the zoning is inappropriate for the Baylands and 12
the area, I would be perfectly happy with an auto dealership under ROLM which would have 13
been more consistent, and I also think this is pretty inconsistent with our Sustainability Plans. 14
But I won’t say any more, I’ve said it seven times. 15
16
Chair Riggs: Thank you, Commissioner Summa. Ok, that concludes this item. 17
18
Commission Action: 19
4. PUBLIC HEARING. Planning and Transportation Commission Consideration of an 20
Ordinance Amending Section 18.42.110 (Wireless Communication Facilities) of 21
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chapter 18.42 (Standards for Special Uses) of Title 18 (Zoning) of the Palo Alto 1
Municipal Code (PAMC) to Update the Code to Reflect Recently Adopted FCC 2
Regulations. This Item Was Previously Heard by the Commission on December 12, 3
2018. CEQA: This Ordinance is Exempt from Environmental Review Under CEQ 4
Guidelines Sections 15061(b)(3), 15303, and 15305. 5
6
Chair Riggs: It’s 10:46 and I do think that we need to… it's very important that we hear this 7
item. I would encourage us to continue but I need to take your pulse per our bylaws. Do we 8
have consensus in terms of continuing through Item Number Four? 9
10
Commissioner Lauing: Nope. 11
12
Commissioner Waldfogel: (off mic) What’s the action that we’re taking? It just to open a public 13
hearing? Do we need to vote on anything? 14
15
Chair Riggs: Can you [unintelligible -crosstalk] 16
17
Mr. Albert Yang, Senior Deputy Attorney: We’re looking a recommendation on the ordinance. 18
19
Chair Riggs: The question is what is the specific action on Item Number Four. 20
21
Mr. Yang: We’re looking for a recommendation on the ordinance. 22
23
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
MOTION #1 1
2
Commissioner Lauing: I’d like to move continuance of that to the next meeting. 3
4
Commissioner Roohparvar: Yeah, I agree. 5
6
SECOND 7
8
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Second. 9
10
Chair Riggs: Before we… ok, so we have a motion and a second. I would like to get the opinion 11
on Staff and… both attorney and Director Lait on that action. My understanding is that there is 12
some risk to the City if we choose to take that action. 13
14
Mr. Yang: So, this is an ordinance to update our Wireless Code. It’s going parallel with an effort 15
to develop Objective Standards and both of those are scheduled to be adopted by or 16
considered by the City Council on April 15th. And the reason for that date is that after that date 17
the City will not be able to apply its current Architectural Review Standards to wireless facilities. 18
Which means if we don’t have our alternative which is objective Standards in place, that we 19
won’t have any aesthetic regulation authority of these facilities. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
So, the really important element of this for the City Council is to adopt regulations that are 2
objective. This ordinance is apart of that and we’d really like it to be able to go to the Council on 3
the same night so that they can consider it as a package. And I think the next meeting doesn’t 4
really allow for the Commission’s recommendation to meaningfully inform the Council. 5
Chair Riggs: So… and can you clarify even if we have no aesthetics jurisdiction, this has to be 6
heard by Planning Commission? 7
8
Mr. Yang: So, the aesthetics regulations were considered by the ARB. This ordinance is a 9
companion piece to those regulations and the ordinance does need to be considered by the 10
Planning Commission. 11
12
Mr. Jonathan Lait, Director of Planning: And Chair, since you asked, the part that I would add is 13
you’ve looked at a similar ordinance last year. I understand the Commission struggled a bit with 14
its recommendation. That ordinance attempted to address the timeline constraints in the FCC 15
rule. And what we’re coming back with now, based in part on the Commission’s feedback but 16
also comments from the public, is we added some more design criteria to make it more 17
objective and provide more protections for the City. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
I know it’s late and we need to… it’s difficult to have these kinds of policy discussion late at 1
night. I would acknowledge though that we also have a half dozen or so speakers who’ve 2
endured the public hearings before this and are here to speak also on this item. And again, just 3
to reiterate, we believe this is important to move forward so the City Council can make its 4
policy decision. 5
6
Chair Riggs: I respect that but we can’t move forward if we don’t have a quorum. So, we have a 7
motion on the floor to continue the item, we have a second, can we just take a… see if we have 8
(interrupted) 9
10
Vice-Chair Alcheck: (off mic) I just heard [unintelligible] 11
12
Chair Riggs: Ok. 13
14
Vice-Chair Alcheck: If we… could we proceed with a quorum? If certain individuals had to leave 15
could we proceed with a quorum? 16
17
Mr. Lait: (off mic) Yes. 18
19
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Because maybe there are four people who can remain here. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Mr. Lait: (off mic) That’s right. 2
3
Vice-Chair Alcheck: I would entertain that. 4
5
Mr. Lait: So, a quorum is four people and (interrupted) 6
7
Chair Riggs: Thank you, that’s great. So, if anyone needs to leave, they could. Let’s… a motion 8
on the floor and a second. All in favor of continuing our meeting and… 9
10
Commissioner Summa: (off mic) Can we take the public comment? 11
12
Vice-Chair Alcheck: [unintelligible – off mic] 13
14
Chair Riggs: We can’t open the hearing… sorry, we can’t… we have to choose to continue the 15
item before we can hear… we can open the hearing for public comment. So, we have a 16
procedural vote that we need to have to continue our meeting at this point. 17
18
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Chair, if there are four individuals that are willing to stay, do we have to 19
vote on continuing it? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Roohparvar: [unintelligible – off mic] 2
3
Chair Riggs: I believe by our bylaws we have to vote to continue to meet. 4
5
SECOND WITHDRAWN FROM MOTION #1 6
MOTION #1 DIES DUE TO THE LACK OF A SECOND 7
8
Vice-Chair Alcheck: I’ll withdraw my second on that motion for the purposes of withdrawing the 9
motion for us to at least understand this because if there are Commissioners that have to leave 10
or can’t stay but at least a quorum can stay, I don’t know that we have to vote on this motion. 11
12
Chair Riggs: I believe I… Albert, can you clarify if we have to have a majority vote to continue to 13
meet? I want to respect people. If they want to go home it’s their prerogative at this point but 14
I… based on our bylaws I believe we need to have a consensus to be able to continue. We need 15
to have a majority to be able to continue the meeting. 16
17
Mr. Yang: So, the procedural rules that say before 9:00 pm the Commission will determine 18
whether it will commence new items after 9:00 pm and shall determine which items they will 19
take up. So, I think that an action by the majority of the Commission. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
[note - many Commissioners started talking at once off mic] 2
3
Vice-Chair Alcheck: I’m willing to stay if there is three other Commissioners who are willing to 4
stay for this item. 5
6
Chair Riggs: So, if I could just get an aye/nay vote on continuing… on continuing with our 7
meeting. All in favor? 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: I’m sorry, to continue (interrupted) 10
11
Chair Riggs: To continue with our meeting. 12
13
Commissioner Summa: (off mic) Continue it to a date [unintelligible] (interrupted) 14
15
VOTE TO CONTINUE THE MEETING 16
17
Chair Riggs: No, to take our… to stay here and hear the fourth item. All in favor? All opposed? 18
Abstentions? 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
