HomeMy WebLinkAbout2019-11-13 Planning & transportation commission Summary Minutes_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Planning & Transportation Commission 1
Action Agenda: November 13, 2019 2
Council Chambers 3
250 Hamilton Avenue 4
6:00 PM 5
6
Call to Order / Roll Call 7
6:12 pm 8
9
Chair Riggs: Alright I’d like to call us to order. It’s 6:10. Thanks for or 6:12, thanks for being 10
patient with us while we dealt with our children to get here. So, let’s do a roll call. 11
Oral Communications 12
The public may speak to any item not on the agenda. Three (3) minutes per speaker.1,2 13
Chair Riggs: Alright so I think we won’t deal it… just we have one comment card from oral 14
communication from an item not on the agenda from Jeb Eddy. 15
Mr. Jeb Eddy: First of all, many thanks for all the hours you all put in. My wife and I’ve lived 16
here for 52-years and I want to help you take cars off the road. And I’m completely serious that 17
the electric bicycles are a something for a frontier that can help do that. 18
My wife and I have been married today as I said for 52-years and we have identical bicycles like 19
this. They are made in Israel, they have terrific features, we can ride together for the first time 20
in 52-years. An earlier version that I had I got Steve Jobs to ride so I’ve been at if for almost 20-21
years. 22
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
I have made an offer to Stanford University to donate an identical bicycle. I have nothing to do 1
with any… I’m not a salesperson. I have no beneficial interest in any electric vehicle company. I 2
do have four grandsons and I may be the only the… well let’s see, you might be grandparents 3
also. We got to do a lot and soon and taking cars off the road with their revised GUP that 4
Stanford is going to have to deal with some form. If they had thousands of these things 5
commuting to campus, we’d be a lot better off. So, I’m going to invite any of you who is 6
interested, the new head of Transportation Department for a ride. Kim Kane [note – phonetics] 7
and I met on the downstairs parking lot on the basement and he went zooming up the whole 8
parking lot and out into the street and he came back with a big smile on his face because this is 9
a legitimate form of transportation. And you’re going to have to deal with some of the 10
interesting problems like intersections and conflicts and some rules about behavior but it’s a 11
really neat opportunity. Thank you for this little start and I will hope to see all of you at some 12
point in the future. Thanks. 13
14
Chair Riggs: Thanks, Jeb. Come back anytime, appreciate it. So, with that said I think that’s the 15
end of our public comments. 16
Agenda Changes, Additions, and Deletions 17
The Chair or Commission majority may modify the agenda order to improve meeting management. 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: So, Planning Director Lait, do we have additions, deletions and I believe you 1
(interrupted) 2
3
Commissioner Lauing: Oh, Chair, Chair? 4
5
Chair Riggs: Some reports. 6
7
Commissioner Lauing: I’d like to comment on that but if you have any changes, I just had a 8
comment on the changes before he gives his report. 9
10
Chair Riggs: Sure. 11
12
Commissioner Lauing: I just wanted to ask if we think this is in the right order because it’s a 13
very long agenda. If it gets really late do, we have to continue something? Do we know that we 14
want to continue the last item because now would be the time to do an adjustment? I don’t 15
know that there is but if we come up with a lot of ideas and a lot of debate, we’re going to be 16
here a long time so. 17
18
Chair Riggs: I… does anybody else feel that the agenda is… needs to be shuffled? I think I’m 19
content with the agreement. I think there’s an (interrupted) 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 Lauing: Ok, that’s fine. 2
3
Chair Riggs: We have a Commissioner that… that wants to recuse herself from one of the items 4
so I think it’s convenient this way. 5
6
Commissioner Lauing: Ok good. 7
8
Chair Riggs: Thanks for saying that. 9
City Official Reports 10
1. Assistant Directors Report, Meeting Schedule, and Assignments 11
Chair Riggs: Ok Director Lait? 12
13
Mr. Jonathan Lait, Director of Planning: So just a… not much to report since your last 14
Commission meeting but I will note that we are looking forward to coming before the Planning 15
Commission toward the went of the year here in December with a… some initial findings on our 16
Inclusionary Housing Study that has been prepared. We don’t anticipate coming with an 17
ordinance in December. We want to hear the Commission’s feedback and response to the 18
report. And then we’ll probably return in early next year with an ordinance that we would like 19
to advance onto City Council. 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
You also had a discussion a meeting or so ago regarding the non-compliant building and… or 2
uses of a building on I think it was Olive. We expect that that’s going to come back at the end of 3
the year or the first part of January. Other than that, no further updates. 4
2. Draft 2020 Meeting Schedule and Assignments 5
6
Chair Riggs: Yeah and I’ll just riff off you in that we in the pre-meeting, it was discussed that we 7
don’t have… we actually don’t have any agenda items for the January 8th meeting that we 8
polled you all on. We did have a quorum but, in the interest, that it… since we don’t have any 9
meetings [note – items] that meeting will be canceled. Our first meeting in the new year will be 10
on the 30th. 11
12
Study Session 13
Public Comment is Permitted. Five (5) minutes per speaker.1,3 14
3. Study Session Regarding Cohousing and Coliving With Presentations from Cohousing 15
and/or Coliving Owners and/or Operators in the Bay Area, and Commissioner 16
Discussion and Questions 17
Chair Riggs: Alright so I guess we should move onto our study session. We… this evening if you 18
remember the Commission’s goals this year was to educate ourselves as well as our community 19
on what’s happening in the built environment, what’s happening in transportation that we 20
need to be aware of. Earlier in the year, we had an individual that had some interesting 21
transportations solutions in the parking arena that he talked to us about. 22
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
And we’ve been trying to get two companies to come in and talk to us about this new idea of 2
co-living/co-housing. So tonight, we have Starcity and Bungalow here to talk to us about this 3
idea of co-living units. So, without further ado, I think the way we’re going to structure this, I 4
think we have a presentation from both of these innovators. And then we’ll open it up to 5
comments from the public if there… I don’t have any right now but if there are any members of 6
the public who want to comment. And we’ll have if there’s any dialog or questions from the 7
Commission we’ll do that after. So, without further ado John. 8
9
Commissioner Roohparvar: [unintelligible – off mic] I need to make a disclosure. 10
11
Chair Riggs: Oh, ok and I think we have one disclosure from the dais. 12
13
Commissioner Roohparvar: I just need to disclose that I did recently take a job Bungalow so I’m 14
not recusing myself but I am disclosing that fact. 15
16
Mr. Jon Dishotsky: Commissioners, thank you for your time. I don’t have quite the theatrical 17
performance of an electrical bicycle ride in but I did decide to bring my parents out as pawns. I 18
grew up in Palo Alto actually, in the 1980s, and was born and raised here. And my folks actually 19
ran a little experiment on the family which was that they had Stanford students live with us. 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.
And this was a super impactful experience for me as a kid because the students got a free place 1
or cheap place to live, we had inexpensive childcare for us, and my brother and sister and I had 2
several engineering students help us win every science fair project. 3
4
But in reality, once I got to adult life, I noticed that the cost of living had sort of spiraled out of 5
control for a lot of my friends and people in the industry. And we built this company Starcity 6
with the mission to make Cities accessible to everyone. Today there’s a massive problem with 7
meeting rent, as you guys all know, is well above where real incomes are for the middle class. 8
And so, we decided to start the company by talking to 750 people between the ages of 20 to 50 9
who made $40,000 to $100,000 a year who had full-time jobs. And we asked them first we’ll 10
give you $5.00 to come talk to us, what are you currently doing? You’re commuting an hour, 11
you’re fitting four people to a 2-bedroom, you’re paying 60 percent of your income toward 12
rent. The overwhelming majority of them were ready for something new and so in earl 2016, 13
we set out to build our first prototype in southern San Francisco. It was a conversion of an old 14
garage, we turned it into 6-bedrooms and 1,000 people applied to move in so that… we really 15
knew that we were on to something. 16
17
So, as I mentioned our City it so to make… our mission is to make Cities accessible to everyone. 18
Our… we’re hyper-focused on the middle class, people who are making that $50,000 to 19
$120,000 a year right now and I think it’s a similar dynamic in Palo Alto. We operate in multiple 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.
Cities up and down the West Coast. We were founded in 2016, we have 350 units live, we have 1
3,000 units under development, and we have 55 employees. The median renter age for us is 36, 2
the average salary is $75k and we’re actually achieving rental income less than 30 percent in 3
most cases. As you… you may think to yourself oh, is this tech-millennial dorms? Well, the 4
answers no. We actually serve multiple constituents across ten different industries. We have 5
your starter who’s 20 to 30-years old first moving out of college or grad school. We have your 6
re-starter who’s 30 to 50-years old who may have gotten a divorce or got out of a relationship 7
and they want to move back and live with other people. And so, what we’re finding is that this 8
is actually working for a vast population that we wouldn’t have otherwise thought. 9
10
As I mentioned this is not just for tech, right? This is for City government, for service industry, 11
for retired folks and we’re excited to see all the different use cases that people are utilizing the 12
built for [unintelligible]. 13
14
So, I’ll introduce you to Eli Sokol who’s our development team to talk a little bit about the 15
design of what we’re actually building. 16
17
Mr. Eli Sokol: Thank you. So just staring with an image here of one of our first properties in the 18
Mission District in San Francisco. I think one of the kinds of special… the special sauce of this 19
type of format is really generously sized communal spaces that serve a wide amount of people. 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.
Kitchens, living rooms where people can meet serendipitously, interact, host events, get 1
together in a living format that’s just inherently more social than traditional multi-family 2
projects. 3
4
So, I wanted to show you kind of a typical floor plan so you can understand conceptually how 5
these spaces work. What’s shaded in green are private bedroom suits. This is taken from a 6
project in San Francisco which is zoned or entitled as a group housing project. What’s shaded in 7
yellow is a communal space for kitchen, living room and dining area. And so, the benefit of 8
having a centralized space for those residents is again having that critical mass of activity. It’s 9
certainly a more efficient floor plate which in turn allows us to be able to rent rooms at a lower 10
rate than we otherwise would be able too. 11
12
So, in Starcity every… the basic premises that you are renting a private fully furnished bedroom 13
suite on a term of 3, 6 or 12 months. They’re looked to be priced at a discount to market-rate 14
studios and 1-bed apartments, so there’s an inherent value proposition there for middle-15
income folks who normally couldn’t afford an apartment in the City. As we mentioned every 16
typically residential floor includes communal living areas which would have a kitchen, dining, 17
and lounge space. And they also include laundry facilities and other broader building-wide 18
amenities in a larger scale format. 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.
So, I think an interesting example to present to you today is our largest project which is in 1
downtown San Jose. So, in San Jose, we recently entitled a project for 803-bedrooms which 2
wow, that sound enormous. How do we do that? Why’d they allow that to happen? So, this is a 3
project that was previously entitled for 300 multi-family units. We came across the opportunity 4
to do a project here where we could deliver an unprecedented amount of middle-income 5
housing to San Jose. Units that are offered affordable by design, below 110 AMI and the City 6
was really taken with delivering that much middle-income housing. Because as we know with 7
construction costs where they are folks simply can’t deliver multi-family projects or condo 8
projects at an affordable level. And so, we worked with the City of San Jose to actually craft the 9
first co-living Zoning Code in the country and I’ll get into details of what that includes. 10
11
Just real quick here’s a typical residential floor plan. You’re seeing kind of an evolution of what I 12
showed in early slides where now there’s upwards to 45-50 per floor. And we’ve honed in on 13
kind of the ideal ratio of how many beds should be served by a kitchen or a living room or a 14
dining room and finding a way to have all these spaces be effective, not overcrowded, and 15
impersonal. So that there’s a large chief style kitchen for big group gatherings and there’s a 16
more intimate tucked away kitchen if a family wants to have a quiet more private meal. 17
18
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Just some renderings of that project. This is a communal rooftop terrace available to the whole 1
buildings and a ground-level shot showing that we’re going to be looking to put some 2
neighborhood retail to serve not just our residents but the neighborhood at large. 3
4
So, to the meat and potatoes, this is taken straight from the San Jose Zoning Ordinance 5
specifically for co-living. So, the basic criteria is as follows, that unlike traditional multi-family 6
every bedroom here counts as a legal sleeping unit regardless of whether it includes a kitchen 7
or bathroom within the unit itself. They’re accessed off a common hallway, they much be at 8
least 100-square feet and up to 150-square feet to serve two occupants. Each bedroom shall 9
not serve more than two occupants and a bedroom may contain a kitchen facility but that is not 10
a requirement. Other requirements are that every kitchen facility must serve at least 6-11
bedrooms. That really gets to the heart of what makes co-living different from other residential 12
uses in that there is a critical mass of users for those common facilities and secondly, those 13
common facilities must be of an adequate size to serve the private bedrooms that are on that 14
floor. So, in this case, a co-living community shall provide a minimum of 20-square feet of 15
common space for every private bedroom. Bedrooms must have dedicated storage space and 16
parking requirements are lower than traditional multi-family which encourages of course 17
greater walkability and access to public transit. 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. Dishotsky: We have another exciting project which I’ll get through quickly because I want to 1
let the other team present but I mentioned that our mission is to make Cities accessible to 2
everyone. Starcity Mina [note – phonetics] is what the future of what we’re trying to build looks 3
like. Fifty-four percent of this building with 16-stories will be priced at AMI 50 percent, 80 4
percent, and 110 percent. That means that somebody on minimum wage can now afford to live 5
in the heart of the City in a Class A product. That’s something that is sort of fully realized is what 6
the original vision that the company was which is to make anybody to be able to walk in and get 7
access to the best places of opportunity. This is a little bit more of a tight dense floor plan and 8
like I mentioned the quality of fit and finish here will be a level of luxury product. 9
10
So, we thought we’d also talk a little bit about some of the barriers that we’re facing today. In 11
many cases, there’s not really a distinct zoning for co-living and so that’s was where San Jose 12
really started to shine. And we’re talking to Cities like Los Angeles and Seattle and Chicago 13
about similar types of zoning changes. Sometimes dwelling units also require a kitchen and 14
bathroom but we’re often finding that people aren’t using those as much as you would think 15
and they’re paying a lot of money for that. So why do we require that that actually be built in 16
the individual space? In addition to that Aaron Peskin just introduced legislation in San 17
Francisco that requires you to have a minimum of a 12-month lease. We think that that’s 18
actually detrimental to folks like nurses, interns, teachers who are substitutes. And so, the 3, 6… 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.
3 and 6-months leases are actually really important to this category of housing and so we’re 1
starting to a inflexibility in those cases. Do you want to talk about a few others? 2
3
Mr. Sokol: Sure so parking requirements, one of the broader trends we’re seeing not just in co-4
living but across all urban living is that if you build housing close to jobs, close to transit and 5
design buildings that are human scale people are going to get out of their cars and walk more. 6
So, we advocated for a lower parking requirement in San Jose and we got it, but that’s not the 7
same case in other Cities. And then final City fees, this is a big nitty-gritty but typically are based 8
on a unit count, not on square footage. And obviously we’re a denser product, we’re unit rich, 9
even if the square footage is equal to a multi-family project the fees end up being quite 10
punitive. So, moving to a square footage-based system would be more equitable. 11
12
Mr. Dishotsky: And I’ll just close with look, we understand the scale of Palo Alto. We don’t 13
intend on coming back home here and building giant 800- units’ buildings. The majority of our 14
early projects and a lot of projects that we do today are adaptive reuse to commercial office, 15
hotel, or existing residential. And those work really well and so we always try to go to 16
neighborhoods, talk to Planning Commissioners, Supervisors, and community groups about 17
what they need in advance of actually building. And so, I think today we’re actually really 18
excited to present to you and I think with that we’ll say thank you. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Ms. Sokol: Thank you. 1
2
Chair Riggs: Thanks so much and don’t… stick around for a little while because we may have 3
questions afterward but I think we want to hear from our other team here. And it’s actually so 4
good, we have a community of people that are thinking innovatively so here. So, we’ll hear 5
from the team from Bungalow. 6
7
Ms. Alex Canedo: Great, thank you so much for having us. My name’s Alex, I’m the Bay Area 8
General Manager and you’ll also be hearing from our Director of Field Operations Bryan 9
Connolly. 10
11
So, Bungalow was founded based on the concepts of community and accessibility. Accessibility 12
being that we believe finding a home should be accessible to everyone. Additionally, Bungalow 13
wants to provide the opportunity for a home with roommates you love and so you can feel at 14
home in any City that you’re in. 15
16
So the Bay Area knows better than anyone the effects of the housing crisis on your friends, your 17
neighbors, on your family, and pair that with the growing epidemic of loneliness and you have 18
the environment that we’re currently living in. Where we’re seeing rent growth decoupling 19
from income growth as well as the growing sentiment that more and more people are feeling 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
lonely. So, Bungalow is seeing that people are moving to Cities and housing is feeling 1
unattainable, varied, and complex and lonely. So how Bungalow is looking to solve that 2
problem is by focusing on three primary aspects. The first being that we are looking to optimize 3
underutilized housing supply. So, what we’re seeing as underutilized housing supply are these 4
4, 5, 6-bedroom larger homes in single-unit family homes that are just going unrented. Both 5
because families are just traditionally not those sizes anymore and then additionally those 6
homes are pretty expensive for current family structures. So, Bungalow is able to take those 7
homes and rent out those rooms to professionals within our network. The professionals in our 8
network are what we like to say looking for more than just a room so the amenities that we 9
provide within Bungalow is we’re offering beautifully furnished homes in great locations. We 10
use a professional interior designer. 11
12
We’re also providing an opportunity to match with roommates so these roommates go through 13
a meet and greet process where they’re essentially selecting who they want to live with based 14
off lifestyle preferences and interest. So, when we introduce someone during meet and greet, 15
these roommates have the opportunity to say no, they don’t think it’s going to be a good fit. If 16
someone doesn’t appear to be a good fit then we take that potential resident and try to find a 17
better fit for them. So, we’re really focused on creating a community that acts as a household 18
and then additionally we’re providing community outside the house as well with multiple 19
events and networking opportunities. So along with that, we’re offering a range of pricing 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.
