HomeMy WebLinkAbout2020-05-27 Planning & transportation commission Summary MinutesPage 1
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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.
Planning & Transportation Commission 1
Action Agenda: May 27, 2020 2
Virtual Meeting 3
6:00 PM 4
5
Call to Order / Roll Call 6
6:04 pm – Riggs absent 7
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Chair Templeton: Pursuant to the Governor’s… California Governor’s Executive Order N-29-20, 9
this meeting will be held by virtual teleconference only, with no physical location. Spoken 10
comments via a computer will be accepted through the Zoom teleconference meeting. To 11
address the Board, go to Zoom.us/join and use the Meeting ID 937 5511 7621. When you wish 12
to speak on an agenda item click on the raised hand button. The moderator will activate and 13
unmute speakers in turn. When called, please limit your remarks to the time limit allotted. 14
15
Spoken public comments using a smartphone will also be accepted through the Zoom mobile 16
application. To offer comments using a regular phone, call 1-669-900-6833 and enter Meeting 17
ID 937 5511 7621. When you wish to speak on an agenda item hit *9 on your phone so we 18
know you wish to speak. 19
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Alright, I believe that concludes our preamble and we would like to call the meeting to order. 21
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Vinh Nguyen, Admin Associate III: Ok I will begin the roll call. [roll call was called] Alright 1
we have a quorum. Thank you so much. Chair Templeton? 2
3
Chair Templeton: I was muted. Sorry about that. Have you been able to connect with all the 4
attendees who wish to speak so far? 5
6
Mr. Nguyen: Yes, I believe I have. Yes. 7
8
Chair Templeton: Ok great. 9
Oral Communications 10
The public may speak to any item not on the agenda. Three (3) minutes per speaker.1,2 11
12
Chair Templeton: And do we have anyone speaking on Oral Communications on items not on 13
the agenda? 14
15
Mr. Vinh Nguyen, Admin Associate III: We do not at this time. 16
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Chair Templeton: Ok. 18
19
Agenda Changes, Additions, and Deletions 20
The Chair or Commission majority may modify the agenda order to improve meeting management. 21
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Templeton: Next item is Agenda Changes, Additions, and Deletions. So, Ms. French, do we 2
have any changes to the agenda? 3
4
Ms. Amy French, Chief Planning Official: No changes, no deletions. 5
6
Chair Templeton: Ok. 7
City Official Reports 8
1. Directors Report, Meeting Schedule and Assignments 9
10
Chair Templeton: Alright let’s move onto the City Report then. 11
12
Ms. Amy French, Chief Planning Official: Ok good evening, Amy French, Chief Planning Official. 13
The Planning and Development Services Department and the Office of Transportation continue 14
to work together with others to help Palo Alto’s recovery from COVID-19 as phases of 15
reopening occur. 16
17
So currently we’re exploring how to use public spaces to facilitate civic life and support local 18
retailers, including restaurants. We’re considering a combination of shared streets, partlets, 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.
sidewalk dining, and other opportunities to help businesses and the public to engage safely 1
outdoors. 2
3
To be clear the Santa Clara County Public Health Order does not currently allow dine-in 4
opportunities for restaurants. Nor does it allow customers to enter other retail facilities. Sales 5
must occur outdoors. This Friday we expect updates from the county regarding the health 6
order. 7
8
And last night we had the North Ventura Coordinated Area Plan group meeting. It was its first 9
virtual meeting and it was a success I hear and importantly grant funds remain in our budget to 10
continue the project. And Commissioner Summa will be able to provide an update further 11
during her comments. 12
13
Also, the department continues to operate remotely with great success. We hope to see more 14
Building and Planning Permits submitted in the coming months because we have an online 15
permitting system. It’s operating successfully for many permit types. Although the submission 16
rates to remain low compared to last… this time last year, but we will continue to monitor 17
activity. 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.
At present, the Planning and Development Services Department remains mainly whole in the 1
Citywide budget process. The Council did restore two Long-Range Planning positions and added 2
an inhouse Building Inspector, multi, to help respond to local businesses and construction 3
activities. So, we’re grateful to continue working on these priorities and providing these 4
services. Yet, the budget is not without great challenges for our PDS Department Staff and Palo 5
Altans and the City as a whole. June 22nd is the next meeting when Council will discuss the 6
budget. That concludes my remarks. 7
8
Chair Templeton: Thank you very much. Was there an update from any other department or 9
does that cover it? From the [unintelligible] 10
11
Mr. Philip Kamhi, Chief Transportation Official: Thank you. This is Philip Kamhi, Chief 12
Transportation Official here from the Office of Transportation and similarly, I just thought I’d 13
share that similar to the Planning Department the transportation budget shares an impact in 14
this financial situation that the City finds itself in. And unfortunately, the current proposal has 15
the… both the crosstown and Embarcadero shuttles being eliminated and further some 16
modifications to the administration of the RPP Program that Nate Baird will be discussing later 17
tonight for the Study Session item. And with that, I think… I think we have Sylvia possibly here 18
to provide some updates. I’m not sure, is Sylvia here? 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.
Ms. Sylvia Star-Lack, Transportation Manager: Yes, I am here. Thanks, Philip. I have two 1
updates, a mini update. I just want to… for the mini update, I just want to join… just to let you 2
know the Office of Transportation is participating in the reopening activities that Amy laid out. 3
So, Planning and Transportation are working together on that effort. 4
5
The two main updates I have are about the Share Streets Pilot Program that launched back… it 6
seems like a long time ago. It was only Friday, May 8th, and this program reserves select streets 7
on our bike network for local traffic only. And the idea was to reduce through traffic so 8
pedestrians, bicyclists, and other non-motorists can maintain physical distancing as they pass 9
each other and have fewer conflicts with vehicles. We have an online survey. I’ve been letting 10
the Commission know about the survey responses. The survey response is up to 91 people and 11
while most of the responders are people who’ve actually said they’ve used the Shared Streets 12
for walking or exercise. The actual number of people answering all the questions is still quite 13
small and so while in general there’s some support for this program where we have put it. We 14
are getting a lot… we are hearing that there are people who feel that speeds have… vehicles 15
speeds have not really changed. And so, we’re going to need to think about if we’re going to 16
extend this program, if we’re going to extend it a longer stretch, if we need more signage. So, 17
we need to look at the locations. In case the public is not aware we have Shared Streets on Ross 18
Road, in Mid-Town, and at… on Park Boulevard north of Cal. Ave and on Bryant Street north of 19
Embarcadero. So that’s the… oh and I did pull a couple of comments from the most recent 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.
respondents of the survey. Someone said it would be great if we could cross all of Palo Alto 1
through a Shared Street. Another person said you should try networks or intersections. We 2
should have one north/south street and one east/west street and make the intersection an art 3
project. And another person asked for more signage at all the intersections of the Shared 4
Streets. So, people are engaged in the survey. I’m… please tell your friends and neighbors to 5
check out one of the streets and give us their feedback so that we can collect all of them. If we 6
get enough we can then really think about where the demand for an additional segment to be 7
placed in town. 8
9
The other update I have for you is about the Safe Routes to School Team. I have mentioned in 10
the prior weeks that they have been pivoting and come up with a full-scale revamp of their 11
traditional spring education and evaluation activities. The Fifth Grade Bicycle Safety Online 12
Module that I talked about last time has now been required by at least one PAUSD principle. 13
Has said this is required for all the fifth graders at their school. We also have our one-on-one 14
virtual optionally bilingual customized bike safety consultations. 35 people have taken us up on 15
those in a combination of families and classrooms. So, an entire classroom might ask one of our 16
Safe Routes to School Coordinators to do a consultation or a family can also do it and we 17
customize it their needs. 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.