MOTION TO CONTINUE THE MEETING PASSED 5(Riggs, Templeton, Summa, Waldfogel, Alcheck) 1
-0-2(Templeton and Lauing abstain) 2
3
Chair Riggs: So, with that said I believe that Staff has a presentation and then we’ll open the 4
public hearing. 5
6
Mr. Yang: Thank you, Chair. I’ll make this very quick. I’ll even get started before it’s up on the 7
screen. So, as you may recall this item came before the Commission in December 2018. At that 8
time Staff had proposed a very bare bones update to the ordinance to just recognize that the 9
FCC had adopted an order changing some of the rules that the City has to comply with. At that 10
time the Commission and several members of the public expressed concern that we were 11
changing our ordinance to accommodate FCC rules that might themselves be changed again in 12
the future. Either because there was litigation that would lead to them being invalidated or 13
there was proposed legislation that would have the same result. And so, we didn’t want to 14
codify this in our local code just to have to undo it and maybe tie our hands for a period of time. 15
16
So, one of the main focuses of the additional revisions that have been made to the ordinance 17
that’s before you now is to make as many of those changes automatically revert as possible. 18
And for those that can’t be automatically reverted, to simplify that process by having the 19
changes be accomplished through resolution as opposed to by ordinance. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
So, [unintelligible]… ok so just to quickly run through the main changes, there are updates to 2
definitions and provisions about how we process permits to make them simply reference 3
federal law. So, that if there’s a change in that federal law we won’t need to come back and 4
update our ordinance again. The ordinance also incorporates the concept of the Objective 5
Standards, although it also anticipates that if Objective Standards are no longer necessary it still 6
keeps a reference to our Architectural Review Findings. That’s what will go in place instead. It 7
defines a process for applicants to seek exceptions from our Objective Standards and requires 8
them to show that the exceptions that they are requesting are mandated by federal law. It also 9
incorporates some provisions that we [unintelligible] that many other jurisdictions or some 10
other jurisdiction are adopting. One of those is to create a default period of 10-years for 11
permanent validity and the other is to require applicants where feasible and to the existent 12
permitted by law to update the facilities with smaller facilities or to place them underground as 13
technology evolves. So that is my quick presentation and I’ll be happy to answer any questions. 14
15
Chair Riggs: So first I want to acknowledge that Commissioner Roohparvar had to depart due to 16
some… she an early morning meeting but we still have six members present for the record so 17
that’s it. Commissioner Summa, do you have a question? Ok, that was an errant light. Any other 18
questions? Ok, with that said I’m going to open the public hearing. We would… so we’ll give our 19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
speakers 3-minutes as we have all evening and our first speaker if he’s still here, is Mr. Bill Ross. 1
Mr. Ross take off? 2
3
Commissioner Summa: (off mic) Yes. 4
5
Chair Riggs: Ok, Mr. Robell and then Mr. Collins. 6
7
Mr. Chris Robell: I’ll do this in less than 3-minutes. So, I respectfully ask… well, first of all, I think 8
the vast majority of residents are not supporting the proliferation of hundreds of pounds of 9
equipment built on poles in front of people’s homes. That’s some unknown number that we 10
don’t even know but we know it’s in the hundreds. I’m not… I think there’s… it’s fair to say that 11
there are people that believe that there’s a health risk with this and safety issues as well. But I 12
really… what I really don’t understand… and I know that there’s been legal risks that have been 13
sited and I understand that we want to be in compliance but I don’t know that there’s been a 14
good answer to why can’t we do like other leading Cities with respect to just not adopting what 15
President Trump and his FCC Appointed Commissioner want us to do. I don’t understand why 16
we’re not standing up given the majority of residents don’t want this and given that it… we 17
don’t know whether it poses health risks or not. I think some people believe it does and some 18
people don’t but I believe it doesn’t. And given that I don’t know… I don’t see the pressing need 19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
to be changing the ordinance in the way they want us too. Why can’t we just leave it alone? So, 1
I’ll leave it at that but I thank you for your time. 2
3
Chair Riggs: Thank you, Mr. Robell. Mr. Collins and then MS… Dr. Downs. 4
5
Mr. Todd Collins: Hey, thank you, I’m Todd Collins, I’m a member of the Palo Alto School Board 6
though today I’m speaking for myself. I think there are some important concerns… this is 7
annoying. I think there are some important concerns with the proposed ordinance that I hope 8
the PTC will take into account. This ordinance appears to be rushed and I hope that the 9
Planning Department, which I know has many issues… he’s working on them right now… on its 10
docket, can give it more thoughtful consideration, gather more public input, and develop a 11
more community friendly ordinance instead of ARB standards. For example, should these 12
towers be permitted near schools? As you’ll hear from this Ms. Chow many other towns like 13
ours around the Bay Area have done significantly more to gather public input and create much 14
more detailed and public friendly ordinance. It seems off to me that Palo Alto, which prides 15
itself on public engagement and protection, has not. You might think perhaps our community 16
has less interest in this topic. Well, first of all, I’m sure you’ll agree that would be unusual and 17
second, I can assure you… I was at a public meeting of the Barron Park Association, at their 18
annual meeting two weeks ago, where over 100 people gathered on a Sunday afternoon to 19
hear Ms. Chow give a very compelling presentation, that I urge you all to review, on a variety of 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
risks and concerns associated with these towers. Council… City Manager Shikada and Planning 1
Director Lait were both present and spoke and I think it was fair to say at the end that a large 2
majority of those present, including Council Members DuBois, Tanaka, and Kou, felt that the 3
topic deserved more discussion and public input. Especially before passing an ordinance that 4
significantly curtails future public input as this one does. 5
6
I and many others have always appreciated how the PTC members are not pushovers as we saw 7
with the past item. You stick up for the community and hold the applicants and Staff to high 8
standards. I hope you’ll do so here and push the City Staff and Council to take… to further 9
engage the public and take a more thoughtful and aggressive approach to managing these 10
towers. Don’t let the Staff jam you with last-minute ordinances at a late-night session. This one 11
needs more work. Thank you. 12
13
Chair Riggs: Thank you, Mr. Collins. Is Ms. Downs here? Ok, Ms. Velkoff and then Mr. Stroup. 14
15
Ms. Victoria Velkoff: Good evening, I’m Victoria Velkoff, and I’m opposed to the deployment of 16
this 5G wireless technology. As you may know, last month Senator Richard Blumenthal held a 17
Senate hearing with industry leaders on 5G and when he asked them please provide the safety 18
data on 5G they all admitted that they did not have any safety data. Now, I’ve spent 33-years 19
working in the industry… pharmaceutical industry and medical device industry conducting 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