which I’ll get into a little bit later but this allows us to find a home for multi needs. And then 1
additionally we’re providing a technology-enabled renting process because people are working 2
more than ever. They need convenience, they need ease, and so people are able to rent with 3
Bungalow through their phone, through their computer, whatever device works best for them. 4
5
Additionally, we are focusing on the homeowner’s value. We can’t solve the housing crisis 6
without including the homeowners in the solution. So, by offering homeowners value and 7
creating more opportunities for people to join Bungalow, we’re increasing our supply 8
opportunities. So, we do this by providing dedicated account management, 24/7 support, 9
regular upkeep of the home through cleaning and annual inspections. And essentially 10
homeowners are seeing a lot of value in that and partnering with us. 11
12
So, Bungalow’s focus is to look at the problem and find solutions around convenience, 13
community, and accessibility. So, with residence, what that looks like is being able to offer a 14
portfolio of homes within the Bungalow network so we can find a home that meets their price 15
range, that meets their amenities, that meets their needs. Additionally, we’re providing a 16
roommate selection process so this essentially allows people to go through a process with 17
lifestyle preferences and really find people that they connect with. Additionally, we’re providing 18
a pre-built community where they can build organic connections because of shared interests. 19
We have hobby-based activities that we’re providing to people as well as networking 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.
volunteer opportunities. Addition on the homeowner’s side what we’re doing is we’re able to 1
help them rent out those hard to lease properties because the homes are just not moving on 2
the market. Additionally, one of the other areas that has been successful is homeowners that 3
have essentially settled on the concept that the only way they’re going to rent this place is they 4
need to sell the property. They’ve been able to partner with Bungalow and keep that 5
investment opportunity for themselves and essentially not lose out the investment opportunity 6
that they originally hoped for. Additionally, we are able to… by using the existing supply we’re 7
able to retain the look and feel of the neighborhood. So, by partnering with the homeowners 8
and by getting to know the neighbors, we are essentially bringing the Bungalow platform into 9
what is already existing within the neighborhood and fitting seamlessly within that. 10
11
So, another great reason using existing supply helps bring on housing is we’re able to move 12
really fast and really quickly. Essentially able to bring hundreds of living opportunities to 13
multiple people… to… sorry, hundreds of living opportunities to people per year. So just within 14
the last year, we bought 80 homes across the San Francisco, East Bay Peninsula and South Bay. 15
And additionally, homeowners are becoming repeated customers so whether they already have 16
an investment or whether they already have a portfolio or they’re looking to invest in new 17
properties. They’re coming back to Bungalow when they have a new home that they would like 18
to bring onto the market and thus we’re able to rent those out to more working professionals. 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.
So, another aspect of using existing supply is we’re able to offer a wide range of pricing. So, all 1
rooms are not creating equal and within a 5-bedroom house you might have a smaller room, 2
maybe it has a small closet. And within that same house, you’ll see a master bedroom with a 3
double vanity and maybe a jacuzzi and a shower and within that same home we have a 4
beautifully furnished living room, we have a kitchen with amazing amenities, and maybe a large 5
backyard. So regardless of your price point, you don’t have to compromise on the other 6
amenities that could be offered to you in a home. We’re able to find a need that fits everyone. 7
Additionally, when it comes to Palo Alto specifically, we have an average price range of $1,500 8
for our bedrooms and studios in Palo Alto and 1-bedrooms as you guys know run upwards of 9
$2,500- $3,300. So, it’s really an accessible and competitive option for people looking to stay 10
within in Palo Alto around where they’re working. 11
12
And then a little bit more about the demographics of our residents. So, our residents are 13
choosing to live with Bungalow long term and they’re primarily choosing to live with Bungalow 14
to… out of convenience and location so essentially, they’re moving closer to work. On average 15
our residents are renting 12-months and then have the option to renew year over year and 16
they’re renewing about 70 percent of the time so people are staying with Bungalow. 17
Additionally, when it comes to the top employers within the area Stanford University is actually 18
one of our current top employers of our Bungalow residents which is really great and then we 19
have some tech companies as I’m sure you can imagine within the area. We quite a bit of 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.
Residents are also usually within their mid-20’s to mid-’30s, however, we do have a large range 1
of ages within our residents. You know we have someone in their 50’s living with someone in 2
their 20’s and they have a really great cohesive bond because they have similar living 3
preferences. They have the similar concept of what it means to be a good roommate. So, we’re 4
able to pair these types of people and create that experience that they might not have had the 5
opportunity to meet someone like that because people are not looking within… they’re looking 6
within a box when they’re trying to find people to live with. 7
8
And then lastly, we’re providing opportunities to create community outside of the home. So 9
that’s through our community events as well as we have multiple community events per 10
month. And those are hobby-based activities, networking opportunities, and volunteer 11
opportunities to provide people with a chance to bond with people over similar interests. So, 12
we’re providing a community to people the minute they sign with Bungalow both inside the 13
home and outside the home. 14
15
And so, I just want to thank you so much for having us here today and then if you have any 16
questions, we’d love to take them. 17
18
Chair Riggs: Great so we’re going to hold… if we could just hold our questions. I have to make 19
sure that there’s no public comment. No cards? Ok. Alright seeing there’re no public comment 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
questions from the Commissioners, comments from the Commissioners. Commissioner Alcheck 1
[note -Vice-Chair Alcheck]. 2
3
Vice-Chair Alcheck: If the reps from Starcity wouldn’t mind coming back up. I’m curious you 4
said… there was something in your slide. Maybe you explained it but I missed it. What did you 5
mean by the unit density limits can be detrimental to the purpose-built co-living model? 6
7
Mr. Sokol: Sure, so from City to City depending on what site you’re looking at and what zoning 8
district you’re looking to build in sometimes what the CAP and what you can build is FAR driven. 9
Other times it’s based on a density limit of units per lot area. And so just making sure that it’s 10
really based more on formed based code and on meeting the intended goals of providing the 11
right amount of housing for that neighborhood we think would be more progressive way to 12
regulate that. 13
14
Vice-Chair Alcheck: So, like a FAR standard would be better than a unit standard (interrupted) 15
16
Mr. Dishotsky: Yeah because [unintelligible] (interrupted) 17
18
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Because they’re treating the rooms as units. 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. Dishotsky: Yeah, the amount of space that people need now arguably is a lot less than 1
when the Planning Code was written in many cases decades ago. And so, the idea is more just 2
go to a FAR base so there’re less density limits and (interrupted) 3
4
Mr. Sokol: Yeah, I mean a typical example is if you think of like an old Victorian tri-plex in San 5
Francisco. Those lots are actually zoned for even less than what’s built on them today. They’re 6
saying maybe it’s 1-unit for every 1,000-feet of lot area and clearly, you can accommodate a 7
much dense use there if the lot… if the density limit wasn’t so strict. 8
9
Vice-Chair Alcheck: The Mina [note - phonetics] project that you showed us, is that entitled? 10
11
Mr. Dishotsky: As entitled? Yeah. 12
13
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Was… I’m not familiar enough with San Jose’s Zoning Code. 14
15
Chair Riggs: [unintelligible - off mic] 16
17
Vice-Chair Alcheck: I know but I understand that San Francisco has a micro-unit distinction. So, 18
did that… was it easier to work in San Francisco even though they didn’t have… even though… 19
I’m assuming you didn’t create the language for San Francisco as well or did 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
Mr. Dishotsky: No so as much bad press as the San Francisco Planning Commission gets, there is 2
a group housing designation within the multi-family designation. And so that group… that 3
allows for essentially unlimited density, no kitchen in the dwelling unit, 1/3 of the open space, 4
and… yeah, go ahead. 5
6
Mr. Sokol: Yeah that site is in a commercial district so commercial districts in San Francisco 7
don’t have a density limit base for units. And group housing generally allows the purpose-built 8
model where a bedroom unit can count as a legal unit even if it doesn’t have a kitchen or 9
bathroom within it. 10
11
Mr. Dishotsky: Seventy percent of the land area in San Francisco though is not… does not allow 12
the density limits that we need. 13
14
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Right. 15
16
Mr. Dishotsky: And similarly like a lot of towns up and down the peninsula and Los Angeles as 17
well, don’t allow it either. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Vice-Chair Alcheck: When you were crafting that code language with them, was there… I… 1
where their parts of it that they were sensitive to that you didn’t anticipate? I’m curious to 2
know like what were some of the issues [unintelligible] (interrupted) 3
4
Mr. Dishotsky: I mean parking was the biggest one by far. San Joseians [note – phonetics], is 5
that it? 6
7
Mr. Sokol: I think so. 8
9
Mr. Dishotsky: San Joseites [note – phonetics] like their cars more than Los Angeles so we did a 10
pretty wide survey of… it was a couple thousand people in both markets and people spend 11
more time in their cars in San Jose than they do in Los Angeles. 12
13
Mr. Sokol: So, at the moment co-living is only allowed in the downtown area which I think you 14
would agree if there’s ever a chance for the South Bay to have an urban walkable center it’s 15
downtown San Jose which is where our site is. And so, we advocated for lower parking ratio 16
referencing the fact that San Francisco just eliminated parking minimums altogether. Granted 17
it’s a different City, we get that, but parking minimums aren’t just there to meet demand. They 18
can also shape demand. 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: So, it does… in the ordinance slide that you had, I don’t see parking but I’m 1
under the impression that San Jose has like a zero-parking requirement in their little 2
downtown? 3
4
Mr. Sokol: It’s… for co-living, it’s a minimum of .25 for every bedroom, but with TDM measures 5
you can get it lower than that. 6
7
Mr. Dishotsky: There’s a certain point in which we were uncomfortable not including some level 8
of parking although we are going through a transportation revolution. Again, with the survey 9
results that we got, we didn’t feel like we could go to zero on an 800-unit building. 10
11
Vice-Chair Alcheck: So, the San Jose project is in progress? 12
13
Mr. Dishotsky: So yes, so we’re fully entitled, we own the site, we’ll… we’re getting our GMP 14
contract with the contractor, capitalizing the project right now. Our expectation is to break 15
ground on it next year. 16
17
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Ok this… you may not feel comfortable sharing this, I’m just curious, are 18
you… when you are searching for partners are you using the same partners on both projects? Is 19
it difficult to find a partner that would [unintelligible] (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. Dishotsky: Yeah happy to share all the details. When we first started, we talked to 40 2
lenders and they laughed us out of their offices. It’s changed significantly over the last 4-years 3
and the reason is, is that a lot of other players in the industry and us have started to build up a 4
track record of showing that there’s a decent yield for these above in some cases multi-family. 5
And obviously, there’s the renter case around the cost of living and obviously the occupancy 6
rates. And so, once we started to build up a track record and owning a few of these assets and 7
running them the capital market has really come alive. We separately finance each project but 8
are working on a programmatic joint venture to finance a lot of these which we can’t announce 9
yet, but that will allow us to fund the next 10,000 to 100,000-units. 10
11
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Ok last question before I let everybody else go and this is for both of you 12
guys. I’m… it’s actually for both teams. When the other team was speaking it made me think of 13
it but I’d love to know what you guys… your response as well which is if you’re in the renter’s 14
game, a lot of the attention that management companies focus… have to focus on is 15
discriminatory practices. So, you guys didn’t really talk a lot about roommate selection but I’m 16
curious to know how you guys navigate everything from managing that as well as Section 8… 17
the new Section 8 requirements? And then the other team, I’d love to know how you avoid 18
those challenges considering that you have such an (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 Waldfogel: (off mic) Curated. 1
2
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Yeah curated model, yeah. 3
4
Mr. Dishotsky: I’ll answer real quickly, we’re a first come first serve basis once you pasted a 5
background check and a financial check. We do allow when someone is approved to have 6
existing residents go through a vetting process once we’ve approved them and complies with 7
fair housing because we as the owner and operator of the building have approved that 8
resident. It would be the same thing as a group of roommates saying yes or no to another 9
potential roommate, but when a building first opening and stabilizing it’s first come first serve. 10
We don’t curate at all. 11
12
Mr. Bryan Connolly: We’re basically the same model as that in the sense that the roommates 13
are able to choose ones, they’re in the house but like you said… like you mentioned for the first 14
person. 15
16
Vice-Chair Alcheck: And then I guess I’ll just ask this too because it’s a changing rule right now 17
and so how does the new legislation that is eliminating the short-term lease affecting your 18
business or effecting your hopes for executions? 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. Dishotsky: Look I don’t think it’ going to make or break out business model. There’s… a lot 1
of people early on when co-living was becoming a new niche category signed short term leases 2
because they wanted to try it out and they didn’t know what it was going to be like. But now 3
we’re seeing people sign up for much longer terms and they view this as a launchpad to the 4
next point in their life and so residents will stay anywhere a year to 3-years. We still firmly 5
believe and this is why we’ll probably oppose the Peskin legislation that there’s a whole 6
category of residents like nurses and teachers and interns that do need short term housing. And 7
it’s not that they’re transient in nature but that’s just the only amount of time that they can 8
stay in housing. And if they have to sign a 12-year [note – 12-month?] lease it’s extremely cost-9
prohibitive and then they end of living in an Airbnb or a god forsakes SRO. So, from our 10
perspective, it’s not going to make or break it but we do… we’ll push back on any of the 11
legislation that we don think is fair. 12
13
Vice-Chair Alcheck: I hope that somebody else ask [unintelligible](interrupted) 14
15
Chair Riggs: I have a 9-month contract so I understand that. Commissioner Waldfogel and then 16
Commissioner Templeton. 17
18
Commissioner Waldfogel: Great, thanks. Stick around because I have a question for you. 19
Appreciate the… excuse me, appreciate the presentation, I’m just… sorry looking for my notes 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 this. Oh, could you speak at all to yields in your model because I think something, we’re 1
concerned about is what other uses that co-living financially competes with? In our Downtown 2
District principles uses for commercial buildings are tech office which commands pretty high 3
rents. And so, if we said ok, this is a mixed-use district, we’ll make some zoning changes to 4
enable co-living in Downtown Palo Alto, would you compete in that setting? 5
6
Mr. Dishotsky: So, all money is green or we have to perform at or as good as office… I’m sorry 7
as good or better than office does. So, we actually believe and this is the secret, don’t tell 8
anyone this, but this is actually highest and best use in many cases. So, the yields can 9
outperform commercial office and residential. 10
11
Typically, a developer is looking for a return on cost to CAP rate spread and this is going to get 12
super technical, but it’s 150 base points. Let’s just use that as a benchmark. In many cases, 13
we’re north of that by about 50 to 100 bases points and so what that tells you is that we’re 14
solving the affordability component but we’re also able to get more yield. And that makes 15
sense because we’re allowing more people to live in the same envelope building and we’re 16
actually reducing the cost of construction on a per square foot basis in many cases because 17
we’re not building as many kitchens, it’s more sustainable, and obviously the finishes are not as 18
high end as luxury. 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: I understand the argument relative to other types of apartments, I’m 1
struggling a little bit relative to tech office which is $10-$12 a foot rent. The… they’re often just 2
renting a shell where all the improvements are TIs. You know you’re not worried about building 3
kitchens and bathrooms in tech office, you’re not at the same scale. So, I’m just curious if we 4
were to say look, same building envelope would this format work if it’s competing against a 5
$10-foot commercial rent? 6
7
Mr. Sokol: I think it… one of the things it depends on is the size of the floor plate. Co-living units 8
are not as deep because they’re not as large so you could have a building that as narrow as 45-9
feet whereas office buildings can be as deep as 100-120-feet. Multi-family 65-feet so there 10
might be office users specifically tech like big, horizontal floor plates. They don’t want to have 11
people over 10-floors, they’d rather have everyone at one floor and so is that the right format 12
right for us? Maybe, maybe not, but we can work with smaller, tighter floor plates that are 13
generally not very effective for office. 14
15
Mr. Dishotsky: And to answer your question about the rental rate per square foot. We’re 16
typically about, in a place like San Francisco, $10-$20 per square foot per month on the gross 17
and about $8-$12 on the net square footage so it’s arguably very similar. Now the operating 18
expense are a little bit different right? We’re running at about a 30 percent opt X [note – 19
sounds like] margin or sorry opt X [note – sounds like] opt X ratio, 60-70 percent NOI margin 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.