And the other thing that I wanted to mention is something that we’re really excited about and 1
I’m going to share my screen now. This is… oh, I can’t share my screen while someone else is. 2
Ok, here we go. This… can you see this? This… oh, wait, no? You don’t see it yet? How about 3
now? 4
5
Mr. Vinh Nguyen, Admin Associate III: There you go. 6
7
Ms. Star-Lack: Ok thank you. So, this is our new Safe Routes to School progress reports. We 8
have created one of these for each school… each school campus and one for all of the schools; 9
a combined progress report. So, this would be the district’s report card for Safe Routes to 10
School and active transportation. This has been something that we’ve wanted to do for many, 11
many years. Other Safe Routes to School Programs around the country have done this and in 12
Palo Alto, I think part of our… one of the reasons why we didn’t do this sooner was because we 13
couldn’t figure out how to do it without engendering a sense of competition between the 14
campuses. And because each campus is situated so differently, some are lottery schools, some 15
are located at the ends of the… near the boarders of the school which make for different 16
commute situations that we didn’t know how to… it took a while to figure out how to do this. 17
And so this has a ranking, it lets the community at that school know how they can get points to 18
be rated bronze, gold or platinum, where they are, where they’ve been in the past for the past 19
3-years, what their trend line is, who to talk to if you’re interested in working on this… working 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.
on that team with all the other parents who are interested on that Safe Routes Team for that 1
campus, and we’re just really excited that we finally have one of these. We have this done and 2
what’s great is that it basically just comes off of an Excel spreadsheet. We have a templet so as 3
we update our data every year, these should automatically update, and so it’s not going to take 4
a lot of time for us to hopefully to generate these. So, I just wanted to share that with all of you. 5
We’re really excited about that. 6
7
Chair Templeton: Thank you very much. That is very exciting and beautiful so great job on that. 8
It’s a nice way to share the information and maybe get people interested in moving those 9
numbers in an upward direction so. 10
11
Ms. Star-Lack: Yeah. 12
13
Chair Templeton: Alright anyone from Staff wanting to share a report? Ok. Well, thank you all. I 14
am sorry to hear about the changes that are a result of the budget adjustments and I 15
appreciate you sharing those with us. It is hopeful for me to see the work that you are 16
continuing to do and I’m very happy to see that. So, thank you for balancing some of the tough 17
news with some really good news too. And especially the feedback about the streets program 18
seems to be going well so I like that. 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.
Vinh, we do have one person with their hand raised from the public. Do we normally take 1
public comment on the Staff reports? If so we should probably speak to those folks now. 2
3
Mr. Nguyen: Sure, let’s ask this person whether they want to speak on this item or 4
[unintelligible]. Neilson, I will unmute you now so you can identify yourself and identify which 5
agenda item you wish to speak on. If you could please unmute yourself on your (interrupted) 6
7
Mr. Neilson Buchanan: Yes, I would like to speak to the Study Session. Thank you. 8
9
Mr. Nguyen: Ok, no problem. You will be our fourth speaker for that item. Thank you for joining 10
us. 11
12
Chair Templeton: Great, thank you very much, and were there any Commissioners that want to 13
speak. 14
15
Mr. Nguyen: If you don’t mind me interrupting, we have another person who just raised their 16
hand. Is it ok if I call on this person? 17
18
Chair Templeton: Of course. 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. Nguyen: Ok Carol, I will unmute you now so you can identify which agenda item you want 1
to speak on. Carol are you there? Can you please unmute yourself on your computer? 2
3
Ms. Carol Scott: Yes, I would like to speak to the Study Session on parking. 4
5
Mr. Nguyen: Sure, you will be our fifth speaker for that item. Thank you for joining us tonight. 6
7
Chair Templeton: Ok well let’s… oh, ok so that’s Carol’s hand still up. Thank you all for the Staff 8
report. 9
10
Study Session 11
Public Comment is Permitted. Five (5) minutes per speaker.1,3 12
2. Study Session to Review and Discuss the FY 20-21 Parking Work Plan Including Policy 13
Options for the Residential Preferential Parking Program. 14
15
Chair Templeton: So, let’s move onto Agenda Item Number Two, the Study Session to review 16
and discuss the FY ’20 to ’21 Parking Work Plan including policy options for the Residential 17
Preferential Parking Program. 18
19
Mr. Philip Kamhi, Chief Transportation Official: Thank you, Chair Templeton. I was just going to 20
introduce Nate Baird again, although he actually probably doesn’t need an introduction now. I 21
think this the third meeting in a row that he’s been at. So, Nate has joined us under the Shelter 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.
in Place and has taken over managing the parking programs and so I’m really happy to turn it 1
over to him. I’ll still be hanging out. With that, Nate take it away. 2
3
Mr. Nate Baird, Transportation Manager: Hello all, hello Commissioners, hello panelists and 4
attendees, and hello to any viewer watching on YouTube or any of the other media channels we 5
have going. I’m going to go ahead and share my screen now so you can follow along for a short 6
presentation. 7
8
Alright are we all looking at the same thing now, I believe? 9
10
Mr. Vinh Nguyen, Admin Associate III: Yes, we can see your presentation. 11
12
Mr. Baird: Great. Alright so for today’s Study Session I have a 10-minute presentation that will 13
start out pretty broad but will zero in pretty quickly as we move through to discussion at the 14
end. I really see this as a kick-off to what will be an ongoing community engagement process. It 15
will feel a little loose today and, in the beginning, but we will be moving toward putting in place 16
processes that will formalize some positive feedback loop for us over time. My commitment to 17
you all is to strive to implement our planned parking improvements as fairly, equitably, and 18
transparently as possible. And largely I’ll be doing that through our Parking Work Plan which 19
was adopted by City Council last or approved by City Council last summer. 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
So, for today’s presentation, I’ll go through an introduction and an overview of our parking 2
programs. I’ll give a brief update on where we’re at and then what we need in terms of 3
community feedback. And then I’ll put up some very specific questions for us to think through. 4
Note that this is just the beginning. I expect to regularly enlist your help, panelists, attendees, 5
Commissioners, and your expertise and your experiences as we move forward. 6
7
In Palo Alto, we have a unique set of parking programs; the RPP. We’ve got commercial districts 8
in downtown and Cal Ave and we also have a number of garages and lots. These spaces serve a 9
variety of stakeholders who needs frequently compete as we all navigate overlapping use 10
categories as residents, show owners, employees, students, visitors, or other. 11
12
Complicating an already complicated picture are the unprecedented COVID-19 related impacts 13
including a much-constrained budget for Fiscal Year ’21. Thankfully we have a City Council 14
approved Parking Work Plan with 35 recommendations for moving toward an easier system. 15
And I’ll just note that City Council yesterday reiterated again that they’re really trying with the 16
budget process to push policy changes down the line. They’re trying to make service impacts as 17
few as possible as we rethink how to move forward and so our work plan with our 18
recommendations really became out key starting place for figuring out how to work under a 19
constrained coming up fiscal year. And one more thing I want to say about the parking plan. It 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
really is intended to improve resident quality of life and more effectively manage parking 1
availability for all our trip making purposes. 2
3
With the Fiscal Year ’21 budget process, City Council has tentatively approved accelerating 4
many of the Parking Work Plan’s recommendations to save costs and improve customer 5
services. These include a key strategy of using license plate recognition and virtual permits as a 6
strategy. We except license plate recognition and virtual permits to help us fast track many of 7
the improvements we have keyed up as well as decrease enforcement cost and improve 8
enforcement efficiency. We also hope to use LPR and the data that we’ll get from those 9
systems to better understand parking impacts in both residential and commercial districts. And 10
we understand that these impact these impacts very quiet differently between the different 11
districts. And finally, we do want… we do expect also as we have a better sense of what’s going 12
on in all our districts, that will help us provide better parking experience for residents, visitors, 13
businesses, and employees. 14
15
So, so far City Council have given us fairly clear direction to return with policies and proposals 16
to use LPR and virtual permits to scale back enforcement and administration costs. When we 17
say scale back enforcement, we’re really talking about our method of enforcement. We are not 18
talking about indefinitely not having enforcement. We do expect to turn enforcement back on 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.