clinical studies and you cannot get FDA approval for new devices and new medications without 1
safety data. Having the FCC just say yes, it’s safe doesn’t make it so. I understand that Senator 2
Blumenthal and Representative Eshoo sent a letter to the FCC Commissioner asking where is 3
your safety data and he could not provide it. So, I urge you please slow down, stop the clock, 4
and reconsider this project. Thank you. 5
6
Chair Riggs: Thank you, Ms. Velkolf. Mr. Stroup and then Mr. Hoel. Are you here Mr. Hoel? Ok. 7
8
Mr. Jeremy Stroup: Good morning, just kidding. My name is Jeremy Stroup, I’m with Vinculums 9
Services, I’m here on behalf of Verizon Wireless today. We’ve provided Staff and Commission 10
with a letter from Verizon’s Legal Counsel and that letter includes an attachment with the 11
proposed change to the City amendments. I’d like to discuss a couple of those today. First, the 12
reason FCC order mandates administrative approval based on Objective Standards. This order 13
mandates an administrative approval of qualifying small cells within 60-days and the City has 14
drafted rigorous objectives aesthetics standards for small cells. If applications meet the small 15
cell aesthetics standards then there are no further decisions that need to be made. Either the 16
round peg fits in the round hole or it doesn’t. Under the FCC order once that happens there 17
would be no need for discretionary appeals to the City Council. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Second, we believe all small cells should be approved under Tier 1, you can refer to the first 1
paragraph of Attachment One. Verizon Wireless proposes that qualifying small cells fall under 2
Tier 1 and not Tier 3 requiring small cells to approved under Tier 3 which includes discretionary 3
use findings is a mistake. Verizon Wireless strongly believes that conditional use appeals to the 4
City Council for small cells that already meet Objective Design Standards would overburden the 5
City Council where they have limited authority under the federal law and will provide 6
impossible… and will impossible to complete within the required 60 to 90-shot clock. The 7
Planning Director we believe should be able to administratively determine that the round peg 8
fits into the round hole or in this case, the qualifying small cells meet the objective standards. 9
10
Third, Subjective Standards should not be applied to small cells. This is a reference to the 11
second paragraph of Attachment 1. The proposed amendments inadvertently impose new 12
Subjective Standards on small cells. We propose deleting general standards that would require 13
us to utilize the small [unintelligible] radio and associated equipment as measured by volume 14
technically feasible to achieve network objective. This concept runs counter we believe to the 15
Objective Standards developed by the Staff and the ARB. 16
17
Fourth, the City cannot dictate future or small technology. This is a reference to the third 18
paragraph of the Attachment. The proposed position that carries reduce the size or replace the 19
equipment underground based on new technologies during the permit term is simply 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
unenforceable. That’s because under state law each permit is valid for a minimum of 10-years 1
and just like any permit the City cannot change the requirements of the permit during that 2
term. 3
4
Finally, I’d just like to ask the Commission to remember that what we’re talking about here is 5
putting telephone equipment on telephone poles that meet a rigorous aesthetics standard 6
established by Staff and the City. And we believe excess discretion appeals would be 7
unwarranted. Thank you. 8
9
Chair Riggs: Thank you, Mr. Stroup. Mr. Hoel and then Ms. Chow. 10
11
Mr. Jeff Hoel: Ok I think the FCC 18-133 is users paying local controls so I think the City has a 12
legitimate reason to oppose it however they can. And one of the ways they can’t immediately 13
oppose it is the business about objective aesthetic noise and standards. However, the ARB is 14
dealing with that, they met on March 15th and they didn’t quite finish. So, they are going to 15
meet again on April 4th and hopefully they’ll get done in time for the April 15th decision that 16
Council has to make otherwise it’s too late. On the other hand, the rest of the ordinance, I don’t 17
understand… I’m not a lawyer but I don’t understand why April 15th is the time to decide that. 18
We have some explanation that by doing an ordinance it would be even better than if we didn’t 19
do anything but I think you should hold Staff’s feet to the fire and ask them to explain that in 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
greater detail. I know it’s late but that would be an important thing to do. And I just want to 1
mention that going forward I’d like ARB to continue to meet just to verify that Objective 2
Standards are being met with applications. And if they seem to allow things that the City 3
shouldn’t want, to be able to recommend to Council that they change the Objective Standards 4
to match. Thanks. 5
6
Chair Riggs: Thank you, Mr. Hoel. Ms. Chow and then Ms. Kattamuri. 7
8
Ms. Tine Chow: Can we switch the order? She’s going to go first; just switch. 9
10
Chair Riggs: That’s fine, Ms. Kattamuri and then Ms. Chow. 11
12
Ms. Amrutha Kattamuri: Thank you. Good evening members of Planning and Transportation 13
Commission, I know it’s almost midnight. I’m speaking on behalf of all the Palo Alto residents 14
opposing cell towers in residential neighborhoods. And I’m here tonight to tell you about an 15
amazing community meeting that took place in Barron Park two-weeks ago which Mr. Collins 16
also talked about. We had at least 100 people in attendance at the Barron Park Association 17
annual meeting with standing room only. The main topic of discussion was cell towers in 18
residential neighborhoods and City Manager and Director of Planning were in attendance. What 19
we talked about in particular was the impact these towers have on the quality of life in our 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
community on aesthetics, on property values, on fire risk and in particular on health. One 1
example, in 2018 the National Toxicology Program of the National Institute of Health reported 2
that long term exposure to radio frequency radiation causes heart and brain cancer. Another 3
thing to think about is the effect of radiofrequency radiation on wildlife and endangered 4
species. Numerous studies by such institutions as NIH and the US Fish and Wildlife Services 5
have indicated that radio frequency radiation is harmful to many different species. 6
7
I can tell you that people at this meeting were not happy with what the City has been allowing 8
telecom companies to do to us and I can also tell you that people were appalled when they 9
heard about the amendments to the City’s Wireless Ordinance that senior City Staff are 10
pushing. This is not what the residents of Palo Alto what. We do not want to eliminate public 11
hears for cell towers, we do not want to cut the ARB out of the review process for the cell 12
tower applications, and we do not want to give the Director of Planning sole authority to decide 13
the siting and appearance of cell towers in our community. 14
15
The City Staff claims that the City is making the changes to the Wireless Ordinance because of 16
the FCC’s recent order, this is not true and here is what we agree with. What Mayor Filseth said 17
in his February 7th, 2019 letter to Congresswomen Enshoo in support of the legislation she’s 18
sponsoring to repeal that terrible FCC order. Mayor Filseth wrote and quote, “The deployment 19
of cell towers must be done through the usual public process associated with local government. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
A process that needs no modifications from the FCC.” It is very wrong to throw out the 1
thoughtful process by which aesthetics and other judgments are made in our City. This is 2