it’s comparable. We’ve competed with office developers on sites before and we’re in some 1
cases able to pay a dollar more than they are because we believe we can get a better yield. And 2
our capital is typically coming from residential investors who might not be multi-strategy in 3
nature and so they’re not actually worried about whether or not we’d use the site for office or 4
residential. We wouldn’t acquire and build a site if we weren’t going to build it as residential. 5
6
Commissioner Waldfogel: Ok, no this is actually very helpful and I think it points to somethings 7
that maybe Staff can take up with you at some time in the future if and when they have 8
bandwidth to address this issue but those… that’s helpful information. 9
10
For the other team, for Alex and… when I look at what you’re doing, it’s a little bit of a platform 11
play relative to existing real estate. Is that a correct understanding? 12
13
Mr. Connolly: Yeah, I mean it’s a two-sided market place in the sense of working with 14
homeowners and then we’re aggregating and helping roommates find rooms. 15
16
Commissioner Waldfogel: So, my question with that, you put up a slide that showed your per 17
room averages and different cases. One of the things that we struggle with a little bit here is we 18
want to make sure that we have an adequate supply of family-oriented housing in the 19
community. And if your platform… let’s say your platform is widely successful, would you drive 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 rental price of 3-bedroom properties up and make them less affordable for families? I mean 1
sort of look at how your pricing splits out bedroom by bedroom and is the unbundled product 2
commanding a higher price and possibly driving rents up? 3
4
Ms. Canedo: So, there’re two sides to that, one is there’s always going to be certain types of 5
landlords and homeowners that are geared more toward families. So, they’re just not really 6
interested in renting with us and that’s ok. There’s another side of homeowners that see the 7
value in what we’re doing and we’re able to negotiate lower rates because of the value we’re 8
providing them. And thus we’re… our goal is not to drive up those prices because we’re 9
negotiating the lower rates to be able to keep rooms a more market-rate level so we can 10
provide that level of accessibility to the people we’re renting towards. 11
12
Commissioner Waldfogel: This is an area where I just want to be super cautious as we go 13
forward because the last thing I’d want to do is to… we’ve just seen platforms have… often 14
have unexpected consequences and so I think it’s an area where it’s interesting but we just 15
have to be really cautious that we’re getting the policy objectives that we’re looking for. 16
17
Ms. Canedo: Yeah definitely and that’s why it’s so important for us to partner with Cities 18
because Cities are very different and their objectives can be really different. So, it’s helpful for 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
us to hear what specific Cities are looking for so we can help tailor our needs to again fit in with 1
the neighborhood and fit in with the community. 2
3
Chair Riggs: Alright Commissioner Templeton and then Commissioner Alcheck [note -Vice-Chair 4
Alcheck] who’s going to keep it extremely short. 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: Hi, thanks, Bungalow since you’re up I will ask you, another 7
unattended consequence that I’ve seen in even in our neighborhoods the way they’re currently 8
managed is the parking. So, when we have many adults living in a single-family home, we have 9
a parking constraint. What are you guys thinking about as far as handling parking? 10
11
Ms. Canedo: So, when it comes to parking there’re two aspects we’re looking at. One is actually 12
when we’re acquiring new supply, we’re considering how many parking spaces are available. 13
It's important for us because people don’t want to live there if they’re not going to have 14
somewhere to park either. Additionally, one of the top reasons people are moving into 15
Bungalow is access to the work location. So, we see a lot of people walking to work, using 16
public transit, biking because that is the… one of the biggest value props of why they’re moving 17
to Bungalow. Especially the working professionals and all the companies that are down here. 18
That’s really why they’re moving here. 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: Great thank you and then for Starcity I thought I saw on your 1
diagram that some of the rooms share a bathroom. How’s that work and is that like a family-2
oriented plan what’s going on there? 3
4
Mr. Dishotsky: So, we often see a lot of couples, small families with kids, people with aging 5
senior parents who they want to live next to them or friends… two friends apply together. And 6
so, what we do is we offer an even lower price point by creating a jack n jill set up. So that’s in… 7
our 457 Mina [note – phonetics] project is all individual bedrooms and bathrooms but the San 8
Jose project since it is in more of a family-oriented location, we wanted to provide that. 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah, that’s really interesting. I like that. 11
12
Mr. Dishotsky: And just one point on that. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: Sure. 15
16
Mr. Dishotsky: We are testing family floors so essentially cost of childcare in the Bay Area is like 17
out of control and so the idea that we’ve been playing with is allowing people to share… do 18
nanny shares, have a play area for kids. We want to have that separate from the millennial 19
tequila floor if that occurs or maybe not, I don’t know. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Templeton: I under… that was my next question actually was I can imagine a 2
situation or a scenario in which an entire floor might be desired by a group that already has 3
some kind of cohesive identity. Either an extended family or maybe a company that has a lot of 4
new hires that may want to rent out a whole floor at a time. What is… what does that mean… 5
what are your thoughts about that if that would have an impact on how you select or? 6
7
Mr. Dishotsky: So, if we work with an enterprise and they decide to mass lease a floor that’s 8
totally fine. That falls within Fair Housing Laws, they can utilize it however they see fit. And so, 9
if we’re talking to universities and/or public institutions that they decide to do that and use it as 10
they see fit then that’s their prerogative. If we were to designate a floor to family use you can’t 11
technically police that but you could indicate to folks just a heads up there’s going to be 12
toddlers running around and a baby changing station. If that’s not your vibe then don’t apply 13
for that floor. 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: Would that change the nature of the background checks or anything 16
like that? 17
18
Ms. Dishotsky: What you… no, not technically. So, we always check for crimes of moral 19
turpitude or violent crimes and that’s pretty much it. And we actually don’t do a credit check, 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 just do an employee check to make sure you’re actually hired at the place you say, and we 1
think that credit checks are a little bit antiquated. And so often… and then once people get in if 2
they cause an issue there’s a whole set of rules and regulations and if they… there’s a series of 3
processes that we utilize in order to ensure there’s some safety within the home. And if 4
somebody jeopardizes that safety they can be evicted through normal procedures. 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: Ok. Thank you both for the presentations. 7
8
Mr. Dishotsky: No problem. 9
10
Chair Riggs: Great. Commissioner Alcheck [note – Vice-Chair Alcheck] please. 11
12
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Yeah, super quick, no I just… for the developers, right? I think this is 13
incredibly innovative and I’m wondering if there’s a way we can sort of provide the community 14
even a greater representation of this concept. And I’m happy to do this offline but I’d love to 15
know if there’s a way for us to maybe offer you a… not offer you but provide a parcel for 16
example in our community that you could create a hypothetical project. So that we could 17
essentially demonstrate within our Zoning Code if we set aside for a minute the limit on units 18
and we operate within our FAR, what could be accomplished? And what tweaks to let’s say 19
parking requirements or height requirements or FAR? How would that affect a given project 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
and how many units that would put online just so we could… I don’t know. It would… I think it 1
would be like a book report. I think it would be interesting if we had an idea in this community 2
of how your model would be affected by our current zoning. 3
4
Mr. Dishotsky: Sure. 5
6
Vice-Chair Alcheck: What would have to change for that to pencil out and so we can… I’d be 7
happy to sort of talk to you offline but I think that could be really interesting to help enumerate 8
a lot of (interrupted) 9
10
Mr. Dishotsky: You’re looking at two deal junkies right here so we’re happy to get pencils out 11
and start drawing some ideas. 12
13
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Maybe leave a card or something. 14
15
Mr. Dishotsky: Sure. 16
17
Chair Riggs: Thank you both and thank you for just coming and talking to us about how your 18
innovations are shaping communities around the Bay Area and California and US. So, we really 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.
appreciate the time and it sounds like there’s a lot of ideas peculating. Was there another 1
comment? I’m sorry. Commissioner Summa. 2
3
Commissioner Summa: One quick question for the Starcity team, do you know-how… because 4
you build your buildings and you’re the developer and builder. Do you know how your costs 5
compare per square foot with affordable housing developers? Because for affordable housing 6
deed-restricted, affordable housing available to a certain level of AMI, the biggest problem is 7
the cost per door. So, do you know how your model compares? 8
9
Mr. Dishotsky: So right now, we’re building… average unit of housing in San Francisco costs 10
about $1.1 million right now, we’re delivering at about $400k, and we have… Mina should be 11
around $300- $350. So, and if you were to sort of compare that apples to apples, we’re about a 12
quarter of the… 25 percent cheaper than a new affordable housing project. And a lot of that 13
comes down to the efficiencies that I mentioned around less kitchens, reductions in sort of all 14
the higher-end amenities and things like that. And better utilization of the floor plan and so 15
that’s really the savings right now. We are in a cyclical super high cost to construction type but 16
we’re seeing a lot of the general contractors really digging in on innovative approaches on how 17
to reduce overall costs. Whether that being self-performed or bring steel in advance or doing 18
things like that. That will allow us to bring the cost down even further because they understand 19
many of their workers, the subcontractors, are commuting in from Tracy or Sacramento. 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.
carpenter’s unions are typically spread throughout California and so they look at this as a 1
potential place for them to actually live. 2
3
Commissioner Summa: Thank you very much. 4
5
Mr. Dishotsky: No problem. 6
7
Chair Riggs: Alright thank you ball [note – all] again, we really appreciate it. Just thanks for 8
taking the time and I’m sorry to be rushing things but we do have a full agenda tonight. I think 9
we’re got a lot of ideas flowing here so we look forward to keeping in touch with both teams. 10
11
Action Items 12
Public Comment is Permitted. Applicants/Appellant Teams: Fifteen (15) minutes, plus three (3) minutes rebuttal. 13
All others: Five (5) minutes per speaker.1,3 14
15
4. PUBLIC HEARING / QUASI-JUDICIAL: 4115 El Camino Real [18PLN-00238]: 16
Recommendation on Applicant's Request for Approval of a one lot Tentative Map to 17
Divide an Existing 0.36 Acre Parcel Into Seven Residential Condominiums and two 18
Commercial and two Office Condominiums. Environmental Assessment: Mitigated 19
Negative Declaration Adopted by the Director of Planning & Community Environment 20
on January 7, 2019. Zoning District: CN (Neighborhood Commercial). For More 21
Information Contact the Project Planner Sheldon S. Ah Sing, AICP at sahsing@m-22
group.us 23
24
Chair Riggs: Alright so we’re onto our next item which is a quasi-judicial item. So, I believe we 25
do need to ask if there’re any conflicts of interests, is that correct? 26
27
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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. Sandra Lee, Assistant City Attorney: Yes, Mr. Chair. Also, the Commissioners do need to 1
disclose if they’ve had any contacts related to this item prior to the meeting. 2
3
Chair Riggs: Alright does anyone have anything to disclose? Alright, no disclosures so we have a 4
planner… presentation from Staff and we’ll take public comment after and then have our 5
discussion. Sheldon. 6
7
Mr. Sheldon Sing, Project Planner: Yes, thank you. Sheldon Ah Sing, contract planner here to 8
present this evening. This is for a Tentative Map for a condominium sub-division for 4115 El 9
Camino Real. It was previously approved architectural review project earlier in the year. It’s a 10
one-lot subdivision, it’s about 1.36-acres, and the airspace condominium would be for seven 11
residential units and two commercial condominiums and two office commercial spaces. 12
13
Such in summary its… there’s a basement level with all of the… with some of the parking and 14
some mechanical parking as well as there’re surface parking and garage parking at grade. It’s a 15
through a lot with El Camino Real as a frontage and then there’s El Camino Way in the rear and 16
then there are two other floors above that. There’s one of the units would be allocated for 17
below-market-rate and there’s an agreement that would be associated with this map when it 18
goes to the Council. And there would be some typical off-site improvements associated with a 19
map including some curb and gutter, some lighting as well as because as I mentioned 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.
there’s the through lot, we did want to have access… pedestrian access between the two 1
streets. So, there is a public access easement that’s in place for this project and there’re some 2
limitations on the hours of that. So essentially the night time would be limited for access but 3
during the day it would be open. 4
5
The project is consistent with the City’s Municipal Code regarding subdivisions and the project 6
is subject to CEQA but is covered under the original adopted Mitigated Negative Declaration. 7
And the project is consistent with that and those findings. And therefore, we do recommend 8
that the Planning Commission conduct a public hearing and recommend approval of the 9
proposed project to City Council with the Conditions of Approval. That concludes my 10
presentation, thank you. 11
12
Chair Riggs: Alright I have no public comments and I’m assuming we have no presentation from 13
the applicant? Alright, ok so with that said maybe we just go down the line. If anyone has any 14
comments or I think at this point I’ll entertain a motion as well. Chair… Commissioner Lauing. 15
16
Commissioner Lauing: Appreciate the respect though that was good. 17
18
Chair Riggs: Touché. 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: Just a few quick ones. One is I think you did a heck of a good job on 1
detailing the… how consistent this is with the findings. Very helpful to have that laid out as well 2
as it was. The… you’re saying there’s no zoning change here because it’s consistent within the 3
zones, correct? 4
5
Mr. Sing: That is correct, right. 6
7
Commissioner Lauing: And then there’re three Heritage trees, will they be remaining? We’ll 8
work around them and leave them there? 9
10
Mr. Sing: I need to consult with the plans but I know there’s a large tree in the rear and that’s 11
definitely to remain. 12
13
Commissioner Lauing: Packet Page 14. 14
15
Mr. Sing: Are you also speaking to the street trees? 16
17
Commissioner Lauing: Yeah, well it says protected Heritage trees, Sycamore, and Maidan here 18
along El Camino and Chinese Elm on El Camino. 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. Sing: Right those would remain. 1
2
Commissioner Lauing: Ok and I just find architecturally I think this fits in there really well. I’m 3
very familiar with the area and I think it’s a good fit so that’s all. 4
5
Chair Riggs: Commissioner Templeton. 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: Hi, thank you. I also appreciated the detailed nature of the reports 8
so thank you. I was wondering if we have an idea of what height they’re building too with the 3-9
stories? I couldn’t quite figure it out but I wondered if you might know. If you don’t know, that’s 10
ok. 11
12
Mr. Jonathan Lait, Director of Planning: So, Sheldon will go ahead and take a look at that. Just 13
to remind the Commission that what’s before the Planning Commission right now is the… just 14
the subdivision component of the application and (interrupted) 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. 17
18
Mr. Lait: The building was reviewed through a process. 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: Thank you, alright, I’ll stay on track then. So, some of my other 1
questions may not be relevant. I was going to ask if there’s going to be green space available 2
like on the roof or something like that for the residents to enjoy or is that out of scope as well 3
Jonathan? 4
5
Mr. Sing: Not on the roof. There’re some balconies. 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: Balconies, ok. Great. Great, alright well then that’s it’s for my 8
questions. Thank you. 9
10
Chair Riggs: Commissioner Waldfogel. 11
12
Commissioner Waldfogel: Great thank you. I’m inclined to support it because of the findings. 13
Just a question, what’s the status if we say go? Will we see bulldozers out tomorrow? 14
15
Mr. Sing: No because we’ll have to go to the Council for the map and then they have to submit 16
a final map and kind of go from there with building construction. 17
18
Commissioner Waldfogel: Ok so there’s still a few more obstacles to run through but this is a 19
good step. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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. Sing: Yes. 2
3
Mr. Lait: Process maybe instead of obstacles. 4
5
Commissioner Waldfogel: Process, thank you for the correction. I apologize. 6
7
Chair Riggs: I’m going to keep us rolling, Commissioner Summa. 8
9
Commissioner Summa: Yeah thank you for the report and it seemed very thorough in making 10
the reverse findings. I’m inclined to support this also. In visiting the site, I will say the parking 11
around there is really tight. So, I think the construction logistics will be really here key to making 12
it run smoothly but I think the argument for the map is well laid out. 13
14
Chair Riggs: Commissioner Alcheck [note -Vice-Chair Alcheck]. 15
16
MOTION 17
18
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Yeah, I’d like to… if only we could start construction after this vote, I’m sure 19
we would have a lot more built. No, in earnest here I’d like to make a motion that we 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
recommend that the City Council approve this proposed Tentative Condominium Map based on 1
the findings and subject to the Conditions of Approval in the report. 2
3
Chair Riggs: Do I have a second? 4
5
SECOND 6
7
Commissioner Lauing: I’d second. 8
9
Commissioner Roohparvar: Second. 10
11
Chair Riggs: Was that… Commissioner Lauing got the second. I have a comment from 12
Commissioner Templeton. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah, I just want to clarify the reason I asked about the building 15
height was to see if there was any space for another floor or if we could get any more housing 16
on the site. I took a look through the zoning and this is really the maximum number of units for 17