as soon as Shelter in Place Orders are lifted or as soon as we see a need to turn them on from a 1
global perspective. 2
3
We also have clear direction from Council to continue with the program adjustments that we 4
already had in the recommendations and work plan to improve financial viability. And we will 5
work to continue to bring forward to Council policies and proposals to work and move us 6
through those work plan items. 7
8
Last summer Items 28 through 35 were specifically called out as needing additional feedback 9
from either the PTC or the larger community. And City Council directed us to work with the PTC 10
specifically one Items 28 through 35, but we will be working as we go through this next fiscal 11
year to really enwrap all of our processes into a community engagement lens. 12
13
Specifically, we’re really looking for feedback regarding potential quantitative and qualitative 14
measures needed to measure both parking availability. That’s Item Number 27 which we said 15
was a high… very high priority for us moving forward with all the system upgrades that we need 16
to make but we also need to understand people’s parking experience. 17
18
So next steps include continuing to engage the PTC as well as our community at large and 19
providing feedback options for moving forward. We want to develop policy options to establish 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 monitor parking occupancy and utilization. We also want to develop policy options for 1
establishing and monitoring qualitative parking experiences both in the residential districts and 2
for folks using the commercial districts. And then what we will do is we will write detailed policy 3
modifications or other proposals needed to keep working through our work plan. We’ll bring 4
those to City Council as needed. 5
6
Right now, we’re… again I’m going to call your attention to Item Number 27. We really see this 7
as a priority step for us in terms of all… a whole suite of changes that we need to make that are 8
identified in the work plan. The Parking Availability Standards really help us measure with a 9
quantitative standpoint what the parking occupancy is and what that day to day or even hour 10
to hour swings in parking availability are on the blocks and at a neighborhood level. I think 11
another key part of having a Parking Availability Standard is about developing a community 12
understanding of the parking impacts for various stakeholders. So earlier in this presentation I 13
talked about how we have residents, we have visitors, we have employees all with different use 14
cases. And so, we have a variety of programs that are designed to try to meet those various 15
needs. What we’re trying to do now with this whole suite of measures is establish win-wins for 16
all those different users as we move forward. As soon as we have some Parking Availability 17
Standards established, that helps us move on toward rethinking our parking pricing strategies in 18
general, and that to will entail a fair amount or a good amount of community engagement. As 19
we all know parking pricing can be a very sensitive subject. 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
After that, we’ll continue on through some other additional work plan priorities to streamline 2
and help save administrative costs with our employee programs. And then we will also think 3
through how to simplify the payment systems for our users. 4
5
My really key priorities for our work plan through this next 6-months and this fiscal year frankly. 6
The top of the list is in community engagement. Top of the list is continuing with our RPP 7
system improvements, moving toward virtual systems, streamlining, and making those systems 8
easier for folks to use, adding monthly renewal options, that sort of thing. Mark Hurr, our 9
Parking Operations Lead, is also on the line today and if specific questions come up we will try 10
to get those questions answered about many of those system improvements that are coming. 11
And then finally we really are hoping to get LPR and virtual permitting set up because that really 12
does unlock a number of ways forward for both cost savings and customer improvement that 13
we are seeking. 14
15
I’m going to walk you through a set of suggestion… a couple sets of suggested questions for 16
discussion. These will really help us think about the two key opening conversations that I want 17
to have with you all and I want to hear your feedback from various different perspectives 18
depending on… we have folks here today on this call who are from the residents, who are from 19
the RPPs, who may own a business. I want to hear different perspectives and I think our… these 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.
next sets of questions will help us frame the discussion or help you understand the perspective 1
of feedback that I’m hoping to get today and we’ll continue to be pursuing as we move forward. 2
3
The following are questions regarding Staff approach to community engagement and outreach. 4
What would be the best approach to serve all our stakeholders well? What would be the best 5
approach for each individual district? What would be the best approach for the City as a whole? 6
And really what I’m trying to state here and tried to elicit from you is some understanding that 7
crosses all of our various different perspectives as we are residents or as we are visitors or as 8
we are employees. And I think having in mind both the global picture but also the picture on 9
your street or any destination that you may be going to in Palo Alto will really help us think 10
through some of these questions or some of these goals that we have that we’re trying to 11
achieve. 12
13
The next set of questions are regarding our policy approach related to parking pricing, parking 14
availability, and parking experience. I’m really thinking about on-going feedback here. What 15
would be the best approach to serve all our stakeholders well? What would be the best 16
approach for each individual district? What would be the best approach for the City as a whole? 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.
Again, I’m Nate Baird. We really do see this as a kick-off to our whole process so please feel free 1
to contact me at any point. We don’t need to solve everything today but we do just want to get 2
a beginning sense of where we’re going and how best to get there. Thank you. 3
4
Chair Templeton: Thank you very much, Mr. Baird. I think we should do public comment now 5
and then we’ll go to Commissioner engagement with your questions which were very nicely 6
framed. I appreciate that, so Vinh would you like to survey and see if there’s any additional 7
commenters on the agenda item? 8
9
Mr. Vinh Nguyen, Admin Associate III: Yes, so I see Chris and John just raised their hands. So, we 10
will have you guys go after the speakers who have already raised their hand beforehand. So up 11
first we have Paul followed by Taylor followed by Terry followed by Nielson followed by Carol 12
and then Chris and then John. If there’s anyone else in here who wish to speak who’s name I 13
did not call please raise your hand now. If you are using the Zoom application you can raise 14
your hand by clicking on the raise hand button at the bottom and if you’re calling in from a 15
phone, you can raise your hand by dialing *9. Madina [note – phonetics] can you get the 16
speaker timer up, please? Thank you. So, our first speaker is Paul, so Paul I will unmute you 17
now. If you can also unmute yourself on your computer you may speak. Paul if you’re there, 18
please unmute yourself on your computer and you may speak. Ok, so we’ll come back to Paul at 19
the end. Up next would be Taylor. Taylor if you can please unmute yourself, you may speak. 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
Mr. Taylor Brady: Am I unmuted now then? 2
3
Mr. Nguyen: Yes, we can hear you. 4
5
Mr. Brady: Ok great. So, I am Taylor Brady and on today’s discussion primarily I will be 6
representing the College Terrace Neighborhood where I also serve as Vice-President of the 7
Board of the College Terrace Residents Association. And in discussions with some of the other 8
neighborhood leaders and with people in College Terrace, I think some of the input that we 9
would like to give to the PTC about the RPP Program, in particular, is regarding how beneficial it 10
has been for our neighborhood and for the community’s goals when it comes to sustainability 11
and encouragement of alternate forms of transportation; especially mass transit. 12
13
As many of you are aware College Terrace was the pilot program for RPPs in the City of Palo 14
Alto and has been very successful in ensuring the availability of parking for people in the 15
neighborhood; as well as providing incentives for those who work in commercial enterprises 16
nearby to consider alternate forms of transportation while still providing plenty of flexible 17
short-term parking for those who are attending or visiting retail businesses in our immediate 18
vicinity. In particular, I’d like to stress that in College Terrace the smaller lot sizes and the 19
frequency with which homes do not have let’s say sufficient parking for all of their occupants to 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
have their own vehicles or have vehicles parked on the lot rather than on the street, makes it so 1
that street parking is a pretty vital resource for the people in the neighborhood. However, for 2
many of those same people the ability to have their vehicle at home where it’s needed for 3
shorter errands and to use mass transit otherwise which we are approximate to numerous hubs 4
of is a great option. 5
6
I would say that pricing of the RPPs in the future is something that we should consider very 7
closely when thinking about how to incentives those who are looking to buy let’s say an 8
Employee Permit parking in the neighborhood, to consider an alternate form of transportation; 9
especially mass transit. 10
11
And I would also like to say that it is important for College Terrace as it is for numerous 12
neighborhoods in our vicinity including Evergreen Park and especially Evergreen Park I suppose. 13
That the phasing down of the Employee Permits that are presently sold in Evergreen occurs 14
with the onboarding of the California Avenue Parking Garage once that project has been 15
completed. Thank you for your time, everyone. 16
17
Mr. Nguyen: Alright thank you for your comments. Taylor. Excuse me, up next is Terry. Terry, 18
because you are using an older version of Zoom I can’t unmute you so instead I will promote 19
you to panelist. If you can please connect your audio, you may speak. 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
Mr. Terry Holzemer: Ok thank you. I’d first like to just say thank you to the City Staff, Philip 2
Kamhi, and Mr. Baird and I appreciate their thoughts in making sure that residents are included 3
in this process. I think that’s critically important as this process moves forward and I salute 4
those efforts. 5
6
I’d like to talk about the Parking Work Plan Item 28 and I’d like to encourage all of you to 7
consider a total phase-out of all Non-Residential Permits from the Evergreen Park/Mayfield 8
Neighborhood. So that the commercial employees could be encouraged to fully use the 9
California Avenue garage when it is fully built, hopefully, finished, in September. 10
11
In my neighborhood where I live which is the Mayfield Neighborhood, we now have several 12
large office buildings including the new 2 triple 5 Park building which is already under parked 13
and will certainly for many residents, employees, and retail customers to compete on a daily 14
basis for space. It’s really time for the City to step up and set up a program to phase out the 15
street parking for Non-Residential Permits. 16
17
My final thought is this. There’s somehow a premise that somehow residents are privatizing our 18
streets. This is simply wrong, it’s dead wrong. It’s important to point out that our residents are 19
truly the City itself without the financial support, the volunteer spirit which I’m part of, the 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
dedication of our residents to assist their neighbors on a daily basis. Our City truly couldn’t 1
function. I urge you to value our neighborhoods, the people that live in it and are here every 2
single day. Thank you. 3
4
Mr. Nguyen: Thank you Terry for joining us tonight. Our next speaker will be Neilson. Neilson if 5
you can please unmute yourself. 6
7
Mr. Brady: Yes, thank you. Thank you Staff and Commissioners for this opportunity to talk 8
about residential parking as well as parking in the commercial zones. Addressing both of these 9
for practice and policy is a great opportunity that we have not had in the past. I’ve been 10
inactive parking issues for both the commerce and the neigh… residential neighborhoods for 11
over 10-years. And I want to highlight five cornerstones or foundational pieces that are being 12
discussed now and for the immediate future. Nathan outlines a lot of activities and I don’t want 13
to subordinate all the programs but I want to talk about five of them that I think are 14
foundational. 15
16
First is the cost-saving technology represented by license plate reader. That’s not only for 17
enforcement but it’s also a source of management information. And I don’t think most people 18
really understand that, but I’m fully behind it. 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.