especially true when it comes to considering unsightly, noisy cell towers which are known to 3
have health effects and would be placed in close proximity to residents’ homes all over our 4
town. Thank you. 5
6
Chair Riggs: Thank you, Ms. Kattamuri. Ms. Chow. 7
8
Ms. Chow: Hi everybody, thank you for sticking through this. My name is Tina Chow and I live in 9
Barron Park and I’m a professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC Berkeley. Many of 10
us residents have spent countless hours studying and commenting on the cell tower approval 11
process in Palo Alto and we kindly ask you to consider this input very carefully. We believe we 12
can create a better plan to protect the beauty of our City and well fair of our residents. 13
14
I sent some written comments which I will summarize. The first main point is that the ARB 15
review process allows for critical public input and discussion. City Staff say that there’s pressure 16
from the FCC to streamline the cell tower approval process but the FCC does not require any 17
changes to be made to our ordinance. It just requires that we comply with the FCC shot clock 18
etc. in our action which we can do without changing our ordinance. City Staff wants to remove 19
the ARB, in hence removing public discussion from the process. We cannot have these decisions 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
be made by a single person. The ARB’s role is critical and important. I urge you to advise City 1
Council to maintain the public input we currently have in our approval process. 2
3
Second, we need an updated Wireless Ordinance that actually safeguards residents. In addition 4
to aesthetics and noise concerns, there are valid health concerns about placing cell towers so 5
close to residents’ homes. Hundreds of studies have been performed since the 1996 Telecom 6
Act which shows adverse biological and health effects including cancer. We need the safety and 7
well fair of residents to be the priorities of our City and reflected in our ordinances. In fact, 8
many other Cities are acting to protect resident’s interest and I’m just going to give you a few 9
examples. Coloma, California requires undergrounding of ancillary equipment and 1,500-foot 10
minimum spacing and setback from residences. Fairfax, California passed an urgency ordinance 11
putting a pause on cell tower installations and requiring performance bonds, strong 12
indemnification clauses, setbacks from residents, school, etc. and the City is pursuing a fiber 13
network. Ripon, California in Central Valley also has a new ordinance that requires a 500-foot 14
setback from schools and 130-feet from residences. Ripon, by the way, is having a cell tower 15
removed from a school site after a cancer cluster that includes at least three teachers and four 16
kids and the wireless provider is doing this willingly. So, there’s zero chance they are getting 17
sued by the telecom provider over this cell tower issue. Marin County is updating its county 18
ordinance and it joined the lawsuits against the FCC with dozens of Cities including San Jose, 19
New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, etc. and Marin County held a public meeting to discuss 5G in 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Marin. Finally, Portland, Oregon just passed a resolution by its City Council last week to ask the 1
FCC to revise its outdated health standards. 2
3
These are just a few examples of actions that Cities, counties, communities, and residents are 4
taking. We can do better in Palo Alto and I urge you to make strong recommendations to City 5
Council to protect the safety and well fair of our community. There are many residents who are 6
willing to work on this issue to create a better solution. It’s really hard to explain this all in 3-7
minutes so we’re asking to please give us an opportunity to do more. We need a resident task 8
force that is exclusively focusing on identifying how the Wireless Ordinance can be amended to 9
best protect resident interest in Palo Alto. Thank you. 10
11
Chair Riggs: Thanks, Ms. Chow. Any other comments? Alright, seeing none I’m going to close 12
the public hearing and bring it back to the Commission. I guess I started on my left last time so 13
I’ll start on my right but maybe we get a reminder from Staff on kind of what our key objectives 14
are with regard to this item. 15
16
Mr. Yang: So, the Planning Commission is tasked to make a recommendation to the Council on 17
adoption or not of the ordinance that’s before you. The ordinance itself does not include any 18
aesthetics standards like what size or what locations or how much noise these facilities should 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
be allowed to make but Staff is open to any direction from the Commission on some of those 1
issues as well if you’d like to comment on those. 2
3
Chair Riggs: Ok so Commissioner Waldfogel, did you want… can you start us off? 4
5
Commissioner Waldfogel: It’s my turn. Ok, I’ll be brief. I did browse the FCC report and Order 6
18-132 and I do get the intent which is to accelerate deployment of 5G mobile networks and to 7
remove local obstacles from that deployment. Just a note to Staff, I wish you’d include some 8
pictures of 5G equipment… typical 5G equipment in the Packet. Maybe as you move this to 9
Council you could show them what… oh, that’s great, here it is. I think this is helpful. I think you 10
should also frame this in the context that there are at least four major national mobile 11
operators and the question what will a block look like if all those operators are rolling 5G 12
networks on the block. Will we see this repeated four or five times or will we see some kind of 13
[unintelligible] so that this will be consolidated? Just sort of what’s our intent? I think it would 14
be great if we could express that. 15
16
And then finally on the aesthetic standards, I think you had a discussion at the ARB about trade-17
offs between size and noise. My two sense on this are that I think noise is more impactful than 18
size but I’d just like… as this moves to the Council, I’d like them to understand the trade-offs 19
and just explore that. And I’d ask Staff, is there a way to perhaps set a standard certification 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.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
a licensed radio engineer, I think that’s the term you used in the ordinance, that whatever 1
design proposed is the least impactful in whatever the ensemble of directions that we give 2
might be? I just wonder if there’s some way that we can set up an Objective Standard. 3
4
And then finally a question, can we regulate base stations near schools under the FCC report 5
and order? Is that something that’s within our discretion? 6
7
Mr. Yang: So yes, we can regulate minimum distances and areas, either zones or distances 8
around certain facilities like schools, where these facilities would or would not be allowed. My 9
one comment on that though is that issues of health effects are very clearly outside the 10
jurisdiction of the City. So, if we were going to enact those sorts of regulations, we would have 11
to ground them in some sort of aesthetics or other police power authority other than health. 12
So, we can certainly do it but we have to say because it’s too ugly for the children to look at. 13
14
Commissioner Waldfogel: Ok and have we contemplated any of those standards? 15
16
Mr. Yang: We… you know I think if that’s something… the direction that we get from the 17
Commission we’d be very happy to include something like that. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Waldfogel: That’s why it’s so helpful to have pictures of how… of what these 1
things look like but anyhow, thank you. 2
3
Commissioner Summa: Thank you to the members of the public who waited so long to speak 4
and for your very thoughtful comments and emails. So, my concerns, I don’t know how much 5