the current zone so that was just the only reason I was asking about that. Do you also feel that 18
this is as dense as we can be on this particular lot? 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. Sing: Yeah, I think at that time this was proposed this is really the maximum that they could 1
do. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: Ok thank you. 4
5
Mr. Lait: And since then we’ve… Planning Commission’s reviewed and the City Council has 6
adopted the Housing Incentive Program that would allow eliminate density restrictions and 7
allow for other development potential. 8
9
VOTE 10
11
Chair Riggs: See no other comments, I think we’re ready to vote. All in favor? Any opposed? 12
Alright, the motion carries 7-0. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Commission. 13
14
MOTION PASSED 7(Waldfogel, Summa, Templeton, Riggs, Alcheck, Roohparvar, Lauing)-0 15
16
Commission Action: Motion to approve by Alcheck, seconded by Lauing. 7-0 vote. 17
18
5. Discuss the Concept Plan Alternatives for Improvements to the San Antonio Road and 19
East Charleston Road Intersection and Recommend that City Council Direct Staff to 20
Complete Final Design Plans, Environmental Analysis, Specifications and Estimates for 21
Construction for the Preferred Alternative Concept Plan 22
23
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Riggs: Alright so we are onto Item Five which is our tran… we have our transportation 1
Staff member here, I think. Alright, so San Antonio Road and East Charleston intersection 2
improvements. And I think that Transportation Director Kamhi is going joining us and they will 3
emphasize intersection only tactical. 4
5
Mr. Philip Kamhi, Chief Transportation Official: Thank you, apologizes. I tried to scarf down a 6
sandwich in between my last meeting and this one but I almost made. I got halfway through. 7
8
Chair Riggs: I was riffing a little bit to give you some time. 9
10
Mr. Kamhi: Thanks, thanks. So good evening, I’, Philip Kamhi, Chief Transportation Official. 11
Tonight, I’m actually not going to be doing the presentation, Rafael Rius will be doing the 12
presentation. He and Ruchika have been working on this project for quite a while. 13
14
Mr. Rafael Rius, Traffic Engineering Lead: Thank you Commissioners and Chair. My name’s 15
Rafael Rius, I’m the Traffic Engineering Lead for the City. I’m here to introduce our Traffic Safety 16
Improvement Project for the intersection of Charleston Road and San Antonio Road. This 17
project was initiated as part of the City’s Traffic Safety Improvement Project which focuses on 18
near term, spot improvements, various areas around the City. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
This project began based on constituents’ requests for improvements and the process involved 1
four community meetings with… one of which was really targeted at the business community 2
and held during the day time but it was still open to the public. And before I get to the 3
PowerPoint presentation just wanted to add that Staff is asking the Planning and 4
Transportation Commission to review the concept alternatives and to provide a 5
recommendation to the City Council to direct Staff to move forward with a recommended 6
alternative to complete the final design and to initiate the construction process. 7
8
So, with that, I’ll briefly go through our PowerPoint presentation. So, this project really had 9
safety goals to start with but really the three priority issues at this location were for pedestrian 10
safety improvements, vehicular safety improvements, and then vehicular traffic operations 11
mainly addressing congestion issues that currently exist. 12
13
Here… up here’s an aerial image. It’s rotated to the right so north being to the right which San 14
Antonio is a street… is on the right side of the street would be… the right side of the screen 15
would be the 101 ramps and kind of the Bay Lands. Charleston Road is the one going up and 16
down with the Best Buy/ Costco area to the bottom of the page and Charleston and then 17
Middlefield Road to the top side of the page. The Jewish Community Center would be in the top 18
right-hand corner in this image just for orientation. 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 project… going back to our… the City’s 2017 Traffic Safety and Operation’s Report this 1
intersection had a relatively higher number of reported collisions around… compared to other 2
intersections in the City. So, the highest collision types were rear-ended and sideswipe collision 3
and we tried to address these in our recommended improvements. 4
5
We really started off with two concept improvement ideas and then… and a third was a 6
combination of the first two. The first one, what I’m going to call Idea A, was really to improve 7
the pedestrian crosswalk improvements between the JCC and the… which currently I believe is 8
76 gas station. The crosstalk there is at a really unique angle and there’re two right-turn lanes 9
when you’re coming off the freeway. And it creates a sightline concern and also the diagonal 10
nature of the crosswalk is longer than typical. Crossing San Antonio Road on the south side is 11
also a very long crossing distance so that requires extra signal time. The second improvement 12
that we wanted to incorporate was addition of a second southbound left-turn lane during the 13
peak period. Primarily the PM peak that left turn pocket fills up and the ques back up 14
sometimes all the way to the freeway blocking the three lanes. Our Concept Idea C that we 15
initially started with was just a combination of the two and through the community meeting 16
process, we actually developed a fourth and recommended alternative that I’ll get too. 17
18
So, what I’m showing here is our Concept Item C which is actually just a combination of A and B. 19
We’d extend the corner… the southwest corner to create kind of a peninsula island to really 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
square up the pedestrian crossing across Charleston Road and to reduce the crossing distance 1
across San Antonio Road. This early concept also included converting one of the right turn lanes 2
to a buffered bike lane. We ended up… we did some further analysis and found that this would 3
potentially trigger vehicular impacts during the morning peak. What’s also shown here is 4
addition of a second southbound lane using the existing right of way. So, there’s no curb to curb 5
widening but it would just be median island modifications and taking up some unused space 6
that’s currently blocked off with just striping right in here. 7
8
Through the… after the first two community meetings, we really heard from the community as 9
well as several Council Members that were in attendance at these community meetings that 10
vehicular operations was really important factor here and we should really maintain them or 11
improve them. So, what we did come up with is we brought back the second right turn lane and 12
also added an overlapping right turn phase for that southbound right which means it would 13
have green arrow at the same time as the eastbound left-turn turning off of Charleston. That in 14
addition to the second left-turn lane for the southbound movement provided an improvement 15
for both AM and PM peak period as well as the pedestrian and vehicular safety improvements 16
that we were looking for. On the south side where we currently have the entrance to the 17
frontage road, that was also modified slightly based on feedback from the gas station as well as 18
the business owners in that area. There’re some large gas tankers that do turn from Charleston 19
into that frontage road so it would have to be designed to accommodate those truck turning 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
movements. And we also came up with a net no loss in parking spaces. This shows a loss of 1
about two parking spaces closer to the intersection but we would modify the island further 2
south to add those two spaces back. 3
4
And that’s it for my brief presentation. Our… we originally had plans to take this, if a 5
recommendation is provided by the Commission, we were targeting December 16th but I 6
believe that date may change. And following that we hope to go into a final design process next 7
year and construction would follow. And I’d be happy to answer any questions you guys may 8
have. 9
10
Chair Riggs: Well, let’s… unless these are really questions… oh ok. Do we have any public 11
comments, do we know? Ok. No, alright then we’ll go to questions. 12
13
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Are you… I’m sorry. 14
15
Chair Riggs: Hold on. 16
17
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Sorry, sorry. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Riggs: You were not first. It’s Chair… it’s Commissioner Lauing followed by Commissioner 1
Alcheck [note-Vice-Chair Alcheck] followed by Commissioner Templeton. 2
3
Commissioner Lauing: Ok thanks. I’ll pick up on your unintended lead their Chair Riggs. 4
5
Chair Riggs: Oh, I actually… if you don’t mind can I interrupt you if you don’t mind? My 6
(interrupted) 7
8
Commissioner Lauing: You did. 9
10
Chair Riggs: I’m giving you lots of authority tonight. Our… I just got a tickle in my ear from 11
Commissioner… Vice-Chair Alcheck… I’m all over the map tonight, sorry. Suggestions… just to 12
focus us, suggestions are appreciated, ideas are appreciated from what we talked about but I 13
think from what you said… told us yesterday the reminder. This is a part of a tactical street 14
improvement program, something that we could do within the next 6-months to a year. So 15
maybe I can just provide just some emphasis there if that’s… not paraphrasing you all too much 16
from yesterday. 17
18
Mr. Kamhi: Yeah, sorry, so specifically any comments that you want… wish to provide to this we 19
would happily share with Council. This is a specific treatment in this intersection to target 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
improvements for the safety and it’s not in direct relation to any area plans or any other bike 1
boulevards or anything else like that. If that helps. 2
3
Chair Riggs: Sorry, Commissioner Lauing would… unless was there additional comments that 4
you (interrupted) 5
6
Mr. Rius: No that’s exactly what I was going to say. 7
8
Chair Riggs: Alright, Commissioner Lauing, apologizes. 9
10
Commissioner Lauing: Ok I was just going to pick up on what you… your unintentional lead 11
their Chair Riggs by saying that there’s no public comment. I was going to congratulate you on 12
involving the community in three different workshops multiple times. And I think the defiant… 13
definition of your success is that no one is here because you’ve been able to mediate all sides of 14
the thing and come up with a recommendation there so I’m quite serious about that. 15
16
Just one data point on data is you said your data on collisions ran through December of ’16. Is 17
that because that’s the most recent that’s published? 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. Rius: So, this project actually started in exactly 2-years in November 2017 and at the time 1
that was the most recently available data. So, we went back 5-years, the five most current years 2
in 2017 and we wanted to be consistent with what we shared with the… through the 3
community process throughout the whole project. 4
5
Commissioner Lauing: Yeah stating the obvious it would be better to know what’s happened in 6
the last 2-years particularly with the increase in traffic. 7
8
Mr. Kamhi: If I can we had to have some kind of cut off (interrupted) 9
10
Commissioner Lauing: Sure. 11
12
Mr. Kamhi: For going out and having the public discussion. There was an accident there 13
yesterday I believe. 14
15
Commissioner Lauing: There was. 16
17
Mr. Kamhi: We can’t… [unintelligible](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: You have to [unintelligible] it. The collisions are Bayesian, they’re random so to a 1
certain degree it's irrelevant without context. 2
3
Commissioner Lauing: Yeah, I was going to just mention that, that I heard on Nextdoor that 4
there was another collision there which I hope you guys didn’t make happen just to kind of give 5
highlight to this. But that brings me up to my other comment which is that you said the 6
unfortunate downsides is that you’re not going to be changing the bike configuration. And 7
that’s obviously something that your kind of willing to live with. There’s a bike going by there 8
every 3-minutes so that’s not 30 bikes every minute but there’s traffic there so if you could just 9
speak to that so we can get a comfort level. 10
11
Mr. Kamhi: Yeah there’s considerable amount of work for the bicycle network that’s happening 12
adjacent to there. There’s going to be an item going to City Council quite soon for the bicycle 13
bridge over the 101 that is set to connect to the bike boulevards projects that’s adjacent to 14
there. And so, the hope is… and currently, that overpass is really not bike-friendly, that freeway 15
overpass. And so, the hope is to not set one intersection as a bike treated area but to have 16
bicyclists use the bike facilities that are adjacent to that area. And potentially, this doesn’t 17
prohibit this from potentially being modified if we determine that there was a feasible bike 18
path in the future that could go through this intersection. This specific treatment is to address 19
safety. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: So, you’re saying you can still design that in at a later time even after 2
(interrupted) 3
4
Mr. Kamhi: They could. It could if (interrupted) 5
6
Commissioner Lauing: You make these changes? 7
8
Mr. Kamhi: It could but it would more likely be a more holistic approach to that where we 9
wouldn’t just look at this intersection. We’re going to put a bike facility in but it connects to 10
nothing. 11
12
Chair Riggs: Maybe I add? So, if you look at the far right of your diagram here (interrupted) 13
14
Mr. Kamhi: Right. 15
16
Chair Riggs: Where you see the dash of we call Class Two bike-way basically end in… straight 17
into a curb. That is really not complete street design. We don’t have a treatment really that 18
works at that point. We’re asking someone to ride in line with traffic and then become a Class 19
Two cyclist so then we prioritize them here. So, I actually brought this up in the pre-meeting 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 its clearly an area of interest of mine as well and the treatment in C would almost 1
encourage unsafe cycling. So, to a certain degree while I’m… everybody wants to talk about 2
green lanes, it actually is… its a less elegant solution given this location and a real need for a 3
tactical solution to address pedestrian issues here. So, I just… hopefully, I just clarified a little bit 4
more of about what you’re talking about there. 5
6
Mr. Kamhi: Yeah essentially that’s correct. I just want to further that by saying if it was to be 7
considered in that specific intersection it shouldn’t be considered alone. It should be considered 8
with the rest of the network that it connects too. So, it shouldn’t just end abruptly and force 9
potential conflict. 10
11
Mr. Rius: Yeah, just to add I think it was mentioned, we… this eventually evolved into 12
Alternative D but if a bike facility was built north and south of this, it wouldn’t… this wouldn’t… 13
it wouldn’t be any… nothing would be built to prohibit going back to this. This is mostly paint on 14
this. 15
16
Chair Riggs: Alright, thank you Commissioner Lauing. That was great, rich questions. I have 17
Commissioner Alcheck [note – Vice-Chair Alcheck], Commissioner Templeton, and then 18
Commissioner Roohparvar. 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 just want to start by saying that because I knew we had some big hitters in 1
traffic on this Commission I attempted at great length to become knowledgeable on this topic. 2
And I spent quite a bit of time at this intersection and I was there yesterday when that bus got 3
hit and I saw the whole thing unfold which is kind of random. Ok, you were there too? 4
5
Commissioner Roohparvar: (off mic) Yeah, I was there. 6
7
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Where you there studying this item? 8
9
Commissioner Roohparvar: (off mic) I wasn’t studying it but I saw it and turned around 10
[unintelligible] (interrupted) 11
12
Chair Riggs: Alright let’s keep rolling, let’s keep rolling. 13
14
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Anyways here’s what I’d like to say. I am not surprised that after you 15
presented it to the residents or individuals who participated in your session, they did not 16
appreciate the elimination of the second right turn lane off of San Antonio. I suspect… I don’t 17
know. I can’t… I don’t understand that. It seems to me like your initial approach of eliminating 18
that lane was wise and it was probably driven by standards in intersection design. And I would… 19
you know I don’t… let's see here, I’m looking at the “recommend to City Council the preferred 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
alternative”. So, if I were to support a motion tonight, I would support a motion that 1
recommended that you revise Idea D to eliminate the two right turns. In the process of sort of 2
watching… I actually spent more than just one day watching so I’ve been there a while in the 3
last couple of days and it seems to me like the further right lane indiscriminately continues to 4
make right turns as long as there’s an open slot. I think that actually is in align with the legal 5
right. You can make a right as long as you come to a stop, despite not having a green, if you’re 6
in the far-right lane. That doesn’t apply to the second right lane, I think. That’s my 7
understanding but I could be wrong. So, the second right lane can’t necessarily make a right at a 8
red… it’s not… it wasn’t exactly clear to me because they still have another lane of traffic that’s 9
blocking their view. But that… it looked like the lane second in was essentially at a stop until it 10
received a green light and then the innermost lane was more freely moving which created sort 11
of an interesting dynamic in that space. In the current set up I know that that lane also goes 12
straight which would change here in either case but to me, I wonder if it would… and I’m not 13
talking about the introduction of a bike lane. I think that the elimination of that bike path there 14
is a good idea but it seems to me like it would be much more efficient and safer if there was a 15
signal for turning right. So, for example if the… I would call it eastbound east Charleston traffic 16
when they’re making a left onto San Antonio Road if there was a dedicated turn signal that 17
allowed the lanes trying to make a right there to flow without stopping for pedestrians if you 18
will because pedestrians where stopped. Do you know what I mean? Does that make sense? 19
That may be in your plan already. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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. Rius: Yes, that is in the plan. I did look into the details, it’s actually not outlined here, was 2
whether that… I mean in a typical fashion yes, when the eastbound left is turning… has a green 3
arrow you would have a green right arrow. But when the southbound gets a green light, that 4
would just turn to a green ball which means yield (interrupted) 5
6
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Yield, right. 7
8
Mr. Rius: To right turns. We… what did come out of the community process but would trigger 9
an operational impact was if you can have a right red arrow when a pedestrian is going but… 10
and not the green ball. That would degrade the Level of Service though. Some other things we 11
looked at was I’ve seen it in other areas but like a… so I think you can make a right turn on red 12
from the second lane unless there’re signs but I (interrupted) 13
14
[note – many people started talking at once] 15
16
Mr. Kamhi: I was going to clarify that as well. Yes, you can per the (interrupted) 17
18
Vice-Chair Alcheck: It doesn’t look like a lot of people do though. 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. Kamhi: You can, yes. 1
2
[note – many people started talking at once off mic] 3
4
Mr. Rius: Yeah so… but just along that I have also seen regulatory signage that says right turn on 5