Second is the guidance system for the garages for University Avenue. That one of the most 1
inherent… the inherent inefficient things in downtown parking is that the capacity in the 2
garages can’t be physical and we’re well under the way of understanding that lack of systems. 3
4
The Permit Management System is the lest sexy in the number third… the number three issue. I 5
know it’s underway and the sooner we can get the management system integrated and 6
developed for the RPP neighborhoods. Then it needs to go to the commercial zones as well. 7
We’ve been operating not much more than a shoebox for the last 10-years and this is a great 8
step forward. 9
10
Number four I’d like to recognize that the creation of the [unintelligible] departmental level 11
Office of Transportation and the professionals within it are the real keystones to make all this 12
happen. I’m as impressed as ever that we’ve got the right team, the right depth, and if we can 13
stay on course with resources that are proper in this COVID period of tightness of budget. We’ll 14
be able to get to the end of the tunnel and have a lot better parking policy and practices 15
throughout the City. 16
17
Finally, I think pricing is critically important. Several years ago, it was presented with basically a 18
booby prize of the book, the high cost of free parking. It is about the biggest worse book on 19
earth to read. You really don’t have to get any further than the title and I hope the 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioners will truly understand the importance of pricing that we need to implement over 1
the next year or two. 2
3
Finally, I’d just like to say we have a chance to pick up ourselves and do the best we can under 4
these tough circumstances. And I will do my best to help all the neighborhood leaders 5
participate. Thank you. 6
7
Mr. Nguyen: Thank you for joining us tonight Neilson and thank you Paul for raising your hand. 8
You will be our last speaker in this item. Up next is Carol. 9
10
Ms. Scott: Good evening. I’d like to first say that I am supportive of the resident's input 11
document that has been submitted for your consideration. Employee Permits in Mayfield and 12
Evergreen Park show be reduced and moved to the new garage that was funded by taxpayers. 13
In the long run, we would like to be… we meaning Evergreen Park and Mayfield would like to be 14
treated like other residential areas such as College Terrace and Old Palo Alto where no Non-15
Resident Permits are issued. The City did not allow College Terrace to be overrun by parking 16
from Stanford and they overrun in our neighborhoods by employees of commercial office 17
buildings that were allowed to be built with insufficient parking creates the exact same 18
circumstance. 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.
I’d like to stress that we have in the past and will continue to work with the local service 1
providers and retailers in addressing their needs. Our concern is not necessarily with them but 2
again, the root cause of our difficulty has been the building of large commercial office space 3
that is under parked. 4
5
I would also like to comment on the criteria for neighborhoods and neighborhood quality. I 6
would respectfully submit is not measured simply by the number of available parking places in 7
it. A neighborhood is not simply an inventory of parking spaces. Capacity utilization is a totally 8
inappropriate and inadequate measure of the quality of life in a neighborhood. I would urge 9
you to develop true quality of life measures which would suggest that we follow the 10
Comprehensive Plan and not allow commercial development to intrude and have negative 11
impacts on the neighborhood. Thank you. 12
13
Mr. Nguyen: Thank you Carol for joining us tonight. Our next speaker will be Chris. Chris, can 14
you please unmute yourself and then you may speak. 15
16
Mr. Christ Robell: Ok. Can you hear me now? 17
18
Mr. Nguyen: Yes, we can hear 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.
Mr. Robell: Ok great, so thank you for the opportunity to speak. This is Chris Robell. I think you 1
may recall I led the effort to establish the Old Palo Alto RPP last year and very greatly for Philip 2
and his team for quickly implementing that given some of the snafus that happened, but we are 3
very grateful. And I will tell you this acute and on-going problem has been fixed pretty much as 4
soon as they put up the signs and I think had maybe one enforcement session for the first 5
week. And so, this is… this was a serious problem with the commuters, the Caltrain and the 6
employee spillover parking and it has… that problem has been fixed. So, we’re obviously up for 7
renewal or I should say for finalizing the pilot at the end of November timeframe. And I would 8
urge you to all and please ask you to implement it as… to finalize it and approve it. 9
10
And the two comments that I want to make I did see that the At Places Memorandum talked 11
about evaluating RPPs with looking at sales of permits and occupancy levels. And I…sorry, my 12
little multi-poo is here but I do not think those metrics are at all appropriate. I think the… did 13
the parking get out of the neighborhood and is it working as intended? So, which the answer to 14
that question is yes. And you’ll recall we had the highest participation and the highest number 15
of people voting yes for this RPP so please keep that in mind. 16
17
And lastly, I know that the budget is a big issue as well and I can say that I don’t think they 18
come here very often for enforcement. The signs are some cost, those are there, so it really is 19
not that costly. So, I… please it’s almost like following the hypocritical oath, just leave it. And I 20
Page 28
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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.
don’t want to use… I’m hoping that everybody will agree not to use the budget or COVID as an 1
excuse for stopping what is a very effective and working program. 2
3
And I do echo all of the other comments from the previous ones. I think these residential 4
neighborhoods should be or the quality of life in all the neighborhoods is preserved and 5
echoing what Carol said and others. So anyway, thank you very much and look forward to 6
getting this finalized at the end of the November timeframe. 7
8
Mr. Nguyen: Thank you for joining us, Chris. Up next will be John. 9
10
Mr. John [note - no last name]: Ok, Vinh can you confirm my microphone is working? 11
12
Mr. Nguyen: Yes, we can hear you. 13
14
Mr. John [note – no last name]: Great so I’d like to say also my thanks to Philip and Staff 15
because I think they’ve been very responsive to resident’s request and input for information. 16
And we appreciate that relationship, but they’ve not been around for a long time so they may 17
not know that this push by residents to reduce the intrusion of commercial parking in the 18
neighborhood has been going on for literally decades. There’s the famous Palo Alto Weekly 19
editorial from 2012 titled Kicking the Can Down the Road Again, which talked about the City’s 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
inability to find solutions to this commercial parking problem. I was part of the first stakeholder 1
group that started in 2013 for the Downtown RPP. We made some progress but then we stalled 2
because some of the promises or commitments that we believe the City made to reduce 3
commercial parking intrusion further were never followed through on. So, a long history and 4
now we’re at a point where we have a chance to do something with the changing parking and 5
driving patterns. Let’s take this opportunity to make some real progress. 6
7
Second comment is about quality metrics and others have spoken about this already but the 8
fact that the initial metrics proposed were comparing a residential neighborhood to the metrics 9
used for a commercial garage is really embarrassing because they’re totally different 10
environments. I personally think that the metrics need to be by each neighborhood if that 11
neighborhood is going to give out some parking spaces to commercial enterprises. I don’t think 12
they’re obligated to do so and in fact, I was asked with some other residents to interview some 13
of the companies who are going to be our ticket processing and RPP management companies. 14
We asked them if they had ever worked with a City who had allowed commercial parking in 15
residential zones? All the companies answered never in their experience. 16
17
And finally, the zones for the Downtown RPP zone… district were set up rather arbitrarily and 18
they were the best effort on the part of well intention Staff at the time. However, Zones Four 19
through Eight cross from the downtown business core, across Middlefield Road into Crescent 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.