our concerns as a community that we’re expressed so eloquently can be addressed because the 6
FCC is strong-arming us with this legislation. I don’t quite understand why some Cities think 7
they can make an ordinance that has much more of… that respond much more to local 8
concerns. Are they just making an ordinance, this is a question for Staff, that expresses the local 9
concerns but they know they’ll have to comply with the FCC regulations but they want 10
something on the books? Is that what you think is going on? 11
12
Mr. Yang: So, we looked at many, many different ordinances as we were working on this and 13
two for example that are very similar, Mill Valley and Fairfax both prohibit or they don’t allow 14
these facilities in residential zones on their face but they also include exception provisions. Let’s 15
say if you believe that an exception from many of these regulations is required under federal 16
law then you can apply for an exception. I think that’s the big loophole there. 17
18
Commissioner Summa: Well is that a feasible approach? 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Yang: So, Staff didn’t pursue that approach because in that case, you don’t have the first 1
bite at what the facility looks like. You… the carrier can come in and seek an exception and say 2
this is what we want to put up near [note -it and you’re] required by federal law to allow it 3
because otherwise, we won’t be able to have a network. And the City doesn’t have any ability 4
at the outset to say actually, we’d like it to look like this instead. And in our analysis by having 5
Objective Standards that say you have to incorporate this into an existing street sign or you 6
have to have these facilities be no larger than x, y, and z dimensions, they need to be shrouded 7
and they need to be painted this color and they need to match the existing pole. We’re able to 8
say these are the types of facilities that we want to prefer and if you want an exception from 9
that you need to tell us why those regulations can’t… you can’t deploy your network with those 10
regulations. As opposed to if we just say you can’t have these at all in our neighborhoods, it’s 11
very easy for them to come back and say well, you know we can’t comply… we can’t have a 12
network under those conditions. 13
14
Commissioner Summa: And the April 15th deadline is when we would have to express the 15
objective aesthetics? Is that what the April 15th deadline is? 16
17
Mr. Yang: That’s correct. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Summa: So that’s the only… we have to apply… we have to have that in place 1
before April 15th to have any control over the aesthetics? 2
3
Mr. Yang: Yes. 4
5
Mr. Lait: [unintelligible – off mic] 6
7
Mr. Yang: Yeah so what Director Lait is clarifying is that we don’t lose our ability to regulate 8
forever. We just don’t have any ability to regulate until we adopt those standards so if we don’t 9
adopt them on April 15th, we’ll have no regulatory authority until we do adopt them. 10
11
Commissioner Summa: So, we could adopt them a week later (interrupted) 12
13
Mr. Yang: Yes, yes. 14
15
Commissioner Summa: Or 2-weeks later? 16
17
Mr. Yang: Yes, yes, but you know then we would have that window where if an application 18
came in, we wouldn’t have the ability to (interrupted) 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Summa: And we have applications pending, is that right? 1
2
Mr. Yang: We do. 3
4
Commissioner Summa: And then do… I mean I understand the federally imposed restrictions on 5
health considerations but I think the community is so concerned about this. It feels really hard 6
to move forward when their concerns have not been met for me but I understand that Staff is 7
trying very hard to have what little control we can have under the FCC regulations. And I was 8
also interested in seeing, especially mockups or examples or pictures, of what the baseline units 9
would look like but as Commissioner Waldfogel said. So, I’m really torn and I really appreciate 10
that Staff has tried to respond to the concerns and that we’re so… there’s so little we can do 11
but I am really torn about… because we will have to comply with the federal regulations 12
regardless. And I’m really torn about having an ordinance… adding an ordinance into our books 13
that’s so poorly captures the values of the community and concerns of the community. So, I’m 14
really in a hard place on this but I do thank Staff for working so hard. 15
16
Chair Riggs: Commissioner Templeton. 17
18
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you all who spoke tonight on both sides of this issue. Could 1
you clarify about the poles? Are they all telephone poles that are going to be affected or only 2
telephone poles? 3
4
Mr. Yang: So (interrupted) 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: Because you mentioned stop signs and other (interrupted) 7
8
Mr. Yang: There’s a combination of mostly telephone poles and streetlight poles that are where 9
the City is receiving the majority of its applications. And (interrupted) 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: But is it correct as our person from Verizon said that all of those are 12
telephone poles? 13
14
Mr. Yang: No, they’re not all telephone poles, some are standalone street lights. 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: Which are owned by the City? 17
18
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Yang: Yes. I believe there are about 6,000 wood utility poles and about 6,000 streetlights in 1
the City. Some of those might be a combination but those are the rough figures that we were 2
given by our Utilities Department. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: And can you clarify why we wouldn’t need to have the public 5
hearings about the sites? Is that part of the FCC demand or is that (interrupted)? 6
7
Mr. Yang: So, I guess yeah, I would like to clarify that this ordinance doesn’t change anything 8
about the number… the ability of the Director to send these things to the ARB. That’s… right 9
now it’s… the ordinance reads that the Director may and the Director’s discretion to send these 10
applications either to the ARB or to the Planning Commission and that continues to be the case. 11
The… and I think we anticipate that there are some occasions when it will be appropriate for 12
the ARB to review and there are still appeals to the Council. As you heard the speaker from 13
Verizon the industry does not think that those are necessary but that’s something that we’re 14
preserving in our ordinance. The issue is that the FCC has given us very short time frames. 15
They’ve changed those time frames that we have now, either 60 or 90-days in most cases, to go 16
from an application completion to the full processing and (interrupted) 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: What are the consequences of not complying with those deadlines? 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Yang: So, under California laws and federal law, the combination of the two, the City would 1
have to go to court to have a court that we deserve extra time. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: Ok and do we do that at all currently? 4
5
Mr. Yang: We haven’t, we’ve been able to reach agreements in most cases with the carriers for 6
them to agree to give us extra time but if push came to shove and we didn’t meet those 7
deadlines that is the process we’d have to go through. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: And a final question is what would we need to do to have residential 10
setbacks in Palo Alto? So even if we didn’t exclude a whole zone, for example, you said that 11
would probably be too much but is there some way we can add residential setbacks that would 12
be acceptable? 13
14
Mr. Yang: Sure, so if the Commission would like to specify that or would like to recommend that 15