red from right lane only which could prohibit that… which would prohibit that. 6
7
Vice-Chair Alcheck: So, there’s probably some level of confusion there. It looks… I’m not 8
suggest… I… in my time there (interrupted) 9
10
Mr. Rius: Sure. 11
12
Vice-Chair Alcheck: I noticed that individuals who were going to make a right, not continue 13
straight were just sort of hanging up there and creating… I saw one guy get annoyed and dart 14
into the farthest right lane, pull around. I saw that happen a number of times. 15
16
Chair Riggs: Ok (interrupted) 17
18
Mr. Rius: In some of my observations (interrupted) 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Riggs: Hold on, let’s keep it rolling. 1
2
Mr. Rius: Ok in some of my observations that you… that frequently happens when a car wants 3
to go towards that frontage road today. 4
5
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Yeah and the other thing I think that is a significant improvement is the 6
addition of a second left lane because there was noticeable queuing when I was there in the 7
morning time for example. There was a noticeable queue that went almost all the way past the 8
JCC of people who were trying get into the left which created a problem for people coming out 9
of the JCC who are trying to get into the left lane and they blocked all this traffic. So, to the 10
extent that you can sort of lengthen those two left lanes, I think that will vastly improve 11
probably a Level of Service on this intersection. So, I sort of, I guess… I’m… I think it would be an 12
improvement if it didn’t have two right lanes if it just had the one right lane. 13
14
And then I would just want to add one more thing which is there’s a… I think there’s a sort of 15
significant use by the JCC here because the… they do a morning drop off for students and that 16
loop goes through the school and then comes out the drive aisle that you have sort of in faded 17
gray. And I’m wondering if they provided input to… if they were invited to part of the 18
conversation and if you felt like they gave valuable input? 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. Rius: They were invited. This did come up. They had an interesting discussion amongst 1
users. I mean one wanted improvements to the driveway to square it up and others wanted it 2
to be more of a ramp-like merge versus a right turn. It was a good back and forth on that and 3
we could look into alternatives to do that but it was defiantly discussed amongst the 4
community. 5
6
Vice-Chair Alcheck: So, I’ll just… I mean I think… not to put you on the spot but I did reach out 7
to the leadership of the JCC in an effort to just understand if they had a particular opinion about 8
this. And I guess the very top of the organization isn’t aware of the change. I think you’ll find a 9
partner there that’s sort of interested in not only seeing this change. They suggested they were 10
actually very interested… long overdue was the word they used, but they weren’t aware that 11
this discussion was taking place. And so, I (interrupted) 12
13
Mr. Rius: Who (interrupted) 14
15
Vice-Chair Alcheck: That… it may be that the patrons and the users and even some residents 16
there might be familiar with the project but the management Staff I think could… I think they 17
would be delighted if they had an opportunity to engage. 18
19
Mr. Rius: Yeah three out of the four meetings were held there and (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
Vice-Chair Alcheck: At the JCC? 2
3
Mr. Rius: At the JCC and we definitely… we booked the rooms through their management. 4
5
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Ok, no I’m glad to hear that. 6
7
Mr. Rius: And there’s (interrupted) 8
9
Vice-Chair Alcheck: I will refer this to the person that I spoke to who is unaware but I think 10
they’re also excited that you’re taking this on. 11
12
Mr. Rius: They’re Staff did actually provide feedback too. Maybe not the top management Staff 13
and they did like the double left-turn lanes because they said a secondary problem was, they 14
can’t even get into the left turn lane because it’s backed up past the driveway. 15
16
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Do you anticipate that any of these changes will I guess create an improved 17
Level of Service in the direction going to 101 which seems to be really strained in the morning? 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. Rius: Well just in general Alternative D does improve the Level of Service. The shorten 1
crossing across San Antonio if you can imagine it’s about… I think it was about 25 percent 2
shorter. So, the flashing hand when you press the walk button is about 34-second and that 3
could be reduced by about 25 percent. The overlap also gives more time to the southbound 4
right which in the morning in particular drives some of the green time for the southbound 5
movement. In the evening it’s driven by the left turn movement so it could potentially save 6
green time in others and reallocate that time to other movements of the intersection. 7
8
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Ok and then the last comment, are you or would you consider lengthening 9
the track for the two left turns coming… going north on San Antonio and turning left on east 10
Charleston? Essentially, I think that there’re some… that would, in essence, move cars off the 11
tracks that are going towards 101 and create more efficient… does that make sense? 12
13
Mr. Rius: I think we in transportation would consider a no. Those are relatively new islands and 14
planters for the City but if (interrupted) 15
16
Vice-Chair Alcheck: I’m just saying that because I noticed that they would (interrupted) 17
18
Mr. Rius: Sure. 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: You couldn’t get into the left turn lanes for some of these people and then 1
they would immediately move in there. And then suddenly the traffic would ramp up because 2
there was all this space before the light and people sort of rushed towards the light to catch the 3
light. And so, these were some… these are just some of the things that I noticed while I was 4
watching for the hour that I was (interrupted) 5
6
Mr. Rius: Yeah, I definingly can consider it and see (interrupted) 7
8
Vice-Chair Alcheck: That space is ample because you have two left lanes but its (interrupted) 9
10
Mr. Rius: Yes, it’s ample but there’s a median there that would… I think it’s about 8-years old 11
that would have to be reconfigured but it’s concrete. 12
13
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Ok, that’s it, that’s comments, thank you. I now hand it over [unintelligible 14
– mic turned off] 15
16
Chair Riggs: Alright, yeah, 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. I just did a brief calculation and I think I’ve traversed this 1
intersection over 5,000 times so I certainly have a lot of opinions. I will try and keep it under 2
control as far as what I share with you tonight. 3
4
I appreciate that you have shown this to members of the community multiple times and that 5
you’ve spoken with the gas station owners on the corner about how the different proposals 6
might affect their business. That is a really popular spot to refuel so first question is are there 7
also plans for the east Charleston part that you have on the top side of this that aren’t reflected 8
in this? Because as I recall there is corridor improvements happening, is that right? 9
10
Mr. Rius: Yes, there is. This project is completely independent from the Charleston/Arastradero 11
project but that Phase Three project I know is going to have a full signal modification at Fabian 12
and I believe it had bike lanes to this intersection but I’m not 100 percent sure. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah, I think so too. It would be interesting to see these two 15
[unintelligible] even though they’re being run independently just to see how that goes. I’ve not 16
only ridden this a lot in the car, I’ve also ridden it as a bicyclist and it was terrifying. And I have 17
driven past bicyclist and it was terrifying so I appreciate that… the point that you made about 18
having a separate project to look into that. I think it’s really important. There are people who 19
want to bike this way but we need to find a way to make it safe. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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. Rius: Sure, and what’s shown here for Charleston Road are the existing conditions. There 2
isn’t really any significant modification to the lane configurations so it would be open to 3
(interrupted) 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: There’s not? Ok. 6
7
Mr. Rius: Either… I mean what’s happening with the Charleston/Arastradero or other bike 8
connection improvements, it could accommodate any of those. 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: Ok great. So then in your collision report, it looked like those were 11
all vehicular collisions. Was there any pedestrian or bike collisions that would be in addition to 12
that? 13
14
Mr. Rius: There was on bicycle collision. I believe it was a southbound San Antonio side swipe. 15
There was no pedestrian… reported pedestrian collision in the SWITRS report, but we did get 16
numerous complaints and requests and it was repeated again in each of the community 17
meetings. The community meetings were primarily members of the… resident of the facilities at 18
the JCC or to the north… just to the north of JCC and also the JCC employees when they cross 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 street. Those are the primary concerns that we heard so there were no reported ones 1
though. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: Ok. So, I would say regarding the comments about eliminating the 4
second right turn lane from San Antonio onto Charleston, I would oppose that. It is a major 5
point of congestion and I would love to see us find ways to have longer periods of free-flowing 6
right-turning traffic because everybody’s coming right off the highway. And they’re not quite 7
ready to stop and I think that’s one of the scariest things. It’s not just the number of vehicles 8
but the speeds that the vehicles might be… it might be scary that they don’t have enough time 9
to react to things like that. Is it possible to have that right turn lane where it just keeps going? I 10
think you would have to eliminate a lane on the other side of Charleston. 11
12
Mr. Rius: No, we wouldn’t have to eliminate any lanes. It is incorporated into these alternatives 13
to have a green arrow at the same time as the eastbound left so the left turning from 14
Charleston going towards 101. It would have a green right arrow and then (interrupted) 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: It would always be green? 17
18
Mr. Rius: No, only when that left turn is green also and then (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 Templeton: So that’s my feedback is if in the dream world if it were possible to 1
have only one from the bottom… I guess that’s the east going north, one-lane. You can have the 2
other lane take that… sorry… take that whole right turn traffic non-stop. That might 3
(interrupted) 4
5
Mr. Rius: Are you talking about coming from Mountain View heading towards (interrupted) 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: Yes, which I know is out of scope. I’m just throwing it out there. You 8
wanted feedback so here you go. I don’t know if it would be possible. 9
10
The other idea I had was that peninsula that you have jutting out from the corner where there’s 11
currently a gas station. 12
13
Mr. Rius: Yes. 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: That is so awkward, even now it’s a little awkward but that makes it 16
more awkward. Have you thought about extending the barrier behind the parking all the way to 17
that intersection and having an island instead of a peninsula so that it still shortens the crossing 18
path? I’m not sure if I’m even making sense. Yes, yes, so where the parking spaces are there is a 19
green barrier. I was wondering if that could go all the way up to the crosswalk area and then 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 it ingress to the parking area where the peninsula is and then that would make the… an 1
island for the pedestrians. 2
3
Mr. Rius: Actually, I don’t have… I don’t have… that’s actually what’s existing conditions today. 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: Then what’s… so… then how are we shortening then a path across 6
then? 7
8
Mr. Rius: So right now (interrupted) 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: Oh no, cause there’s not a place for pedestrians to wait there. That’s 11
my suggestion is if you could have the pedestrians wait there then (interrupted) 12
13
Mr. Rius: Wait here? 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: That’s a loading zone for them and it shortens the time across. 16
17
Mr. Rius: Well right (interrupted) 18
19
Mr. Kamhi: [unintelligible – off mic] Sorry, you’re suggesting a refuge at that spot? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Templeton: Yes, thank you, thank you for finding the right words for me. Yeah. 2
3
Chair Riggs: [unintelligible – off mic] 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: Ok well it sounds like other people have thought about that so I’ll 6
leave it there. That’s one way to shorten it but it doesn’t solve the load problem. 7
8
Mr. Rius: We would have to have two separate pedestrian phases because you are within the 9
intersection if you’re giving this movement a green light, you have to have stop control for the 10
pedestrian. So, you would have one set of buttons and countdown timers for this crosswalk and 11
then a second one for this. 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 14
15
Mr. Rius: You would have to do two. 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: We currently do that on El Camino and Embarcadero and it’s kind of 18
functional. It shortens that really long cross over. It gives you a place to wait. 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. Rius: Is there… I know there’s one at Page Mill, is there… at Embarcadero is there a 1
separate pedestrian phase to get to the island? I don’t think there is because there’s a yield 2
sign. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: It’s not signalized so you’re saying we’d have to do that here 5
because of the left (interrupted) 6
7
Mr. Rius: Because these… once these cars have a green light to go that way or these cars have a 8
green light to go that then you have to stop the pedestrians. 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: Is that… so that… is that a concern or would that cost more or what… 11
you’re thinking of something that I haven’t thought about so feel free to share? 12
13
Mr. Rius: I’m thinking it would actually increase the crossing time because you’d have to have 14
two separate crossings and both of those would really only go with the eastbound Charleston 15
movement. So, you’d be extending the green times of those eastbound Charleston even more. 16
17
Chair Riggs: It’s also not best practice to strand a pedestrian in a trafficked area. So basically, 18
stranding a pedestrian in the middle of traffic is not best practice in terms of pedestrian safety. 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. Rius: It’s actually, yeah, it’s actually not (interrupted) 1
2
Chair Riggs: Substantially left safe. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: So (interrupted) 5
6
Mr. Rius: And (interrupted) 7
8
Mr. Kamhi: Some of the concerns that we heard from people when we were out there and I 9
only went to one workshop at the… one of the community workshops but some of the concerns 10
that I heard from pedestrians there was how long it takes to get off of the street in that. It’s a 11
very large crossing there and even if you’re at that refuge you don’t feel like you’re off the 12
street yet. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: Ok thank you for sharing that. I guess I’m concerned about the 15
awkwardness of the ingress to the parking lot. However, you want to address that. 16
17
Mr. Rius: Sure, and so in this… I just want to show you real quick. And in Alternative C the island 18
extended out pretty much further and we essentially intentionally created two receiving lanes 19
and then add a right turn to go in here. This was revised. We heard concerns about 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.
operation so in addition to accommodating the truck turning we also made it wide enough to 1
accommodate three… third receiving lanes. So that you wouldn’t have… there was a concern of 2
a rear-end if somebody slows down to make a right turn getting rear-ended so it would have a 3
third receiving lane. So, it didn’t make the crossing quite as short but I think we achieve… we 4
still achieved a lot of the goals we are trying to get. And also address that concern that I think 5
you’re getting at about the ingress to this parking area. 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: Yes, thank you. I guess its… you’re still from the right turn lane going 8
to send people across straight? 9
10
Mr. Rius: No, you would have to go to the third lane or the first… the right-most through lane so 11
that would be a change in operations. 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: Ok. Alright, yeah, I… ok. Thank you. I… so the next steps are you’re 14
going to take the proposal and incorporate the feedback that works and take it to the City 15
Council? 16
17
Mr. Rius: Yeah, we’d take it to City Council and if they direct us to move forward with a final 18
construction design… final design plans for construction. And then again if we were to get a… 19
go through the construction bidding process. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: Ok thank you. 2
3
Chair Riggs: Commissioner Roohparvar. 4
5
Commissioner Roohparvar: Thank you for addressing this intersection. It’s a mess. I take this 6
intersection every single day to and from work as does my husband so I really appreciate that. I 7
had a few comments real quick. I am very glad to see that you’ve removed the bike lane in the 8
preferred option. I think that would that would be a mistake. When you come off 101 that 9
traffic shoots. I get on it and people… it's late, you just want to get to where you want to get so 10
I don’t see how having a bike lane would help so I’m really glad to see you took it off. 11
12
To Commissioner Alcheck’s [note – Vice-Chair Alcheck] point about signalizing that second right 13
turn lane. I would have to disagree again. That traffic there is so backed up during evening rush 14
hour coming off the 101. It would just make it even worse than it is. 15
16
One thing you might want to consider is that I understand that that second left turn lane is 17
helpful or needed for morning commute hours, but in the evening when I come home 101 18
traffic is mostly going straight. So, is it possible to make that second left turn lane left or 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
straight? That way… I mean just something to think about. Would that help ease the evening 1
commuter traffic that it wants to go straight and that’s where you get the rush? 2
3
Mr. Rius: Actually, so you’re talking about coming off the freeway? That left turn turning 4
(interrupted) 5
6
Commissioner Roohparvar: Yeah, I’m talking about coming off… from your right-hand side 101 7
coming down San Antonio. 8
9
Mr. Rius: So, I’ve actually observed the opposite with that left turn pocket. It a single left-turn 10
pocket filling up and blocking the through lanes. And (interrupted) 11
12
Commissioner Roohparvar: Interesting. That hasn’t been my experience. 13
14
Mr. Rius: We wouldn’t be able to have three through lanes because we only have two receiving 15
lanes and we wouldn’t want to have them merge in the middle of the intersection or right 16
immediately after. There’re only two southbound lanes that continue. 17
18
Commissioner Roohparvar: Ok that makes sense and I think my other just point I should throw 19
out and maybe you’re going to disagree with me but I rarely see bicyclists or pedestrians in 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.