Park which is primarily residential. And there is no justification for putting commercial parking 1
into Crescent Park neighborhood. The zones should align with physical boundaries like 2
Middlefield Road and with traditional neighborhood boundaries like Crescent Park. 3
4
I hope you can spend some time reading the document that I also participated in from a 5
resident’s point of view. It gives you significant detail on our thinking and reasoning behind our 6
request. Thank you. 7
8
Mr. Nguyen: Thank you for joining us tonight, John. Our last speaker will be Paul. If there’s 9
anyone else who wishes to speak on this item, this is the last call for you to raise your hand 10
now. Ok Paul, if you can please unmute yourself on your computer you may speak. 11
12
Mr. Paul [note – no last name:] Can you hear me? 13
14
Mr. Nguyen: Yes, we can hear you. 15
16
Mr. Paul [note - no last name]: Good evening Commissioners, where ever you are. With the 17
California Avenue garage nearing completion, Evergreen Park residents look forward to an RPP 18
without Commercial Permits while continuing to welcome 2-hour parking that supports our 19
local merchants. New Staff appears supportive of protecting the quality of life in neighborhoods 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.
as directed in our Comprehensive Plan by embracing Staff recommended technologies such as 1
license reading systems for RPPS and an efficient garage guidance system maximizing parking 2
utilization. A resident only RPP can, at last, be a reality in Evergreen Park. Thank you. 3
4
Mr. Nguyen: Thank you for your comments, Paul. Chair Templeton, that concludes public 5
comment for this item. 6
7
Chair Templeton: Thank you very much. Alright so now to the Commissioners. Please raise your 8
hand if you would like to speak and also may I ask you, Mr. Baird, if you want to put your 9
discussion topics slides… if you wanted to present that. Then that might be handy for people to 10
respond too. Would it be most useful for you to go kind of one round of general comments and 11
then onto the specific slide by slide or what do you think would be a productive way 12
(interrupted) 13
14
Mr. Baird: Sure that [unintelligible – audio disturbance] 15
16
Chair Templeton: To get your feedback? 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.
Mr. Baird: If you want to go through general and then we can look at the questions or if 1
someone wants to jump to a question that stuck with them. The questions where really a 2
starting point so I am interested in what folks’ thoughts are. 3
4
Chair Templeton: Great, alright well let’s do that. Let’s have an open-ended discussion and then 5
we can review and see if there was still any remaining questions on your frame slides after that. 6
Alright, so I am not seeing Commissioners' hands. Let’s make sure I’m on the right slide, there 7
we go. Vice-Chair Roohparvar, you’re up first. 8
9
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Sure. I actually had two questions, so my first question to you is I 10
know… I think I read in your Packet and then also on the slides that you’re thinking about auto-11
renewing Employee Parking Permits for purposes of efficiency. But also, on the slide, you had 12
stated one of our goals are to reduce employee parking on the street and shift it to off-street 13
lots. How does that reconcile because I think… I mean in my mind I’m thinking if you don’t auto-14
renew then people are going to forget or maybe they don’t need it and then are less likely to 15
renew and it reduces the problem. No? Yes? I mean what are your thoughts on… am I 16
misunderstanding that? What do you think? 17
18
Mr. Baird: Well, we have a very… we have a number of parking programs and they all 19
interrelate. So, I think you can’t… it’s hard to touch one thing and not touch other things. So, 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.
we’ve really tried to sequence the improvements that are coming and for a way for us to learn 1
as we go and to put in place the operational changes that will help us, later on, figure out those 2
tougher types of problems that you’re starting to talk about. And so, Mark has been very 3
engaged in working with folks to streamline our processes and bring our permits online. So, 4
bringing many of our operations online, bringing some of our permit purchasing online will help 5
us get to a point where it is much easier for people to select whether they want to buy 6
something just for 1-month or auto-renew for some certain amount of months. 7
8
We right now kind of do things on a yearly basis and it does create a mass rush and a temporal 9
demand for permits that are only available for a certain amount of time. So, we want to focus 10
are systems and our parking pricing on what we’re trying to achieve with the whole program as 11
it works… as these things work together. So, I don’t know that I have a direct answer for you 12
right away but it is… all the improvements that we’re putting will help us get there. 13
14
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Got it and then my big picture comment is a lot of retailers and 15
commercial businesses have moved toward curbside pickups. And that of course on the one 16
hand it creates greater efficiencies because you’re not parking and spending time to go in and 17
purchase, but on the other hand, you’re blocking off existing parking spaces to allow for that. 18
So, have you thought about that in terms of parking availability and traffic and what do you… 19
what do you think about that? 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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. Baird: I think generally we’ll be monitoring what happens over time. We know that the 2
economy is very likely to be quite different and so our curb space needs could be different. It is 3
something that we will need to monitor. So, we could need to have more loading and unloading 4
space, but it’s something that we want to monitor as we turn all these systems back on 5
overtime. So, when we turn our enforcement levers back on… if Shelter in Place is done, we’ll 6
turn everything back on, but we’ll also start to turn some of the program improvements that 7
we’ve been discussing on as well. And we will be making adjustments as we go. 8
9
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Thank you. Just one comment because I use to live in San Francisco and 10
this is nothing… we’re nothing like San Francisco at all, but I remember just constant double 11
parking all across San Francisco for loading and unloading. I don’t foresee that being a problem 12
here, but that’s why I mention the curbside pick and are we going to designate spots and stuff 13
like that. Thank you though. 14
15
Mr. Baird: And we did get a request for that today from a retailer so it’s something that we’ll be 16
looking at. 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.
Mr. Kamhi: Actually, if I could just jump in really, really quickly, I’m sorry. Just… this is not 1
exactly related to this RPP item but related to our COVID-19 response. We have designated 2
some temporary curbside pickup zones (interrupted) 3
4
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Oh good. 5
6
Mr. Kamhi: Where there’s some signage, so if you head out you’ll see some temporary zones. 7
They were actually… there was a list that was coordinated through the City Manager’s Office of 8
businesses that were requesting those. So, and I think the approach is kind of… this is actually 9
interrelated to RPP and so that’s… in… and I should say all parking impacts in the City are 10
interrelated. So, Nate is cautiously watching everything that happening to make sure that the 11
parking impacts don’t come back or that there’s… if businesses start really ramping up their 12
employment or keeping… bringing employees to downtown. That we’re ready to react and 13
same thing with California Avenue, but we’re looking at… we’re setting up temporary parking 14
zones. Those started last week on Friday in conjunction with the new County Health Order and 15
further, we’re looking at what comes next in the County Health Order for reacting to COVID-19. 16
So, with that, I’ll turn it back to Nate so he can talk most about RPP. 17
18
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Thank you. That was really helpful. Great to hear. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Templeton: Alright thank you Vice-Chair. Next, up is Commissioner Lauing followed by 1
Commissioner Summa. 2
3
Commissioner Lauing: Excuse me, yeah, I’m just going to make a couple of the general 4
comments, and then I want to come back for a few on the specific. First of all, just a piece of old 5
business Philip since you’re on the line. Originally Council had 35 recommendations that they 6
had originally said to send to us. 25 of them are gone which is fine. I’m just interested in what 7
happened to those? Did you implement those in some other areas or half of them or whatever? 8
9
Mr. Baird: I’m happy to let Philip speak but many… the all… many of those are in progress still 10
and the separation that I made between the ones that I presented in the memo versus all the 11
remaining. The remaining are going to have to come back to Council and they will… many of 12
those also require community engagement. The nine that I… that are in the memo were 13
specifically called out for additional community engagement via the PTC. And so, we wanted to 14
call special attention to these nine and really in what I did in the memo is we’re especially 15
calling out attention to the very first one because it really does help us set up and move 16
forward on the other nine. 17
18
The remaining 35 are all in various forms of progress. Number Four is complete since they’ve 19
hired myself. You can read about that (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: Progress. Progress. 2
3
Mr. Baird: We’ve got some progress there, but many of them are in progress. There are a 4
couple that are on hold as we queue up these other system changes that we need to do first. 5
But we… the goal really is to progress through all of those recommendations, consider them 6
and also get outreach and feedback on them as we move forward with them. 7
8
Commissioner Lauing: Ok and secondly, I just want to thank the public comment, particularly 9
the document that Neilson headed up. It’s just extraordinary commitment to an issue. It sounds 10
like you guys had a whoppingly fun Memorial Day Weekend putting that baby together and it’s 11
just… it’s extraordinary. And I think very helpful to us and very helpful for other folks that are 12
watching this which leads me into answering your main question in the transportation; what 13
should you guys do? Keep talking to dedicated citizens like this who have a stake in it and a 14
knowledge about it and a history about it and you’ll get this kind of quality work out of the 15
residents. So, this one is going to be a great thing for all of us to work because of the high 16
quality that’s come out of the various RPP districts on all issues. So that’s it for my general 17
comments. 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. Baird: I’ll say I’m highly committed to hearing those voices. I really appreciate getting those 1
emails. I did take a considerable amount of time to read the long (interrupted) 2
3
Commissioner Lauing: Yeah, good one. 4
5
Mr. Baird: One and I will continue to take as much time as needed to read those types of emails 6
and to take calls from folks as they have urgent concerns. 7
8
Commissioner Lauing: Ok thanks. 9
10
Chair Templeton: Alright Commissioner Summa and then if any of the other Commissioners 11
wish to speak to this please raise your hand. 12
13
Commissioner Summa: Thank you Chair. At a very high level, I wanted to thank Staff and I agree 14
with Chair Lauing [note- Commissioner Lauing] that the dedicated residents and the document 15
they created was very impressive and very helpful because they’ve really been through the 16
whole process. 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.