there be a certain distance between facilities, for example, 500 or 1,000-feet or that there be a 16
certain distance around schools or other specified uses, we’d be open to that. 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: And that would be acceptable within the legal constraints? There’s 19
nothing stopping us from doing that? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Mr. Yang: You know there are certain limits where if we’re saying it’s got to be 2,000-feet 2
between poles that’s probably not feasible. And I guess one other thing to note is that the 3
aesthetic recommendations from the ARB have generally tended towards smaller equipment 4
that’s less visible but that also requires a high density of sites. So, that’s another consideration 5
that we have to… Staff would take a look at. I guess if the recommendation from the Planning 6
Commission was to include a minimum distance between these sites, Staff would take that and 7
take a look and figure out what is… what makes sense given the standards that the ARB has 8
recommended as well. 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: Alright thank you very much. 11
12
Chair Riggs: Alright, Commissioner Alcheck [note – Vice-Chair Alcheck]. 13
14
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Yes, so I have a few questions about maybe additions we can make. What is 15
the harm of adding language that or actually, let me start here. Last time we had this 16
conversation one of the topics we talked about the lawsuit that we are I believe not a party too. 17
Do you have any updates on that? 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Yang: So there… I’m not aware of any meaningful change in the status of that litigation. So, 1
the City… it’s too late for the City to join into one… litigation over one of the FCC’s orders. The 2
City actually has been all along a member of collation on a different piece of litigation. 3
4
Vice-Chair Alcheck: I would suggest that we consider adding language that would immediately 5
revert the changes we’re making in the event that that lawsuit concludes favorably for the I 6
guess plaintiffs. I think… I want to ask a different question too. To what extent does removing 7
the ARB’s oversight sort of suggest that the ARB can’t be objective? If we create Objective 8
Standards what’s the issue with the ARB still being involved? 9
10
Mr. Yang: So, as I said earlier the ARB’s role is not changing. There’s no change to whether or 11
not these applications can be sent to the ARB for review. 12
13
Vice-Chair Alcheck: That’s as a result to the new changes? 14
15
Mr. Yang: That has never been (interrupted) 16
17
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Has always been the case? 18
19
Mr. Yang: That has never been Staff’s proposal. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Alright, I apologize then for not understanding that. Ok well, then that 2
would be my recommendation because as I understand it that the crux of the lawsuit is 3
essentially challenging the notion that we have to even make these changes as they’re required 4
and that there’s a loss of local control as a result of this. And so, what… I don’t see that there 5
would be any harm in immediately revert… in creating in essentially a sunset on these changes 6
if that lawsuit proves successful. 7
8
Mr. Yang: So, I would say that the ordinance is already written so that it’s 75 percent of the way 9
there. Our ordinance used to spell out the timeframes that the FCC ordered and that’s what our 10
ordinance currently does. And this ordinance before you instead proposes to reference that the 11
City will comply with federal law. So, if the plaintiffs succeed or if legislation is passed that 12
undoes the FCC order, our ordinance will just say well we’re going to comply with federal law 13
and that federal law has changed. 14
15
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Let me ask you a question if there was a study that demonstrated that 16
there was a risk that we felt was valid, right? Let’s say there was a... I’m not suggesting that 17
there are current studies that do that but if there was a study that the City Council felt was 18
conclusive on whether or not there was harm caused by any of these facilities. To what extent 19
could the City determine unilaterally that they were unwilling to continue to tolerate this? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Regardless of the fact that maybe the FCC wasn’t prepared to make the same finding. I mean at 1
some point if that came about what’s (interrupted) 2
3
Mr. Yang: I mean you know that is a policy choice I suppose that is always available to the City 4
Council to weigh the risk that’s involved with that and the benefits and the costs that are 5
involved with that. 6
7
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Alright well I would suggest this (interrupted) 8
9
Chair Riggs: Maybe we just [unintelligible] 10
11
[note - Vice-Chair Alcheck and Chair Riggs started talking at the same time] 12
13
Vice-Chair Alcheck: I’ll suggest that I think it would be probably negligent for us not to 14
recommend the adoption of these changes because failure to do so puts us in a position where 15
we have no oversight over the applications. I guess one suggestion would be, especially to the 16
members of the public who have raised important concerns, would be that they can continue 17
to lobby the City Council for adjustments to the ordinance that make it more restrictive in line 18
with their concerns. But at a bare minimum, I think waiting to perfect the ordinance is a 19
mistake because it leaves us open. That’s my understanding of this and that’s why I 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.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
support the recommendation in lieu of the fact that I’m uncomfortable with some of the 1
unknowns. 2
3
Chair Riggs: Alright, Commissioner Lauing and I will entertain a motion if you want to just go 4
there. 5
6
Commissioner Lauing: No, I just… I had a couple questions. One it seemed like an answer to 7
Commissioner Summa’s question was that the 15th is not a hard and fast date. It could be a 8
week later or two weeks later so I just wanted to clarify that because that would give people 9
time to go through another iteration of this for example. 10
11
Mr. Yang: So (interrupted) 12
13
Mr. Lait: (off mic) You run the risk of an application coming in, right? 14
15
Mr. Yang: Yeah, the 15th is the date on which the only aesthetics regulations that we will be 16
able to apply are objective ones and we have (interrupted) 17
18
Commissioner Lauing: Speak up, I didn’t hear 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.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Yang: Sorry, the 15th is the date in which the only aesthetics regulations that we’ll be able 1
to enforce are objective regulations and if we don’t have objective regulations in place on that 2
date, we won’t be able to enforce any aesthetics regulation on that date. We could adopt 3
regulations later but until the time that we do adopt those regulations, we’ll have no local 4
control whatsoever. And I guess I would suggest this ordinance and the way we’ve structured 5
the adoption of regulations to be adopted by resolution allows for them to be updated very 6
easily. 7
8
Commissioner Lauing: That was going to be my next question is if we pass this tonight and then 9
we decide that on the 22nd we do want new regulations; it seems like you’re saying that that’s 10
also possible. 11
12
Mr. Yang: That’s correct. 13
14
Commissioner Lauing: So, with respect to Commissioner Alcheck’s [note – Vice-Chair Alcheck] 15
comments folks could continue to work on this. In fact, if you wanted to, you could put 16
together a working group that they’re asking for. 17
18
Mr. Yang: That’s right. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Lauing: And it wouldn’t go 18-months like the CAC did. I have no problem with 1