intersection. I’m just going to throw that out there and I walk that intersection and it’s typically 1
just me and my child’s stroller. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bicyclist so I want to throw 2
that out there in terms of when we think about bike lanes. It seems like that’s consistent with 3
what, based on your head nodding or no? Is that consistent with what you’ve seen or no? 4
5
Mr. Kamhi: I’m sorry I was just going to say we have counts of it. 6
7
Commissioner Roohparvar: You do so you see a lot more? Is it during or not during rush hour? 8
9
Mr. Kamhi: It’s not a steady time that it occurred. It’s the counts throughout the day that really 10
justify (interrupted) 11
12
Commissioner Roohparvar: Interesting. Yeah, I’m just surprised. 13
14
Mr. Kamhi: But it’s also the concern that we’ve heard from people that are actually making 15
these crossings but we do have counts. 16
17
Mr. Rius: We’ve… yeah, we’ve… we do have bike and ped counts. The ped counts are in… 18
particularly higher during the AM and PM peak hours and also during the lunch hour. I think 19
going to the different restaurants in the area (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 Roohparvar: The shopping centers down towards (interrupted) 2
3
Mr. Rius: And the shopping centers. 4
5
Commissioner Roohparvar: The 101 southbound. 6
7
Mr. Rius: But I know during the kind of shoulder periods it’s a little bit lower and we’ve heard 8
both. Yeah, the counts do show lower on the bikes but we’ve also heard that it’s because of the 9
conditions that (interrupted) 10
11
Commissioner Roohparvar: Interesting, yeah, ok. 12
13
Mr. Rius: They’re looking to get to either Leghorn or some other… through the Greenhouse 14
development and wouldn’t want to… this would be the most direct route but they’re avoiding it 15
just cause of safety concerns. 16
17
Commissioner Roohparvar: I see. 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: Thank you. So, it looks like you had a really good community process 2
and people are happy with it. And I think like most of my colleagues the… you always think bike 3
lanes are good but that kind of broken bike lane that then went behind the cars pulling out on 4
an angle looked like a death trap. So, I don’t think there’s a good solution for a bike lane here 5
and I think given the limits of this specific project I think that D has worked things out probably 6
as well as they can be worked out. And then it will definitely be an improvement to have those 7
crosswalks shortened and quicker for people because like when I see bikes and pedestrians at 8
this intersection it's really kind of daunting. It’s not the easiest place for those kinds of modes of 9
travel. 10
11
So, and I agree, I think we need to keep to right turn lanes coming off of the highway because of 12
the volume of traffic there. So, I’m very appreciative of Staff’s process and I would be happy to 13
recommend basically Number D, Letter D. Thank you. 14
15
Chair Riggs: Is that a motion? 16
17
Commissioner Roohparvar: (off mic) Is it alright if we have a question? 18
19
Commissioner Summa: (off mic) I can make a motion but [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: Well I won’t… Commissioner Waldfogel, did you have any comments? 2
3
Commissioner Waldfogel: I really have nothing to add. I think that you did a great job pulling 4
this together and I support recommendation D. 5
6
Chair Riggs: I’ll just say something too then as well. I think it is really good work but want I want 7
to do is provide just a little more context. I think it highlights something that we’re going to 8
have to grapple with more. Particularly we saw, what a month and a half ago, a residential 9
project come in in this corridor and what this project doesn’t do is take a corridor-based 10
approach here and we kind of already talked about that. Elegant pedestrians’ solution that once 11
we build will be a stranded asset, right? It will be a… assuming we do take a bigger picture 12
approach we will need to revise it. And I think what I don’t see this resolve is some of the multi-13
model movement that has to happen either on this corridor or in parallel to this corridor. And 14
we talked a lot about this at the… we probably talked too much about this in the pre-meeting. 15
16
So I think I would basically if… maybe if you would just take to Council one of the things that I 17
think that we’ve talked about in other sessions is whether or not this needs to become a new 18
district of sorts or a new area that does become a little more residentialized. And if that’s the 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
case then to a certain degree the character of this street needs to change. So, I think… and 1
Commissioner Waldfogel, did you want to respond to that? 2
3
Commissioner Waldfogel: Yeah what I’d add to that is I mean I think that if and when that 4
happens, we need to be open that this is something that could change but I think that this was 5
teed up to us as a solution to a problem. And so, I mean today I support a solution to a problem 6
but I agree with Chair Riggs that we do need to take on some planning in this district and I hope 7
that we can address all these issues when we do that. 8
9
Mr. Kamhi: If I can this area specifically and I think this is a relevant discussion. This area is going 10
to be most likely rapidly changing and it’s something that we’re going to have to keep a really 11
close handle on. So, I think it’s a relevant discussion. 12
13
Chair Riggs: That’s great, thank you. So, Commissioner Summa did you want to make a motion? 14
15
MOTION 16
17
Commissioner Summa: I’d like to move Staff’s recommendation on Packet Page 35. 18
Recommend City Council to remove the Preferred Alternative Concept Plan for the San Antonio 19
Road and East Charleston Road intersection and direct Staff to complete final design plans, 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
environmental analysis specifications and estimates for construction with I think a clear 1
preference for Letter D from the Commission. 2
3
SECOND 4
5
Commissioner Roohparvar: I’ll second that. 6
7
[note – many Commissioners started speaking at once off mic] 8
9
VOTE 10
11
Chair Riggs: Ok I’m going to choose… Commissioner Roohparvar is that a second? It was a little 12
bit of a tie and Commissioner Waldfogel, did I miss your light? Do you have another comment? 13
Ok. Seeing no other discussion, we’ll vote. All in favor? Any opposed? Ok, the motion carries 6-14
1, you have Commissioner Templeton opposing. 15
16
MOTION PASSED 6(Waldfogel, Summa, Riggs, Alcheck, Roohparvar, Lauing)-1(Templeton) 17
18
Chair Riggs: Sorry, did you want to speak to your opposition 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.
Commissioner Templeton: Yes, I think… as I mentioned before I think you’ve done great work 1
and this has come a long way since I saw it early on in the first two options but I don’t feel 2
comfortable that we have solved the problem. This does look awkward and I’m concerned 3
about the changes may be confusing to current users. Especially with not being able to go 4
straight from that right turn lane into the gas station, things like that, and we still have the long 5
pedestrian cross times for… that may be difficult for youth and elderly people. 6
7
So, I want to just throw that out there that if you can push it any further, I’m sure that those 8
constituents would and those residents would appreciate it. Thank you. 9
10
Chair Riggs: Thank you, Commissioner Templeton. Ok, so Item… thank you, Staff, for being here. 11
Thank you, Phil, and thank you guys for being here. That was really good. 12
13
Commission Action: Motion to approve recommendation by Summa, seconded by Roohparvar. 14
6-1 vote (Templeton against) 15
16
6. Consider and Recommend to Council a Proposal to Designate a New Priority 17
Development Area in Downtown Palo Alto and Designating Priority Conservation 18
Areas in the Foothills and Baylands 19
Chair Riggs: So, Item Six is to consider and recommend downtown proposal for a new PDA and 20
conservation areas. And before I hand it over to Director Lait, Commissioner Summa. 21
22
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Summa: Yes, I decided to recuse myself on this issue and not because there’s any 1
specific legal or financial conflict but my husband does work at company that has five locations 2
in the downtown area. And so just to avoid any appearance of any kind of conflict I thought I’d 3
just sit this one out. So, thank you. 4
5
Chair Riggs: Alright, Director Lait? 6
7
Mr. Jonathan Lait, Director of Planning: Great, thank you so, Hang Huynh, is going to present 8
this next item for you. I think… have you been before the PTC before? 9
10
Ms. Hang Huynh, Senior Planner: (off mic) I have. [unintelligible] 11
12
Mr. Lait: Ok so shortly after she started working, she made a presentation so this is her second 13
debut. 14
15
Ms. Huynh: So good evening Chair, Vice-Chair, and Commissioners. I’m Hang Huynh, I am a 16
Senior Housing Planner, so tonight I’d like to proposed on the Priority Development Area and 17
Priority Conversation Area in Palo Alto. 18
19
So, here’s a presentation overview. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: Please stay close to the mic. 2
3
Ms. Huynh: Oh yeah, sorry about that. So, I’m going some questions, what is Plan Bay Area? 4
What is a Priority Development Area, PDA, or Priority Conservation Area and proposed 5
locations for the PDA and PCAs and the purpose and the parameters of the designations? 6
7
So, what is Plan Bay Area? As required by SB 375 we’re required to do a Regional Sustainable 8
Communities Strategy and in that it’s a long-range planning effort to incorporate transportation 9
and land use to achieve reductions in greenhouse gas. And the regional agency that heads that 10
for our region is ABAG and MTC. So, the update for Plan Bay Area is every 4-years and the next 11
update is 2021. So, with every update MTC and ABAG solicit for new PDA and PCAs and… to 12
focus growth and conservation efforts in that new update. 13
14
So, what is a Priority Development Area? Its an infill location near public transit to focus on 15
housing and job growth. So, the idea is to housing near public transit and near… and jobs to 16
reduce car dependency and reduce greenhouse gases. 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, what is a Conservation Area… Priority Conservation Area? It’s a land of regional significance 1
that is facing pressure from urban growth and development and we want to priorities… 2
prioritize to conserve the area. 3
4
So, what is our purpose of Designating a PDA and PCA? We want to align locate priorities and 5
regional strategies. And also inform regional housing needs, allocations where housing sites are 6
placed, and especially be eligible for future planning grants and other capital project grants that 7
may be presented by ABAG or one of the area grants. 8
9
So, the parameters of designated PDA, so Plan Bay Area does not supersede any local land use 10
authority or code. And there’s no need to amend the Comprehensive Plan or code and we don’t 11
need to adopt a Plan Bay Area. The City can… again the designation of the PDA and PCA is 12
completely voluntary. The City can undesignated at any point in time. The Plan Bay Area 13
process update is to start so the City can give input and modify it as needed. 14
15
So currently the City has one PDA and it’s in Cal Ave. That’s within the half-mile of the Caltrain 16
Station, about 118-acres and the City has received an award because it’s an eligible PDA of 17
about $750,000. 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, the proposed PDA that we have is in downtown near University Avenue. So, the border in 1
orange outlines the proposed PDA so that includes the Parking Assessment Area, SOFA, the 2
University Avenue Caltrain station and also down to Stanford Shopping Center. I’d also like to 3
note that even though those are the boundaries, PDA funding can go beyond the half-mile of 4
the boundaries. 5
6
So, a Priority Conservation Area that we are proposing is the Wet Bay Lands. We have already 7
identified that we want to conserve the Wetlands so this is another way to reiterate them as 8
such that we want to conserve this area. 9
10
Another area that we want to identify for conservation is the Foot lands… Foothills, sorry, 11
Foothills. And so, we identified the City owned parcels in the City boundaries for the Foothills. 12
13
So, Staff recommends that you consider and give any recommendation to City Council of the 14
Staff propose of new PDAs and PCAs. 15
16
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Ok, why don’t we open it up for questions. Go ahead, Commissioner 17
Templeton. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Templeton: Hi, thank you. I am wondering about the downtown University 1
Avenue area. How did you determine the edges? Boundary. 2
3
Ms. Huynh: So, we included… we outlined the Parking Assessment Area and also the SOFA that 4
had been identified as residential transitional near public transit. And we incorporated the 5
public transit area down to Stanford and Stanford has been identified in the Comp. Plan for 6
housing or development. 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. I’m wondering specifically (interrupted) 9
10
Ms. Huynh: And shopping center, sorry. 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: Pardon me? 13
14
Ms. Huynh: The Stanford Shopping Center. 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: Yes, I got that side. The other side kind of along the Alma side it 17
seems here and there. And I’m just wondering is there any reason not to go all the way to Alma 18
on that or is it because there’s housing there? 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: Sorry. 1
2
Commissioner Templeton: I’m on Packet Page 51. So, there’s some little zig-zags and I’m just 3
wondering (interrupted) 4
5
Mr. Lait: So, I think (interrupted) 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: What parts we cut out. 8
9
Mr. Lait: So, as I understand it the reason you see the shape that you see there is because it 10
already reflects the district boundaries that we have for downtown and for (interrupted) 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: Pre-defined. 13
14
Mr. Lait: The SOFA area and that’s why it has that (interrupted) 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: Is there any reason not to go up to… is it those are residents I think 17
maybe some of them or? 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: I guess the reason for not necessarily having to do that is because the principal reason 1
that we’re pursuing this exercise is so that we can be eligible for funding. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: And some of that funding can go outside this boundary as you 4
mentioned. 5
6
Mr. Lait: Within a half of mile outside of the boundaries. 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: Ok. 9
10
Mr. Lait: So, I think we’re covered even if it’s not specifically delineated. 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: Good. I just wanted to clarify that. Thank you so much. 13
14
Chair Riggs: Commissioner Alcheck [note -Vice-Chair Alcheck]. 15
16
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: Yes, so I had sort of the same thought. I wondered the rationale for the odd 1
shape of the PDA. I wondered why it didn’t make it ways down to El Camino. I wondered why it 2
didn’t have a more circular representation. I also wanted to know there’re like municipal 3
service center areas within the… what do you call it? The PCA? 4
5
Ms. Huynh: [unintelligible – off mic] 6
7
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Yeah there’s a… you have like a… there’re some Palo Alto buildings in this 8
designated area. What is the… Staff’s interruption of what… that… what would happen to that 9
site? 10
11
Ms. Huynh: So, we just drew a general border around the Bay Lands. We know that there’re 12
some City parcels owned land in there but that’s part of the vetting. So, we just sent a letter of 13
con or interest to ABAG about the boundaries we are thinking about. 14
15
Mr. Lait: So, and Hang will correct me if I’m wrong on this but that we’ve included property that 16
also includes the MSC and City-owned properties that may be utilized for public facility services. 17
In no way compromises our interest, our local interests, and our local zoning and policies by 18
designating this a PCA. All it does is makes us eligible for possible funding to advance our 19
interests in that area and some things that come to mind in the Bay Lands is with sea-level rise. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 might be potentially some funding opportunities in the future to help us with our own 1
projects. You saw one, I think a year and a half ago about the bridge in the Wetlands that was 2
extended about 13-feet above median sea level. Presumable that could have been something 3
that may have been eligible for some funding if we had this as a PCA. 4
5
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Yeah, no I mean I just wanted to understand how that… I mean look when it 6
comes to priority conservation, I mean I would describe… this is going to sound like heresy but I 7
would describe the Foothills as the definition of an infill site. 8
9
Chair Riggs: (off mic) That’s heresy. 10
11
Vice-Chair Alcheck: And the notion that the… there’s a green track a mile from our City’s center 12
or 2 ½-miles from our City Center and that’s untouchable but we’re fine if we develop 13
something that’s 60-miles away from any civic area. Is from a conservation perspective I think a 14
little upside down but it doesn’t sound like this is going to add hurdles to development in the 15
Foothills because you can’t do that now. But I’m… I guess my question is would… what is the… 16
does the funding opportunities that you suggested increase based on the amount of square 17
acreage we identify? So, does finding every single pocket of PCA, for example, mean that there 18
are technically more dollars available to our disposal should we need to invest them in sort of 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Bay Land’s flood controls or something? Is there some relationship there that you want to 1
maximize the number of acres? 2
3
Ms. Huynh: I am not sure on the [unintelligible]. 4
5
Mr. Lait: I don’t think it’s based on the square footage. I think it’s a matter of where the project 6
is and if it’s within the project boundary area. Again, it also extends within a half-mile beyond 7
our project boundary so if the Commission felt like we’ve over defined the area. I mean again, I 8
don’t (interrupted) 9
10
Vice-Chair Alcheck: No, look I’m not suggesting that. Look I don’t know enough about Foothills 11
Park, for example, to understand for example why the section of Quarry Lakes was eliminated? 12
To me there’s just some (interrupted) 13
14
Mr. Lait: So, the green represents… the green on that map represents City-owned property. The 15
white is private. 16
17
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Is private, you can’t designate private land as a PCA? 18
19
Ms. Huynh: You can but you have to get permission from the owners. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: Ok. I didn’t understand that. Ok, thank you for explaining that. Ok, I… 2
there… that’s all I have, I guess. 3
4
Chair Riggs: So, Commissioner Waldfogel I have you next. I just want to ask a little more of a 5
detail question if that’s ok? I actually am curious about your GIS buffers here. I’ve seen this 6
before and it just struck me that there’re two buffers that are overlapping one another with the 7
downtown PDA. I’m assuming these buffers actually go from two centrodes because it wouldn’t 8
make sense that this is a… this half-mile buffer is bigger than the other half-mile buffer. What’s 9
going on with this buffer being huge and the other buffer not being huge? 10
11
Mr. Lait: Hang again will correct me but is this based on the Caltrain station? 12
13
Ms. Huynh: [unintelligible - off mic] 14
15
Mr. Lait: Yeah so, the platform (interrupted) 16
17
Chair Riggs: But then why wouldn’t you… except… then this is not accurate. 18
19
Mr. Lait: Well, but the platform extends. So, we have (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: But you would take an (interrupted) 2
3
Mr. Lait: I’m sorry. 4
5
Chair Riggs: So, you’re saying that it’s a half mile? Ok, I don’t know the Code well enough either. 6
If it’s at a half mile from the centrode or a half mile from… so I mean I don’t (interrupted) 7
8
Mr. Lait: I think it’s a fair question, one that we have trouble with as well. 9
10
Chair Riggs: Because to be honest the centrode approach necessarily doesn’t match up to 11
parcels and so this could particularly if you’re right on the buffer… right on the edge of a parcel 12
for example right here on El Camino. I guess my concern is we don’t know what falls in and 13
what falls out from a parcel bases based on this. All we know is that there’s this generalized 14
buffer and so what I would… it could be that we need to think about the PDA differently to 15