At another high level, I’m glad that Staff is sort of aware that we shouldn’t make big policy 1
changes right now and that’s not what this is about, the nine items, because of the unclear… 2
how unclear the future is and what the demand will be. I think that’s very smart. 3
4
And at another high level, I’m struck by how all three items we have tonight on our agenda are 5
interrelated because as we adopt new policies for downtown and across the City in ADUs and 6
how they’re parked. That creates a demand that is… all of these things create the demand that 7
ultimately is being parked in neighborhoods if we don’t have onsite parking for business or 8
garages and lots. So, they’re really interrelated so I think that’s interesting. 9
10
And I’m really excited very happy to hear that we’re looking at the license plate readers for 11
economies and efficiencies but also to get more automation in the process and more 12
information. It’s kind of a pain… I live in College Terrace for Mr. Baird so we have to… we have a 13
different program entirely because it pre-dated the one downtown. But when we go pick up 14
our permits it takes like 10-minutes at Revenue Collections and it’s not very efficient. So, I’m 15
really happy to hear that we’re going forward with those automation and optimizations. 16
17
And also, the optimization of garage capacity which we’ve been talking about that for a long 18
time and it has been a long time coming. So really utilizing and optimizing those garage spaces 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.
as best as possible and signage is really good to hear. So, I guess maybe what we’ll do is go 1
through these nine things one by one but those are my high-level thoughts. 2
3
And I did want to add that I do agree with a number of the speakers who mentioned that the 4
only… that capacity utilization in residential neighborhoods is not perhaps the best way to 5
capture what… how we want to look at those programs. So, it’s certain… you know one piece of 6
the puzzle but it’s not the only way. So, thank you very much, and thank you to the public. 7
8
Chair Templeton: Thank you, Commissioner Summa. I don’t see… oh, there we go. 9
Commissioner Hechtman. 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you and Staff, thank you for the detailed report and also the 12
really impressive work to figure out how to contend with a reduced budget and as you said to 13
slide the pain of that onto the policy side rather than the service side. I think that’s hard work 14
and I appreciate the effort. 15
16
So, I at this point mostly have some questions so I can get a better understanding of the policies 17
we’re talking about. First of all, the… this is my introduction to the LPR and I understood Nate 18
to say that the hopeful roll out of that program will be the end of this year. Did I get that right? 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Baird: Yes, that’s the… the idea is to get it set up so that we can turn it on hopefully by 1
January, but [unintelligible](interrupted) 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: Alright and then could you just very briefly tell me how it works and 4
what devices are used? I don’t know. 5
6
Mr. Baird: So, I will give you my very short laymen’s interruption, and then I will let Philip or 7
Mark add additional detail if they’d like too. But essentially LPR stands for License Plate 8
Readers. We have devices now that can be mounted in the enforcement vehicles whether they 9
be vehicles or bikes or whatever or handhold items… handheld devices. They travel the 10
corridor, it sends a little ping at the license plate, it reads that license plate and then it checks 11
against a logged system to see whether they have a permit, to see whether they have 12
purchased for on-street parking there of some sort. And so, you can use LPR to have a single 13
system of enforcement in a… across multiple districts or zones or different even parking pricing 14
types. You can use LPR in garages and lots potentially. So, it’s flexibly enforcement system for 15
us and it will also help us keep… have different rules or different pricing options in different 16
places, but a single enforcement device to check whether that permit or space has been paid 17
for. 18
19
Commissioner Hechtman: Ok thank you for that. [unintelligible – muted] 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
Mr. Baird: I can’t hear you. 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: Ok, I don’t know how that happened but thank you, understood that 4
now. Are you able to pull up the part of your Staff Report that had Item 33? 5
6
Mr. Baird: Yes, let me pull that up. 7
8
Commissioner Hechtman: I had a math question. 9
10
Mr. Baird: Sure. Alright, so we’re going to scroll down. I think it’s here; 33, payment schedule, 11
and increase cost of Reduced-Price Parking Permits. 12
13
Commissioner Hechtman: Actually, I was looking for 33 from the Staff Report which has a series 14
of boxes rather than the… the written Staff Report we reviewed before the meeting rather than 15
the PowerPoint presentation. Do you have that? 16
17
Mr. Baird: Yeah, let me bring that up. 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 Templeton: Is this Packet Page 11? Commissioner Hechtman, is there a Packet Page 1
number? 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: I’ve got to widen my screen a little bit. It is… yes, Page 11; Packet 4
Page 11. 5
6
Mr. Baird: Sorry I don’t have that up. (interrupted) 7
8
Commissioner Hechtman: Ok (interrupted) 9
10
Mr. Baird: Can other Staff can bring it up, that would be helpful? 11
12
Mr. Nguyen: I can access this for you. One second. 13
14
Mr. Baird: Thank you, Vinh. 15
16
Mr. Baird: But I also have it (interrupted) 17
18
Commissioner Hechtman: Right there, oops. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Baird: Yeah so this was pulled… these tables were pulled from the update to Council on the 1
work plan items last summer. 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: Right. 4
5
Mr. Baird: And so, I think we just kind of gave a very brief update to this item. Actually, can you 6
go up a little bit Vinh? I believe he’s wanting to look at the table where it says 33 (interrupted) 7
8
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 9
10
Mr. Baird: In reference to the low-income (interrupted) 11
12
Commissioner Hechtman: Right there. 13
14
Mr. Baird: We did a slight update here about parking. 15
16
Commissioner Hechtman: Ok so it’s the box in the middle, I didn’t understand the math. In the 17
middle of the sentence the cost of the permit, $15 per month. This amount is less than an 18
outlay of $50 for a 6-months permit and so I didn’t understand how $15 a month could be less 19
than $50 for 6-months. Is that a typo or am I just… am I missing something? 20
Page 45
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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
Mr. Baird: I guess what it is saying actually is that the outlay all at once, $50 for 6-months at a 2
time can be a hard lift for someone of low-income status. And so, breaking it up into a smaller 3
amount per month would help us get better revenue generation but it would also have a lower 4
outlay at the time of it leaving someone’s wallet. 5
6
Mr. Kamhi: And he’s exactly correct on that. Sorry, I’m trying to unmute here but this… just so 7
you know this comes from actually the Parking Work Plan that was developed actually before 8
Nate was here and actually following recommendations that I had made back in I think 2017 9
but came actually when neither of us were here. But he’s exactly correct, the hope here is for 10
lower-income that they don’t have to put aside what could be a large amount of money for 11
somebody that’s lower-income at one time that they could pay. And potentially frankly our 12
virtual permitting system that Nate has been discussing is another option for allowing that. 13
14
Commissioner Hechtman: Ok so if I’m understanding correctly, that low-income person would 15
have the benefit of making smaller individual payments but I think they would pay $80 for the 16
same 6-months of permit (interrupted) 17
18
Mr. Baird: They wouldn’t… so, part of it (interrupted) 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Hechtman: If they had [unintelligible](interrupted) 1
2
Mr. Baird: Yeah so part of it too is not… is going to a monthly payment service. So, we don’t 3
want… we would like to make an option for folks to not have to buy 6-months all at once. And 4
again, because some of our service workers may not work for the whole 6-months or they may 5
only work (interrupted) 6
7
Commissioner Hechtman: Right. 8
9
Mr. Baird: For… their hours are very variable. 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: Ok, alright, well let me move and Vinh, maybe you can roll us up to 12
Page 9 in the Packet. There’s a heading called Key Issues and I think it’s the second or yeah, 13
second paragraph of Summary of Key Issues. So, I was curious about this paragraph and again 14
I’m trying to learn and understand. The last sentence of the second paragraph, “Staff 15
recommends only minimum effort where occupancy is consistently below 50 percent”. So, my 16
first question is can you tell me a little bit about the measurement devices for determining 17
occupancy, or is that part of what you are asking the commission to help you figure out? 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. Baird: So, we expect to help… start getting some occupancy measures with potentially LPR 1
or other programs… other types. So hopefully that data will be included as we start measuring 2
with LPR and again, occupancy is a measure of the parking available. So, if a block has 20… has 3
room for 20 cars on it and there are only 10 cars parked and that means there are 10 free. We 4
would call that 50 percent occupancy and that occupancy shifts over the course of a day. And 5
so, you can get very fine-grained with the measure and have an occupancy measure at noon 6
that is different than the occupancy measure at 1:00 pm that is different than an occupancy 7
measure at 8:00 pm. This can also fluctuate seasonally, it can fluctuate day to day based on 8
different use cases that are on the weekends versus the weekdays. So, occupancy is just a good 9
starting data point for us to understand and look at what is happening in a place in terms of its 10
parking. 11
12
Commissioner Hechtman: Alright and tonight are you looking for feedback from the PTC on this 13
recommendation? It wasn’t listed on your sheet but is this something that you’re looking for? 14
15
Mr. Baird: Yeah, we will definitely want to move there eventually and so if folks have an opinion 16
on this, I would encourage them to share it with me now. But part of it too is that we are all 17
educating ourselves about these types of measures and how best to use them and how best to 18
use them to price our parking appropriately and in a way that makes sense to keep… preserve 19
the availability that neighborhoods are seeking. And potentially we can have different 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.