that. Yeah, just in general, even the last time this was here I’m having trouble with the urgency 2
because it’s a state law that they're sticking it to us. There’s I don’t know how many 3
communities are arguing it, it’s going to go on for years, in the meantime, we do have to follow 4
FCC guidelines so it just doesn’t feel like it’s that’s urgent to me. One other comment, what was 5
the last action out of the ARB because there was a member of the public that wrote… let’s see 6
Ms. Jeanne Fleming, her email is dated the 21st of this month but referencing the prior ARB. It 7
said something like thank you for deciding not to green light the Director of Planning proposals 8
with respect to neighborhood cell towers. So that’s totally out of context but I’m just trying to 9
wonder what’s ARB position on this? 10
11
Mr. Yang: So, Staff took a number of different potential design options to the ARB as designs we 12
would specify in our standards and the ARB recommended adoption of some of them and 13
recommended that others be stricken from the regulations. 14
15
Commissioner Lauing: Ok. That’s all. 16
17
Chair Riggs: Ok, any other comments and I would if anyone wants to be bold and put something 18
out there that would be great. Commissioner Waldfogel. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
MOTION #2 1
2
Commissioner Waldfogel: Sure, I’ll make a motion. I’ll move the Staff proposal and I’d like to 3
add two things to that. I’d like to recommend establishing… recommend to the Council that 4
they establish a working group to continue the analysis work that we’ve heard tonight and I’d 5
also recommend a 1-year review after we pass this just look at what’s been approved, what’s 6
out there, and figure out if we got it right. 7
8
Chair Riggs: Do I have a second? 9
10
SECOND 11
12
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Second. 13
14
Chair Riggs: Any discussion? Would you like to move to take a vote or would you like to take a 15
vote on this? Ok, Commissioner Templeton. 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: Is it appropriate to add an amendment regarding setbacks at this 18
point? 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Riggs: (off mic) You need to ask the motion maker. 1
2
Commissioner Templeton: Oh well I just want to make sure it was allowed. 3
4
Chair Riggs: It would be the time to (interrupted) 5
6
FRIENDLY AMENDMENT #1 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: Asher, could… Commissioner Waldfogel, could we add to include a 9
500-foot setback from schools and 130-foot setback from residences? 10
11
Commissioner Waldfogel: I’d actually prefer to do that as a result of the working group 12
recommendation but (interrupted) 13
14
[Several Commissioners started talking off mic] 15
16
Chair Riggs: So, I think the (interrupted) 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: Oh, can we then… yeah good suggestion, to add that as part of the 19
objectives of the working group to establish the minimum distances? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Summa: (off mic) And establish adjacency standards for (interrupted) 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: And establish adjacency standards for schools? 4
5
Commissioner Summa: (off mic) Because do you know 500 and 130 are [unintelligible]? 6
7
Chair Riggs: I think… can you just make a clear proposal for Commissioner Waldfogel so he can 8
consider this part of his motion and then the seconder can (interrupted) 9
10
FRIENDLY AMENDMENT #1 WITHDRAWN 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: I’m going to differ this to Commissioner Summa because she has a 13
very clear way of phrasing it. 14
15
FRIENDLY AMENDMENT #2 16
17
Commissioner Summa: I don’t know about that but thank you. I was going to say establish 18
minimum distances from residences and I think this is for base units, right? 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Waldfogel: Yes. 1
2
Commissioner Summa: Not antenna? And establish distance standards from schools and to 3
keep gathering updates on info regarding health issues. Is that legal? 4
5
Commissioner Waldfogel: They can gather information but it’s not something we can act on 6
and I just want to say is I would prefer if the language was to recommend on these items rather 7
than to establish standards. 8
9
Chair Riggs: Yeah or consider. 10
11
Commissioner Summa: That’s fine if you think that’s better and then even though we have a 12
quick turn around when these applications come to us, I think we should still have a public 13
hearing so we can establish a record of the concerns. So that might mean… that might be 14
scheduling problems but I do think there’s so much community concern that a public hearing 15
would establish that in the record. 16
17
And then I would encourage… also, recommend that we get the highest fees we can reasonably 18
impose for these installations. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Riggs: Where those recommendations for amendments to the motion or where those 1
just comments for the record? 2
3
Commissioner Summa: No, no, to add to the motion. 4
5
Chair Riggs: Commissioner Waldfogel? 6
7
Commissioner Waldfogel: Are fees within the scope of this ordinance? 8
9
Mr. Yang: Fees themselves are within the scope of the ordinance but (interrupted) 10
11
Commissioner Waldfogel: Well generally fees are set by City Manager for most things on our 12
schedule, right? 13
14
Mr. Yang: The fees are adopted by City Council as part of the annual budget. 15
16
Mr. Lait: (off mic) [unintelligible] cost recovery. 17
18
Mr. Yang: But we… for our application processing, we operate on full cost recovery for these 19
applications. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Waldfogel: So, we already do what Commissioner Summa is recommending 2
which is leaving the highest recoverable fee, I would assume? 3
4
Mr. Yang: Yes. 5
6
Commissioner Waldfogel: Then I would support leaving the highest the fee that’s consistent 7
with cost recovery. 8
9
Mr. Yang: Yes, and that is also in terms of annual attachment fees, ongoing fees. It’s Staff’s 10
intention to make sure that we’re updating those regularly to capture as much as we can. 11
12
Commissioner Waldfogel: And what’s the other piece of it? I’m sorry. 13
14
Commissioner Summa: (off mic) The minimum [unintelligible]. 15
16
Commissioner Waldfogel: [unintelligible – off mic] 17
18
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Summa: The other was to retain public hearings understanding that it will be a 1
public… I mean it will be a difficult scheduling problem for Staff but the meetings… but I think 2
it’s important to establish public record of the community’s concerns. 3
4
Commissioner Waldfogel: I’m not sure that this last… is this last one feasible? 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: (off mic) Its discretion. 7
8
Commissioner Summa: Council can decide. 9
10
Chair Riggs: That’s at the Director’s discretion I believe and so it’s up to you to consider as a 11
part of your motion I mean if you wanted to make that (interrupted) 12
13
Commissioner Waldfogel: Lets actually carve that out as a separate item because all the rest of 14
these I accept but this final one I think needs a little more analysis. 15
16
Mr. Yang: Can I clarify one item of the first part of the amendment. The recommendation that 17
someone recommend minimum distances etc. Are those… is that asking Staff to make that 18
recommendation to the Council or is that asking a task force to be put together too 19
(interrupted) 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Waldfogel: Taskforce. 2
3
Mr. Yang: Ok, great. 4
5
Commissioner Summa: [unintelligible – off mic] 6
7
Commissioner Waldfogel: Yeah so, I accept all of those amendments except for the one on 8
public hearing. 9
10
Commissioner Summa: Is there a way I could state it that would make it more acceptable or do 11