represent the parcels that are within the half-mile buffer as opposed to this artificial… as 16
opposed to kind of the jagular [note – phonetics] orange line. It just seems to me that this… 17
sorry, I just made up a word. I’m sorry. 18
19
Vice-Chair Alcheck: (off mic) What was the other [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: I said jagular [note – phonetics]. Jagged… this jagged line here it’s relative based on 2
what you all or what I understand the policy to be. And so, I guess what I’m saying is that 3
because it… this other buffer is not parceled based, it’s only based on the centrode parcel, the 4
Caltrain station. Centrode is a real word. Then it has the processivity to potentially overlook 5
property at the edges. 6
7
Mr. Lait: Ok so not disagreeing with you. Just want to add a couple of clarifying points. It’s not 8
a… so there is… so Caltrain has a right of way and there’s a parcel that’s been identified with 9
that. That includes the station, the platform, some of the parking lots. And so, we take a look at 10
that whole area and we’ve drawn our buffer around that area. Yes, around the property. 11
12
Chair Riggs: Yeah, it’s not going to be captured in the minutes. It’s an oblong, rectangular parcel 13
that you did… and that’s why it’s this shape. That makes sense to me (interrupted) 14
15
Mr. Lait: Great. 16
17
Chair Riggs: But what it does is it actually causes this ripple effect question along the edge 18
which so none of there… the other border of the buffer represents anything else under the…on 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 ground. It doesn’t represent parcels at all, right? So, I think that’s just a little bit of a conflict 1
point. 2
3
Mr. Lait: I just don’t understand that. What… I don’t understand that point. What’s not 4
represented? 5
6
Chair Riggs: If I wanted too… if I was a developer and I wanted to assemble some parcels and 7
one of them happened to be in the on El Camino and it was in the half-mile buffer and one of 8
them wasn’t. Does that mean I can’t… I’m not in the PDA and my project doesn’t apply? 9
10
Ms. Huynh: I just want to clarify that PDA doesn’t change anything in our Code of 11
Comprehensive Plan. 12
13
Chair Riggs: I know that but it’s just (interrupted) 14
15
Ms. Huynh: Usually what we apply for funding for PDA, it’s for a project base and I don’t think 16
the buffer question [unintelligible]. 17
18
Mr. Lait: Yeah, I don’t know where… I mean on that one-off situation where you’re on that 19
edge, that would apply no matter where we draw the line on it. But I think there probably are 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
some rules about how much percentage of the property is within the PDA and outside of it. If 1
it’s continuously owned there may be some rules on that. But I mean that would apply 2
regardless of how we draw the radius. You’re always going to have an edge case somewhere. 3
4
Chair Riggs: Well then why wouldn’t it just be the… I guess I don’t understand the approach 5
where you just didn’t use the buffer to select the underlying parcels? 6
7
Mr. Lait: You want us to specifically select the underlying parcels? 8
9
Chair Riggs: Yeah. 10
11
Mr. Lait: This map doesn’t get down to that level right, is that what you’re saying? Is that 12
(interrupted) 13
14
Chair Riggs: I’m assuming that all… the entire orange line is based on parcels that have been 15
selected to draw that line. 16
17
Mr. Lait: So that’s based on existing boundaries that are set forth in our Zoning Code, in our 18
Comp Plan for the downtown core, the SOFA district. These orange… that orange kind of jagular 19
[note – phonetics] (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: That are based (interrupted) 2
3
Mr. Lait: What was it? 4
5
Chair Riggs: It just seems backward to me in terms of the… ok but fair enough. If you think it 6
works, I’m going to turn it over to Commissioner Waldfogel and we’re just going to end this 7
conversation. 8
9
Mr. Lait: What I think it does just quickly is it reflects the pattern of development that we see 10
where there’s a lot more commercial development and that’s how… and where that’s 11
separated by some of the residential transition areas. 12
13
Chair Riggs: Well, I think… I mean I just to… again to kill off the conversation. I… my concern is 14
that it representative of where you see the development occurring but that may not be where 15
the market is dictating the development is wanting to occur. And so there… it does invite this 16
propensity for a disconnect and you know one of the things that I… you weren’t on the prep call 17
but we talked a little bit about well why not… why isn’t this drawn on both sides of El Camino? 18
The entire swath of El Camino. Why is El Camino not at high capacity transit corridor? We’ve 19
talked about this for years and I think it should be but. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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, two points, one it… just to make sure that we’re on the same page on this jagular 2
[note – phonetics] piece. It’s a half mile past that too, right? So, it’s not just this orange 3
boundary, it’s a half mile plus. 4
5
Chair Riggs: I know. 6
7
Mr. Lait: Ok alright and then as far as El Camino, we talked about that at a Staff level as well and 8
we debated that. We were trying to figure out do we want to submit information to apply a 9
PDA along El Camino and do we want to do one around portions of San Antonio? Where their 10
other areas of the City that we thoughts might be appropriate for this? And in the end, we just 11
thought that we should just go with the one downtown area because within the next 4-years 12
that’s probably the one that’s most likely to see some attention. This group has talked about a 13
need for planning along El Camino, we certainly agree with you on that. I don’t know that that’s 14
in the next 4-year horizon and by the time this comes around again we thought maybe we 15
could explore extending a PDA along El Camino. That was our reasoning. I don’t know if it’s too 16
late for us to apply along El Camino if the Council wanted to do so? 17
18
Ms. Huynh: No, we’re still able to modify and add additional PDAs. 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: So, if it was the Commission’s recommendation that hey, this is great but go further. 1
We’d like to see some areas along El Camino then that’s an option for you to consider as well. 2
3
Chair Riggs: I would totally support that but I don’t… I’m not going to thwart this on a 4
[unintelligible] for that. I’m going to turn it over to Commissioner Waldfogel. I know he has 5
some opinions on this as well. 6
7
Commissioner Waldfogel: I guess I won’t talk about oblate ovoid. Just a couple of… sorry. 8
9
Chair Riggs: (off mic) Jagular [note – phonetics]. 10
11
Commissioner Waldfogel: Thank you. I’m sure that was meant as a compliment. A couple 12
questions and by the way thanks for the presentation. Could you say something about what this 13
$750K Cal Ave PDA award was? I mean I’d just like to understand what we get for designating 14
an area PDA. 15
16
Ms. Huynh: So, the funding can be used for various items. So, it could be used for planning 17
grants or anything to plan for the area to street improvements to other… and transportation 18
improvements around the area. 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: (off mic) So NVCAP. 1
2
Commissioner Waldfogel: But is for planning, is it for capital projects as well or what’s the… I 3
mean so could we put in a proposal for $10 million for subsidizing affordable housing units or 4
something like that? I mean I just want to understand what the scope of PDA is. 5
6
Ms. Huynh: I think it’s pretty broad. I think you could apply for capital projects. I think housing 7
was spoke about but I don’t think it’s a grant yet. But it’s not… we haven’t received… I think 8
next grant funding cycle will be in 2021 or 22 but it’s not completely sure that housing is out of 9
the question for capital projects. I’m unsure about that but I could get back to you with a more 10
clear answer. 11
12
Commissioner Waldfogel: Yeah, I think that would be helpful and also, what’s the timing for 13
submitting the application? When (interrupted) 14
15
Ms. Huynh: So, we have to go to Council in December and pass… the Council has to adopt a 16
Resolution and also get approved from City Council to submit by January 16th, 2020. 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 Waldfogel: One final question and then I had a couple comments and this is 1
relative to the PCA and it’s just another technical question. Do we need to coordinate with the 2
county ALUC about airport use of including the airport in the PDA? I mean in the PCA? 3
4
Mr. Lait: So, I think if we were doing any development as a result of funding that we’ve received 5
we would absolutely need to do that coordination. The designation itself doesn’t require 6
communication because the designation doesn’t do anything. It doesn’t supersede our local 7
zoning; it doesn’t convey any other changes to our local policies in any way. 8
9
Commissioner Waldfogel: Yeah, I get that and now let me tell you my concerns and I’m actually 10
very inclined to support the PCA. Of course, subject to this that it doesn’t interfere with any of 11
the current uses on those… in those PCA districts. The municipal uses, the airport uses and the 12
PDA I’m not sure that I know enough to support it today. And the reason for that… I’ll just tell 13
you my reasons. We’ve spent or I’ve spent 4-years on this Commission where a big theme has 14
been encouraging residential development, housing development in the downtown district. 15
We’ve implemented generous density bonus; I think we’ve tried really hard and we’ve gotten 16
no takers so far. And I’m not sure we understand why we’ve gotten no takers so far. I think it’s 17
a great impractical question and it would be great to answer that as some point. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
And then to Chair Rigg’s point, I think there are other districts, El Camino, the San Antonio 1
corridor, where the market seems to want to develop housing and we’re lagging behind. I mean 2
we are several years behind even a process to develop a plan for those districts. I mean we’re 3
going through an NVCAP process where the biggest parcel owner is somewhat unenthusiastic 4
about a change in use. So, I mean I’m not sure that we’re spending our money smartly on if our 5
goal is to get housing developed. 6
7
And then my second concern about this is that I don’t completely trust the state as a partner in 8
some of these processes. I’m a little concerned that if we designate PDAs that they’ll come back 9
5-years in the future and possibly penalize us in some fashion for not accomplishing something 10
in a PDA. I mean it's certainly not… it doesn’t appear to be their intent today but we’ve seen 11
this movie before. I mean when they agreed to spend $10 billion on Caltrain electrification, 12
they didn’t attach conditions to that $10 billion at the time that they authorized it but 10-years 13
later they do want to attach conditions to it. And so, I think we should actually be very cautious 14
unless you can say look, there’s a substantial amount of money, there are projects that are 15
likely to get entitled, that won’t get entitled without some analysis, without some access to 16
capital. But otherwise I just feel like this is another one of these processes where I’m not sure 17
that I seem positive outcomes and I’m just worried about that. 18
19
Chair Riggs: Commissioner Lauing and then 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 Lauing: Ok I actually had similar concerns that Commissioner Waldfogel had but 2
I’m coming at it from a different starting point. On Page 49 in red you’ve got published that 3
note which I want to make sure that I understand. This Plan Bay Area does not supersede land 4
use authorities to Cities which means us and it doesn’t require the City Land Use Policies to be 5
consistent with Plan Bay Area. So, you’re saying that this… our… we’re City so we can override 6
the things if we choose too? 7
8
Ms. Huynh: Yes. 9
10
Commissioner Lauing: Right, ok. So, the bigger question which I think is partially what 11
Commissioner Waldfogel was getting at is what about state law because it seems like state law 12
can still come in and override anything we do, correct? 13
14
Mr. Lait: So, as we’ve seen with some recent legislation from the state, I mean they could… 15
they’ve exercised their police powers to make changes to our local zoning regardless of a PDA. 16
17
Commissioner Lauing: Right so I just want to get that clarified for the hearing here because the 18
redlines sound glorious but we can’t do anything if the state doesn’t allow us to do stuff within 19
that particular corridor. So, but that’s… I just wanted to clarify that, that’s not a question. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
However, the whole objective of the PDA here is for future housing and job growth and I’m 1
addressing Commissioner Waldfogel’s comments directly. And the Planning Director has said 2
this will provide potential new funding. So, if there’s new funding that can be coupled with 3
private development funding, maybe that’s actually a way to incent more development in a 4
way that we haven’t done before. So, and on the downside, there is none because all we’re 5
doing is recognizing the proximity to transportation that we already have with the downtown 6
corridor. So, I would be comfortable with how it’s written. 7
8
With respect to the natural areas, I certainly hope the barriers continue to remain very high to 9
building houses in Foothills Park. But in terms of putting a… designating those I think is sort of a 10
no brainer because we generally have so far in Palo Alto. So, I’m comfortable supporting both 11
of the design districts. 12
13
Chair Riggs: Commissioner Alcheck [note – Vice-Chair Alcheck], did you have another comment? 14
15
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Yeah. 16
17
Chair Riggs: I’m sorry. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Vice-Chair Alcheck: So, I… look, I think that this… the concept of the PDA is a component of… I 1
would suggest that I’m more opportunistic that the PDA can create a fruitful outcome if it is 2
implemented in conjunction with an effort by our City Council to begin to address the larger 3
hurdles to development of housing. 4
5
I think one of the biggest constraints that I really feel the broader public doesn’t appreciate is 6
that the parcel size in this zone, like in our downtown where we’re so enthusiastically attempt 7
to encourage the development of housing, is literally too small to create that housing under our 8
height constraints. So, I think if you adopt this sort of initiative, I think you would see results as 9
our community begins to lower the restrictions and barriers and I think that’s coming. And I 10
think that… I think if we… I think initiatives like this… designations like this have the… they have 11
the propensity to essentially create an opportunity. So, once those thresholds are lowered then 12
the development will come in and it will be even more supported in this… I think in this area. I 13
don’t know, I would not suggest that this… that we shouldn’t think optimistically about whether 14
or not this will help. I think it will help. I think it doesn’t eliminate the first hurdle and so this will 15
address the other hurdles that area sort of not the initial hurdle to development of housing in 16
this area. And so as soon as we lower that hurdle, once we eliminate that hurdles then this will 17
address some of the hurdles that come after it. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
And so… yeah, no I would support this. Obviously, I think I would absolutely support a motion, I 1
won’t make it though because I just don’t know that there’s really enough support for it, but I 2
would support a motion or I would recommend to Council to just think about expanding this. 3
Because I guess my response to our Director’s comment was look, I get it, you think this is the 4
area so why don’t we start here. It doesn’t seem like that’s a… I guess my question is did Staff 5
identify the other areas like San Antonio and other parts of El Camino as problematic if you 6
added them or do, we just want to get comfortable with them? I think in large part every time 7
we do something in this community and nothing happens it makes the case that the hurdles 8
that we keep ignoring are actually the hurdles that we need to address. So, I think expanding 9
this boundary is a good idea because if in 2-years or in 5-years we’re still at zero units 10
developed then we can say ok, that’s not working. Let’s try again. And so, I would support a 11
motion that would encourage Council to adopt a larger boundary for the PDA on this item. 12
13
Chair Riggs: Just to clarify, I want to… those questions were rhetorical, right? Those weren’t 14
(interrupted) 15
16
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Well no I would. I didn’t… it didn’t… I would like to know if that’s… if my 17
interpretation of your comments is true. That it’s not that you found it problematic to expand 18
the boundary to San Antonio, you just… I understood it as you were gun shy. Is that accurate? 19
Was there a reason? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: Well I think that to put it into politer terms you were building on precedent. 2
3
Mr. Lait: I think that in our conversation we focused on where we think is the most likely 4
opportunity for future growth and… for the PDA. For PCA I think we had that sort of understood 5
but you’re right. I mean I think there’s a level of tolerance that we were trying to contemplate 6
as part of a reasoned recommendation to move forward. And the comments that we heard 7
from Commissioner Waldfogel were ones that we were mindful of and as expressed by 8
Commissioner Lauing. I mean I do think that there is a sentiment that if we adopt a PCA, what 9
does that mean? And there might be some doubt about by some members of the community 10
about whether it’s worth pursuing this. And from a Staff perspective we think it is worth 11
pursuing it because if we understand it there’s funding available. We don’t want to lose any 12
opportunity for funding, particularly in the downtown area where we’re talking about grade 13
separation or a oppose downtown coordinated area plan when we finish the NVCAP. So, for us 14
it was just more of a measured reasoning as opposed to being gun shy about wanting to do the 15
rest of the City. 16
17
Vice-Chair Alcheck: No, look I get it (interrupted) 18
19
Mr. Lait: El Camino I mean. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: I think that’s reasoned, I think that’s appropriate for the approach for this 2
community, but let’s also… I just want to acknowledge that the only developments that we’ve 3
seen for housing in the last half-decade is at the corner of Page Mill and El Camino. Which that 4
one may be in jeopardy, I have not idea. And then the one we just looked at tonight which is on 5
El Camino and what is that, East Meadow? So, the housing… Billy [note – Chair Riggs] made that 6
point that where the market thinks the housing is going to go and where we think the housing 7
can go are sort of two different things. And I’m not suggesting that we don’t proceed cautiously 8
and listen to the feedback. I’m just suggesting that the source of the feedback has to also be the 9
market place and has to also be the broader… we have to also appreciate the broader, I think… I 10
would suggest growing… I would suggest this. There’s a growing dissatisfaction in our 11
community with the rate of development and I think that voice is going to get louder and 12
louder. And I’m… as a Member of this Commission I would support broadening that zone, that’s 13
it. 14
15
Chair Riggs: Alright, Commissioner Waldfogel did you have additional comment? 16
17
Commissioner Waldfogel: Yeah just what I’ll add to this is I think we’ve heard pretty clearly that 18
this doesn’t do anything to reduce hurdles. So, arguing that this reduces hurdles is not 19
supported by the Staff report. I think that we need to get smarter about what the parietal front 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
looks like. We should do the things that make a difference first and then come later the things 1
that… to the smaller things that will help. We also… I wish we knew what kind of funding we 2
could access from this. I mean if Staff were saying this is a chance to get a million dollars a 3
grant, $10 million of grants or capital projects or something, something, something. I could get 4
a whole lot more enthusiastic because I could see the upside. But as it is what I see is risk and 5
I’m not really hearing enough information about the upside. 6
7
Mr. Lait: So just on that one point, so it’s not where we come up with a project and we ask for 8
the money. It’s a funding opportunity as presented and usually, they’re trying to tie the 9
transportation, housing, and jobs together. And so, from time to time grant opportunities 10
become available and we look to see do we have a project that is consistent with that or not. SB 11