availabilities established for different districts. I will say we do have to fund the RPP Programs 1
as well so one advantage of having the Commercial Permits thus far is the Commercial Permits 2
in the RPP districts do subsidize the RPP Program itself. But hopefully, LPR helps us provide 3
living data to help us make these decisions and present these types of pricing options to our 4
stakeholders’ overtime. 5
6
Commissioner Hechtman: And then one last question and it’s still on this occupancy issue. I 7
heard a number of our neighborhood speakers tonight and I thank them for their participation. 8
Discussing a concern that neighborhood… residential neighborhood parking should be 9
measured somehow by quality of life rather than pure quantitative considerations. And my 10
impression of those comments is to some extent they’re addressed towards this concept of 11
measuring availability by occupancy. I’m wondering if I’m… if Staff is hearing it the same way or 12
are you hearing what they’re saying differently? 13
14
Mr. Baird: So, I will… I see Philip queuing himself up. Let me… I’ll say a quick word about what I 15
think and then I’ll let Philip talk. I believe that we need quantitative and qualitative measures. I 16
think they really do help us… one helps investigate the other. Quantitative measures in my 17
opinion are rarely valueless. We do put value on these things but I do think we have the 18
opportunity to discuss how we want to use these measures in our districts. So, I think it’s an 19
important piece of understanding for helping us all get on the same page about what is 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.
happening and how to best address the factors that residents are really trying to use to 1
improve their quality of life. So, I would say that we need both. 2
3
Mr. Kamhi: I think that Nate actually captured it really, really well. I just wanted to say that 4
there is a way to actually… to… I think what the members of the public are saying is they have a 5
feeling that they want their neighborhood to feel like. And I think that as transportation 6
professionals, we can quantify. We believe that that can be something that’s quantified. And I 7
think what also we heard from the members of the public, they might not have said this 8
specifically but what I heard was that my neighborhood maybe shouldn’t feel like a downtown 9
district or maybe shouldn’t feel like… it should feel like main street USA. It shouldn’t feel like 10
something. Maybe it should feel a very specific way but to us as people that are trying to figure 11
out how to manage that, the parking inventory and to deal with that I think that to us it is 12
actually important to quantify it. And I think that’s exactly what Nate said but just to elaborate 13
a little bit. 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: Alright thank you, those are all of the questions I had for this general 16
round of comments so thank you. 17
18
Chair Templeton: Alright thank you, Commissioner Hechtman. Commissioner Alcheck. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Alcheck: Hi, good evening, thanks for the presentation. I’ll just sort of get right to 1
it. I’m wondering if… is there a schedule or timeline for the development of some of these key 2
percentages? I mean is… I… the key issue… one of the identified key issues is identifying 3
utilization ratios that are acceptable and how will that process start or… and when will it finish? 4
5
Mr. Baird: I would say we’ve got to establish our counting measures first. We have to 6
understand what that data is describing for us. And then we will need to move from there to 7
establishing what we want that… where we want that… those numbers to go and what sorts of 8
treatments do we have available to address them. So, I would say we’re shooting to deploy LPR 9
in 2021. Shortly thereafter we would want to start looking at that paring availability numbers 10
and start having… continuing to have a conversation about what those numbers mean for each 11
of the districts. 12
13
Commissioner Alcheck: Is there a sense that a certain threshold will be created and then areas 14
that don’t meet that threshold can then begin to receive less attention and resources or? 15
16
Mr. Baird: I would say that it’s more than… you know we know that commercial districts, 85 17
percent occupancy is a good number to shoot for if you’re using pricing to achieve that 85 18
percentile. That means 15 percent of spaces are free most of the time when you go there. 19
That’s good turn over for a commercial district. What we will have to judge for our residential 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.
districts and this will entail feedback from residents, is probably not 85 percent. Probably a bit 1
lower than that but if it’s significantly lower than we maybe not using… those systems may not 2
be needed on a particular block or a particular place. I’m not saying that we’re trying to cut 3
something right away. There may be other ways of addressing what we need to happen in 4
those districts apart from just the pricing, but it is kind of a… we need to look at all the pieces of 5
it. 6
7
Commissioner Alcheck: During prior discussions of this topic I’ve felt a little in the dark with 8
respect to local retail and businesses experience with the various impacts to the parking. And I 9
think that that’s common I guess in general for Planning Commissions like ours. It takes a 10
certain amount of organization for local businesses to even be aware of the topics that we’re 11
discussing. And I mention that now because the Priority Two Items, the establishing approaches 12
to reduce Employee Parking Permits, seems like a subject that you would want local businesses 13
to weigh in on. And I imagine that for what could be potentially a 2-year timeframe maybe or 14
longer, local businesses won’t have any bandwidth to focus on this. Even just talking Priority 15
Two, Item 31, this is Packet Page 10, even just having the topic of increasing the cost of 16
Employee Parking Permits on the list seems tone-deaf to me. Not… I’m not suggesting your 17
tone-deafness, I’m suggesting that it’s just globally tone-deaf to the challenges right now facing 18
our local businesses. And so, its… there’s a component of this that I think is hard to manage 19
without feedback from that stakeholder group and I imagine that it will be difficult to get that 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
feedback until things are normal again because they’re… those… there are other challenges that 1
are just far more pressing right? So, including not even being able to keep employees, right? 2
So… ok, so that… there’s a… I’m wondering if in the discussions in the department if that’s been 3
a component of the discussion with respect to this is an impact to a local business? How do we 4
navigate that in this particular time period? And you know the truth is I’m not suggesting that 5
the COVID crisis is specifically impacting that question. I’m suggesting that the potential long-6
term impacts of the marketplace. If we do experience a significantly less friendly climate for 7
local businesses for a couple years because we’ve entered into a recession. I think that’s clear 8
that we’ve done that right? Then are we being sensitive to businesses if we’re talking about 9
increasing costs for businesses locally? 10
11
Mr. Baird: Sure. 12
13
Commissioner Alcheck: So, I’m just wondering if that’s a part of the framework that you’re 14
beginning this process with. 15
16
Mr. Baird: It certainly is and I hear you saying that outreach to businesses will be really key and I 17
entirely agree. When it comes to the downtown and the Cal Ave commercial districts we are 18
entirely invested in working with the businesses that are there. We know that they are going 19
through a tough time right now, but City Staff across multiple departments have been in 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
contact with businesses that are still operating now in regards to recent and ongoing interests 1
in curbside pickup, loading zones, street closures (interrupted) 2
3
Commissioner Alcheck: Right. 4
5
Mr. Baird: You know those types of things. So, we are in the ongoing conversations with those 6
businesses about what they’re needs are and we will… we are certainly invested in supporting 7
them. 8
9
I think the discussion about the price increases is really in the context of the fact that the RPP 10
districts and the commercial areas have a relationship in terms of how parking availability and 11
demand is met. And that’s… pricing is our tool for managing that relationship such that we get 12
wins for both sides. And so, we want out residences to be able to have an appreciation for the 13
feel of the street but we equally want our businesses to be well supported with our parking 14
program. Our parking program does not exist to raise revenue for the City. It exists to manage 15
our parking availability and we use pricing to do that. And so, we really are looking at a 16
customer service type model. I’ve been looking at models across California and other Cities 17
where they are really using parking programs to support local businesses. And we think we can 18
be a key tool or a key resource and support for them in terms of navigating what will be a new 19
economy. 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 Alcheck: Yeah, I… and I would suggest I think with our number of prolific 2
commercial brokers in our community, I feel like there’s one that does almost every lease in 3
downtown and I’m thinking of premier prosperities or something like that. And I was thinking 4
the other day because I’ve been involved in a lot of commercial leasing efforts, which is that 5
the… those individuals often have really great insight into the needs that local businesses have 6
because they often represent local businesses in their efforts to find a space on the… in 7
downtown or in Cal Ave or whatever. And so, I was… I think it might be prudent to consider 8
reaching out to the one or two that are pretty prolific downtown and saying these are some of 9
the things that we’re working on right now. And if you have any insight or can provide some 10
insight (interrupted) 11
12
Mr. Baird: That’s certainly a good suggestion and I can definitely commit to doing that. My co-13
workers are texting me that we have those folks on our contact list. One of the key players is on 14
the… our TMA Board so I will certainly do that follow-up. I appreciate those suggestions. 15
16
Commissioner Alcheck: Ok. One of the things that I think came up last time we talked about this 17
was the inflexibility of a permit. For example, if a local business… if the local business has 10 18
employees but they work in two shifts, how can they share a permit? If one employee comes in 19
in the morning from 7:00 to noon and then… or 7:00 through 3:00 and then a different 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.