you just think it’s too big of a burden? 12
13
Commissioner Waldfogel: I think it’s something that probably needs some analysis and I’m just 14
not sure this is the… I’m not sure I can do that at a quarter to midnight. 15
16
Chair Riggs: Ok so I just want to make… Commissioner Waldfogel, I was… except for that last 17
item you’re fine with the suggested additions? I want to make sure that the seconder, 18
Commissioner Alcheck [note – Vice-Chair Alcheck] is also ok with those additions? 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Affirmative. 1
2
VOTE 3
4
Chair Riggs: So, is there any more dialog and if not, I’d like to take a vote? Any other questions 5
or comments on the motion on the floor? Ok, with that said let’s take a vote. All in favor? Any 6
opposed? One abstention. 7
8
Vice-Chair Alcheck: No [unintelligible – off mic] 9
10
Chair Riggs: Alright, sorry, absence, sorry. 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: Close enough. 13
14
Chair Riggs: So, the motion carries 6-0 with one absent. 15
16
MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY 6(Lauing, Alcheck, Riggs, Templeton, Summa, Waldfogel) -0-17
1(Roohparvar absent) 18
19
Chair Riggs: Did you want to comment Commissioner Summa? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
MOTION #3 2
3
Commissioner Summa: Well I’d like to make another motion to recommend that all of these 4
decisions regarding these devices have a public hearing so that we can establish a record of the 5
community concerns. 6
7
Chair Riggs: Do we have a second? 8
9
Commissioner Lauing: I’m not sure I’m understanding what you’re asking for. 10
11
Chair Riggs: Can you repeat the motion Commissioner Summa? 12
13
Commissioner Summa: At the present time because of the short time frame imposed by the 14
FCC, the Director will only refer this to public hearing, ARB or PTC whatever he thinks 15
appropriate if he thinks there’s a real reason to do so. And I understand why because of time 16
constraints but I actually think it’s important that there be a public hearing of some kind of each 17
one of these applications so that we can establish a public record of the community’s concerns. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Waldfogel: (off mic) May I ask a question? Is there [unintelligible]… there will still 1
be a public record will there not? 2
3
Mr. Yang: So, any item that comes before one of the City’s Boards and Commissions 4
(interrupted) 5
6
Commissioner Waldfogel: Well, no but these would be approved by the Director so if the 7
Director approved an installation is there public record somewhere of all of those approvals? 8
9
Mr. Yang: Yes, yes there is. I believe those would also be reported out to the ARB periodically 10
and I guess I should also note that before these applications… any of these applications come in 11
we also require that there be noticing done to the surrounding community and that there be a 12
community meeting held by the carrier. But just… I don’t think that was (interrupted) 13
14
Chair Riggs: So, I think we have a motion on the floor, we need a second for that motion. Do I 15
have a second? 16
17
MOTION #3 DIES DUE TO THE LACK OF A SECOND 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Riggs: Alright so no second so that motion fails. Any other questions or dialog on this 1
item? Ok, that concludes this item. 2
3
Commission Action: Motion made by Commissioner Waldfogel, seconded by Vice-Chair Alcheck 4
to move the Staff report as well as recommend the Council establish a working group to 5
continue the analysis and consider minimum distances from base units and standards from 6
schools, continue to gather information on health issues; require one year review of the 7
ordinance after adoption and recommend retention of the public hearing process. Motion 8
passed 6-0 (Roohparvar absent). 9
10
Approval of Minutes 11
Public Comment is Permitted. Five (5) minutes per speaker.1,3 12 13
Chair Riggs: So really quickly I’d like to go through approval of the minutes. Is public comment 14
permitted on this item? 15
16
Mr. Jonathan Lait, Director of Planning: (off mic) Yeah [unintelligible] 17
18
VOTE 19
20
Chair Riggs: No, we don’t have any so and no public comments. All in favor in approving our 21
minutes? 22
23
Commissioner Summa: Do we have minutes? 24
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Waldfogel: (off mic) There aren’t any. 2
3
Chair Riggs: It’s on the agenda. There were some provided via email by Yolanda. They were… 4
anyway. 5
Committee Items 6
7
Chair Riggs: Any quick updates? Committee items? Anything else? Anything else? Anything else 8
fellow Commissioners? 9
Commissioner Questions, Comments or Announcements 10
11
Commissioner Lauing: What is Newell Fence Variance? Is that a 5-minute item or a 3-hour 12
item? 13
14
Chair Riggs: Oh, is this a look ahead? 15
16
Commissioner Lauing: Yeah. 17
18
Chair Riggs: So, we have another item… we’re going to do out first educational item. You 19
actually were at Copa Café when we screening this individually the other day. So, we actually 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
have an innovator in the parking space coming in and just kind of do some information sharing 1
with us as part of this April 10th meeting. My understanding from talking with Commissioner… 2
Chair… Planning Director Lait as this is a very light meeting. So, 30-minutes of that will be a 3
study session and then this Newell Road item. We hope it’s an… is that the only item 4
[unintelligible] for that meeting? Alright, is that all we had to say? 5
6
Mr. Jonathan Lait, Director of Planning: (off mic) Yeah, I don’t want to give it away. 7
8
Chair Riggs: Any other questions, Commissioner Lauing? 9
10
Mr. Lait: [unintelligible – off mic] 11
12
Chair Riggs: Alright, seeing none, it’s 11:50, and we are adjourned. 13
Adjournment 14
11:50 pm 15
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Palo Alto Planning & Transportation Commission 1
Commissioner Biographies, Present and Archived Agendas and Reports are available online: 2
http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/gov/boards/ptc/default.asp. The PTC Commission members are: 3
4
Vice Chair Michael Alcheck 5
Commissioner Ed Lauing 6
Chair William Riggs 7
Commissioner Giselle Roohparvar 8
Commissioner Doria Summa 9
Commissioner Carolyn Templeton 10
Commissioner Asher Waldfogel 11
Get Informed and Be Engaged! 12
View online: http://midpenmedia.org/category/government/city-of-palo-alto or on Channel 26. 13
14
Show up and speak. Public comment is encouraged. Please complete a speaker request card 15
located on the table at the entrance to the Council Chambers and deliver it to the Commission 16
Secretary prior to discussion of the item. 17
18
Write to us. Email the PTC at: Planning.Commission@CityofPaloAlto.org. Letters can be 19
delivered to the Planning & Community Environment Department, 5th floor, City Hall, 250 20
Hamilton Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94301. Comments received by 2:00 PM two Tuesdays preceding 21
the meeting date will be included in the agenda packet. Comments received afterward through 22
2:00 PM the day of the meeting will be presented to the Commission at the dais. 23
24
Material related to an item on this agenda submitted to the PTC after distribution of the 25
agenda packet is available for public inspection at the address above. 26
Americans with Disability Act (ADA) 27
It is the policy of the City of Palo Alto to offer its public programs, services and meetings in a 28
manner that is readily accessible to all. Persons with disabilities who require materials in an 29
appropriate alternative format or who require auxiliary aids to access City meetings, programs, 30
or services may contact the City’s ADA Coordinator at (650) 329-2550 (voice) or by emailing 31
ada@cityofpaloalto.org. Requests for assistance or accommodations must be submitted at least 32
24 hours in advance of the meeting, program, or service. 33