2 was a grant funding opportunity recently that we applied for because we wanted to do some 12
more work on ADUs so that was something that we knew. There’ve been some other grant 13
opportunities that we’ve applied for because the Council’s direction has given us enough 14
guidance to say what’s being proposed is in line with the policy interest of the City and so we’ve 15
made ourselves available. 16
17
I… it does not exclude capital projects or planning studies or any other type of project where 18
there is funding available that might… and where those projects are within this boundary are 19
opportunities where we would just be able to apply for those opportunities. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Waldfogel: I think you made a comment… whoops… I think you made a 2
comment that the boundaries are not really cast in concrete. That project that are near the 3
boundaries or outside of the boundary are also eligible. So, I mean what does that mean 4
relative to these other districts? So, if we had a project on El Camino would we be able… you 5
know would we be able to apply for the basis that we have a PDA on Cal Ave or what… how 6
does that work? 7
8
Mr. Lait: Yeah it would just have to be within a half-mile. So, within a half mile radius of the 9
boundary that we’re selecting. So that we have a PDA in the City is not enough but if there was 10
a project site within a half-mile of our project boundary, whether it’s in Cal Ave or the proposed 11
one in downtown then it would be a qualifying site. 12
13
Commissioner Waldfogel: So, what I would say is if we can make ourselves comfortable that 14
this won’t commit us to other downstream obligations and there are opportunities that are 15
market-driven. I mean to both Chair Riggs and Vice-Chair Alcheck’s points, the market place 16
seems to want to develop housing in places different from where we’ve targeted in our Comp 17
Plan work. And I think that will persist because I think that just the economics of housing versus 18
the economics of other uses in the downtown district dictates that it will be harder to get 19
housing projects developed there for probably a long time in the future. So, if we’re really 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
focused on that, I just feel like we’re doing something… we’re proposing to do something here 1
that doesn’t directly attack any of our goals and indirectly may harm us. And I’d like to be a lot 2
more confident that it won’t harm us before I can push it forward. 3
4
Chair Riggs: Commissioner Templeton. 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: Hi, thank you. I intend to make a motion but I have a question first. 7
Do we know if there are parts of San Antonio Road that are within a half a mile radius of the 8
San Antonio train station that’s in Mountain View? 9
10
Ms. Sandra Lee, Assistant City Attorney: Thank you Mr. Chair. I just wanted to say something 11
before the Planning Director responds but the agendize item is consideration of a PDA for the 12
downtown as well as PCAs for Foothill and Bay Lands. It’s not agendize as a general discussion 13
about all of the various areas where we might have PDAs in Palo Alto including the San Antonio 14
area. We’ve had some limited discussion about San Antonio and I heard that in the context of 15
trying to determine how the downtown was selected because there are some various other 16
areas. But the motion should not go to areas other than the items that have been agendize for 17
the Commission’s discussion. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: So, if we wanted to recommend anything other than what’s written 1
here, we cannot? 2
3
Ms. Lee: It has not been agendize… the public (interrupted) 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: So, the discussion of it… ok, the public notice. 6
7
Ms. Lee: Yes. 8
9
Chair Riggs: That’s not what I heard from Staff. 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: That’s not… yeah, it’s unclear. 12
13
Chair Riggs: I think that there’s been a number of people that suggested that the PDA should be 14
expanded (interrupted) 15
16
Ms. Lee: Yeah so (interrupted) 17
18
Chair Riggs: That the downtown PDA should be expanded. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Ms. Lee: Yeah so if the downtown… so the downtown boundaries could be expanded so if 1
you’re talking about a downtown PDA, that’s one thing. Whether it’s these boundaries or a 2
larger boundary but if you’re talking about San Antonio, which is not in downtown, that’s a 3
separate matter. Now what I heard Staff say in response to questions was that the Council 4
could consider other PDAs but that is not agendize for the Commission’s discussion. 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you so much for clarifying. So, are we able… we’re not able to 7
make a recommendation to Council that they consider other areas? 8
9
Chair Riggs: Why don’t you make that a separate motion? 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: Would that work? 12
13
Ms. Lee: I think you could generally say that they might consider PDAs in other areas. 14
15
MOTION #1 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: Ok, alright, then I move Staff’s recommendation that the 18
downtown… we have the PDA in downtown and PCA’s in the Foothills and in the Bay Lands and 19
that Council may consider other areas. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: [unintelligible – off mic] two motions. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: I’d be… no, I don’t… that’s… I don’t accept that. 4
5
Vice-Chair Alcheck: (off mic) [unintelligible] a second. 6
7
Chair Riggs: Well (interrupted) 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: Do you have a second? 10
11
Chair Riggs: Well (interrupted) 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: If not then you can make your (interrupted) 14
15
SECOND 16
17
Commissioner Roohparvar: I’ll 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: Maybe there was a… there was a second. I think there was an informal… just for 1
the record, there was an informal request to do it in two motions and that was… that request 2
was denied by the motion maker. Questions or comments? Discussion of the motion on the 3
floor? 4
5
Ms. Lee: Excuse me, sorry Mr. Chair. Can I just… so if there’re two divisible propositions in a 6
motion the Commission’s procedural rules say that the “upon request of a Commissioner the 7
presiding officer shall divide the question”. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: Then let’s do it, thank you. Sorry Asher [note – Commissioner 10
Waldfogel] 11
12
Chair Riggs: Ok but are these presented as divisible in the Staff report? 13
14
Ms. Lee: I think they are two divisible… they are divisible propositions. 15
16
Chair Riggs: Alright, ok. Could you… would like to rephrase your motion. 17
18
MOTION #1 REPHRASED 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: Yes, I will divide the motions then per Commissioner Waldfogel’s 1
request and we can do the downtown PDA first. 2
3
Chair Riggs: As… Commissioner Alcheck [note – Vice-Chair] does your second still stand? 4
5
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Yeah, yeah, I second and (interrupted) 6
7
Chair Riggs: And this does not completely… include… just a clarification, we’re taking out the 8
PCA? 9
10
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Can I just ask a clarifying question to the maker? 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 13
14
Chair Riggs: Yes, please. 15
16
Vice-Chair Alcheck: So, I would just say the suggestion that the boundary be increased is made 17
based on not having any evidence to why they shouldn’t be. I mean I think we’ve had sort of an 18
absence of information here because (interrupted) 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Riggs: I’d like to request to (interrupted) 1
2
Vice-Chair Alcheck: That we’d be making like an (interrupted) 3
4
FRIENDLY AMENDMENT #1 5
6
Chair Riggs: I’d like to amend. I would like to amend the motion to suggest to Council that the 7
downtown PDA be extended along El Camino, the length of El Camino. 8
9
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Ok no sorry I just want to clarify from the motion maker. Are… we’re 10
making a recommendation to consider extending the boundary or are you making… sorry, let 11
me rephrase my question. My question is are we suggesting that Council consider expanding 12
the boundary of this downtown PDA or is your motion to recommend this PDA and consider 13
alternative areas also for other PDAs nonspecific? That’s all I wanted to know and if it’s 14
expanded maybe we could get a little more specific. 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: I was moving the Staff recommendation and I believe that Chair 17
Riggs had an amendment? 18
19
Vice-Chair Alcheck: (off mic) Oh, I thought I heard you say something about (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: I think that… just to provide some clarity between the two of you. The original 2
motion was general. Prior to your question, I was suggesting… I would like to suggest an 3
amendment. I would encourage… it does not change the original motion but what it does is it… 4
I’d like to hear requests that Council consider extending the downtown PDA along the spine of 5
El Camino. 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: I accept that amendment that you made. 8
9
Vice-Chair Alcheck: [unintelligible - off mic] silent about other PDAs [unintelligible] 10
11
Chair Riggs: And other… I would say that the… and the Council consider other locations for 12
Priority Development Areas. 13
14
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Ok, I just needed to know that. Thank you. 15
16
Chair Riggs: It is an additive to the original motion. 17
18
Commissioner Lauing: Can we get just get clarity on the geography? El Camino is very long. 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: I would leave it to Staff because I think it has to be within a… I can’t do the half-mile 1
math on the fly here. 2
3
Commissioner Lauing: Oh, is that the only constraint? That’s fine. 4
5
Chair Riggs: I think it has to be constrained by based on a half-mile if I’m not mistaken. So, what 6
it would do… I mean the way I envision it… the way I envisioned from a geospatial standpoint 7
from what I was described it would be radials alongside El Camino. I’m seeing it as a parcel-8
based radius along El Camino for the extent of that circular buffer. Do you understand what I’m 9
saying? 10
11
Commissioner Waldfogel: [unintelligible – off mic] 12
13
VOTE 14
15
Chair Riggs: Well I… a new jagular [note – phonetics] line. So, we have a motion on the table. 16
Any discussion or additional questions on the motion on the floor? So, with all that I think we’ll 17
vote. All in favor of the motion on the floor? Opposed? Ok motion carries 5-1. Commissioner 18
Templeton, would you like to make a second 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.
MOTION PASSED 5(Templeton, Riggs, Alcheck, Roohparvar, Lauing)-1(Waldfogel)-1(Summa 1
recused) 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: Yes, I would like to move (interrupted) 4
5
Mr. Lait: I’m sorry just… I’m sorry Chair? We typically (interrupted) 6
7
Chair Riggs: Oh sorry, speak to the dissent. Apologizes, thank you for the reminder. Appreciate 8
that. Commissioner Waldfogel. 9
10
Commissioner Waldfogel: Thank you. This may be a great idea we just don’t have enough 11
information tonight to assess if it’s a great idea. We don’t really know what the upside is and 12
we certainly don’t know what the downside is. And I think if we had more information, I could 13
be convinced… I could be persuaded to support and also to support bigger district boundaries 14
but just on what we know tonight I’m not ready. 15
16
Chair Riggs: Thank you, Commissioner, go for Commissioner Templeton. 17
18
MOTION #2 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: Thank you. I move the Staff recommendation for new Priority 1
Conservation Areas in the Foothills and Bay Lands. 2
3
SECOND 4
5
Commissioner Lauing: (off mic) Second. 6
7
VOTE 8
9
Chair Riggs: Commissioner Lauing second. Discussion, comments? Ok, seeing none I’d like to 10
vote. All in favor? All opposed? Ok motion carries 6-0. Excellent. That is the conclusion of our 11
formal agenda. 12
13
MOTION PASSED 6(Waldfogel, Templeton, Riggs, Alcheck, Roohparvar, Lauing)-1(Summa 14
recused) 15
16
Commission Action: First motion to support staff recommendation to establish Priority 17
Development Area in downtown and extend it along El Camino Real and explore other areas for 18
Priority Development Area by Templeton, seconded by Alcheck. 5-1-1 vote (Summa recused, 19
Waldfogel against). Second motion to designate priority conservation areas by Templeton, 20
seconded by Lauing. 6-0-1 vote (Summa recused) 21
22
Approval of Minutes 23
Public Comment is Permitted. Five (5) minutes per speaker.1,3 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.
Chair Riggs: We have approval of minutes. Can I get a motion to approve the minutes? 1
2
MOTION 3
4
Commissioner Roohparvar: I’ll move. 5
6
Chair Riggs: That is a movement by Commissioner Roohparvar. I need a second. 7
8
Mr. Jonathan Lait, Director of Planning: Do you guys have minutes? 9
10
Chair Riggs: I think we did. Oh, they’re not in the Packet. Never mind, we don’t have… well, 11
strike that. Strike that it’s late for me. 12
Committee Items 13
Commissioner Questions, Comments or Announcements 14
Chair Riggs: I don’t believe… any other items, Commission questions, announcements, Staff 15
announcements? We need… probably would like maybe a look ahead at future items as well 16
Chair [note- Director Lait?] 17
18
Mr. Jonathan Lait, Director of Planning: So, I think I mentioned the future items before with the 19
in-lieu coming up, we have a couple of things. I was wondering about the… 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.
usually do a retreat in the January/February area. I didn’t know if the Commission had that 1
conversation recently. 2
3
Chair Riggs: We did talk with Rachael about that and it… we need to make sure that the 4
Commission appointment… we want to make sure the Commission appointments have been 5
made before we hold that retreat. 6
7
Mr. Lait: Understood. 8
9
Chair Riggs: So, it probably will be January, early February before we do that. 10
11
Mr. Lait: Great, thank you. 12
13
Chair Riggs: Yeah, we probably… we don’t think the deployments will be made prior to January 14
30th. Commissioner Templeton. 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: Hi, just wanted to do a brief update on the XCAP, the Railroad Grade 17
Crossing Committee. They conducted a community meeting last week and it was well attended 18
and we got a lot of good feedback. We also heard tonight that new proposals can be presented 19
to the XCAP if you had ideas or alterations to the ideas what we’re considering. And we 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.
evaluate them and determine whether to forward them to Council or not. So, keep that in mind 1
if you have a strong opinion on how those grade crossings should be designed. Please, we 2
welcome your input. Thank you. 3
4
Chair Riggs: Alright, thank you so much. We really appreciate you doing that Carry [note – 5
Commissioner Templeton]. Commissioner Alcheck [note- Vice-Chair Alcheck]. 6
7
Vice-Chair Alcheck: I was hoping maybe you could help understand… help us understand the 8
Council action related to overnight parking of RVs? Was something accomplished that 9
(interrupted) 10
11
Mr. Lait: So, City Council has not taken this issue up yet. We did go to the Policy and Services 12
meeting yesterday I think it was? Tuesday. 13
14
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Got it. Is it coming before Council? 15
16
Mr. Lait: It will be presented to the Council I think in the January/February timeframe and it’s a 17
pilot program dealing with private property church or religious institution lots and we’ll develop 18
some parameters to process that. 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.
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Ok, thanks. 1
2
Chair Riggs: Alright so I have three questions for you. Three… would like three updates. 3
Castilleja, how… where is it? When are we going to see it again? Can I just list them? Cubberley, 4
I hear the School Board doesn’t… has… doesn’t want to do housing on Cubberley. Does that 5
preclude City housing? What’s up with the Cubberley process? And then three, what’s the 6
timeline and is there a way to accelerate the timeline for some of that? For example, the EIR 7
process that housing project that came through on San Antonio. You guys had some of those… 8
you know that was one of the few housing projects we’ve seen. What’s the timeline for that 9
project? 10
11
Mr. Jonathan Lait, Director of Planning: So, we’re… for Castilleja, we’re still in the process of 12
nothing all of the comments and developing responses to those. For… it’s… right now in… our 13
consultant is doing sort of the work that they need to do to respond to those… the public 14
comments that we’ve received. That’s the gym in the police, the thumping that you’re hearing. 15
It’s the weights, free weights. So, we’re still waiting for that feedback before we decide on… we 16
need to get the information to be able to respond to how the public’s comments may influence 17
the project. 18
19
Regarding the Cubberley (interrupted) 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
Chair Riggs: So that’s like 2020? 2
3
Mr. Lait: What [unintelligible](interrupted) 4
5
Chair Riggs: Definitely spring 2020 timeline. 6
7
Mr. Lait: We’ll have our comments by then. 8
9
Chair Riggs: Ok. 10
11
Mr. Lait: Yeah, certainly. I think we’re probably close to wrapping up but we’re… it’s a process 12
that is driven in part by the process that we have but also the applicant I think is also 13
contemplating the comments that have been received as well. So, they may have something 14
that they want to talk to us about too. 15
16
The Cubberley Master Plan, I think the draft concept plan was released recently so I’ll make 17
sure that… the Commission gets copies of that. I think it was within the last couple days. I think 18
I saw an email about that so we can forward that on to you. I don’t have specific information 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.
about the school district. I know I’ve read what you’ve read and… but I don’t have any other 1
insight into that. 2
3
Chair Riggs: Yeah because I remember the… you know how they were drawing the property 4
lines in a jagged manner. 5
6
Mr. Lait: Jagular [note – phonetics]. 7
8
Chair Riggs: And I just wonder if that precluded the uses that would be retained by the City? But 9
I think we had asked to see that project again at some point so that… it sounds like that would 10
also be a 2020 item but (interrupted) 11
12
Mr. Lait: Yeah so, I (interrupted) 13
14
Chair Riggs: I would… there was a lot of interest on the Commission on that project. 15
16
Mr. Lait: Great and I’ll reach out to the Staff that is working on that in the Community Services 17
Department and see how we can coordinate another feedback into the PTC 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.
And then your last comment was about the San Antonio project. There is no way to fast track 1
the environmental review. We have to do what we need to do relative to the historic resource 2
there. I think it’s pretty narrow what we’re looking at. It’s actually, as far as the EIR processes 3
go, I don’t think that’s going to be a particularly long one and we hope to have that project 4
going through the review cycle quickly. We understand the Commission’s interest in wanting to 5
see another housing project and we’re right there with you too move that forward. 6
7
Chair Riggs: Thanks. Appreciate all this. Anything else? 8
9
Vice-Chair Alcheck: Got one? 10
11
Chair Riggs: You got… oh. 12
13
Commissioner Roohparvar: (off mic) Yeah, I just want to (interrupted) 14
15
Chair Riggs: Commissioner Roohparvar. 16
17
Commissioner Roohparvar: It’s something to tell you guys. I noticed that we discussed sea level 18
rise tonight. There is a panel at the Real Symposium in Stanford, I would encourage you to go. 19
It’s an academic discussion on sea-level rise, how it’s going to impact the Bay Area properties, 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
which ones are going to be underwater, and how it’s going to look like? It’s true. Apparently, a 1
lot of property that (interrupted) 2
3
Chair Riggs: SFO. 4
5
Commissioner Roohparvar: SFO, Mountain View, Palo Alto, a lot of it’s going to be underwater, 6
and the ramifications it’s going to have from an insurance standpoint, from a real estate 7
standpoint, litigation. I’m moderating the panel, that’s all. I’m encouraging… I know nothing 8
about the topic but just thought you guys would be interested. 9
10
Chair Riggs: You should definitely go. She’s… alright on that note it is… thank you. It is 8:55 and 11
we are adjourned. 12
13
Adjournment 14
8:54 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