employee or whatever. I’m not going to use time because I don’t… I can’t make them up but 1
the premise is that how can we essentially share a permit? It seems like something you could 2
solve through a license reading program because in theory one permit could be affiliated with 3
multiple licenses. And if one of the licenses is read, then you know that that permits in use and 4
if both are read then you know that someone’s doing something funny. And so, I would suggest 5
that we… I think the push to… the Priority Three push to change the payment schedules and to 6
try to adopt a program that’s easy and functional and virtual is great. I just think and maybe this 7
will come in conversations with people who have better insight into the industry, what else can 8
we do to reduce the need for redundant permits that aren’t getting used because a business 9
doesn’t have all those employees at the same time? 10
11
Mr. Baird: Yeah, that’s certainly a good point and I think that is something that we can do 12
through virtual. We really are trying to establish a single payment system that’s flexible for us 13
and we also kind of want to keep in context. We’re managing all these different contexts. 14
Caltrain pricing is involved in that too. They’re obviously not doing very well right now but 15
should we get to more normal commute patterns all of these things factor into how that pricing 16
works. 17
18
Commissioner Alcheck: Yeah last comment I’ll make is that I think with respect to the Number 19
34, this is in the third-tier priority, the removing inconsistency between districts. This has been 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.
a thorn in my side too throughout this process. We’ve… I’ve been a part of the Commission now 1
for so long I think I’ve reviewed almost every one of the RPPs and I’m constantly frustrated by 2
like oh, this neighborhood has five cars per household on the street. This one has two, this one 3
has three, these guys…. And I appreciate that there are different costs and there are different 4
objectives, but I think that the inconsistencies reflect an inarticulate idea of what are our goals 5
for our street. And so, I think when you are evaluating the utilization component of this, one 6
question you could ask at the same time is to what extent are we inviting overutilization by 7
residents of a particular area by handing out these permits or even inviting some… I don’t 8
know… and to what extent are they in conflict with our housing… our Residential Housing 9
Development Standards which require on-site covered parking for single-family homes and 10
maybe multi-family and what not? So… and then the ADU component of that, right? So, I just 11
think that while you’re evaluating utilization, you might be able to have a conversation about 12
some of the inconsistencies in the permit programs that will later help you when you’re 13
evaluating the removal of those inconsistencies as a Tier Three Priority. That’s all I have to say. 14
15
Chair Templeton: Alright thank you Commissioner Alcheck. I [unintelligible – interference] to 16
add I think a lot of issues were covered. A couple of comments, I appreciate the language 17
around the equitable approach and worrying about different levels of income and so forth that 18
are in how this is phrasing… phrased. I like 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.
I would also want to understand a little bit better to what extent is the parking team’s approach 1
to the pricing levels related to encouraging or ensuring alternative modes of transit? So, what 2
I’m… I think I’m trying to ask here is for example if we’re going to make parking harder, are we 3
going to make other ways to get to work easier? Oh, you may be muted, Mr. Baird. 4
5
Mr. Baird: Sorry about that. 6
7
Chair Templeton: You’re good. 8
9
Mr. Baird: So, I think it’s certainly the goal to help these all work together. Our… we work 10
closely with the TMA and with our transit providers. We’re obviously are not a transit provider 11
ourselves. Our Safe Routes to School Team does really amazing work and is known around the 12
world. So, I think to the extent that we can we really do try to help these all work together. I 13
think there are ways that we can potentially work together for efficiently and I think we’ll be 14
attempting to move toward that. 15
16
Chair Templeton: Yeah, I think that’s great and maybe even tagging the communications team. 17
So that when you’re making one change, that you’re being sure to present some of the other 18
programs as alternatives so that kind of mitigates for the employees. 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.
[note - Mr. Baird and Chair Templeton started talking at once] 1
2
Chair Templeton: Go ahead. 3
4
Mr. Baird: One of my co-workers is texting me that we do… the TMA is now going to expand 5
[unintelligible – audio cut out] 6
7
Chair Templeton: Nate, you went back on mute. Sorry. 8
9
Mr. Kamhi: I can jump in for him. He was just going to say that the TMA is now going to be 10
extended to California Avenue. That was actually determined at last night’s Council meeting 11
based on (interrupted) 12
13
Chair Templeton: Excellent. 14
15
Mr. Kamhi: [unintelligible]. It looks like he checked mute. 16
17
Chair Templeton: And that should help. Ok, great and then the other question I had and I’m not 18
sure it may be addressed. I didn’t see it but if you could speak to it. You have removed 19
inconsistencies between districts which is really cool but I was also wondering I heard some 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.
public comments about this offline, about spill over to nearby streets. And that there’s 1
sometimes these approval processes, one street gets the permit, the next street declines the 2
permit, and so then there’s some inconsistencies within a neighborhood or region. Is that 3
something that is in scope or is that out of scope for what you’re working on? 4
5
Mr. Baird: I [unintelligible – audio cut out] I believe we’ll be addressing some of this as we move 6
forward. We know that uniformity will definitely come at a cost in terms of some of the very 7
specific rollouts we have in different areas. So, we’re going to be working toward having 8
standardized purchase processes first. We’ll need to really carefully think through the rule 9
changes in terms of… it’s kind of a double-edged sword. So, the standardization helps us save 10
cost but we also don’t want to lose… we want to be able to cater to the extent that we can to 11
have different districts served differently. And that will always be the case for some districts 12
because some districts RPPs have very different contextual needs, but to the extent that we can 13
standardize we would like too. 14
15
Chair Templeton: I appreciate that and I think that your efforts towards engaging the 16
community and the different types of users of these permits will help you build that vision 17
going forward. So, I think that’s absolutely wonderful. 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. Baird: And then I’d also say that we always have a process for how the RPPs come online. I 1
was reviewing that fairly recently and we try to do a good survey of what the problem is and 2
what the condition is. So, we certainly want our RPPs to be addressing the problems that have 3
been articulated or explained and observed in a place. 4
5
Chair Templeton: Right without… without then creating some new unexpected problems, right? 6
Ok. Alright well, I appreciate that, so let’s go-ahead to the next round. If you want to pull up 7
your prompts, I think that may be useful. How many slides was that, two or three? 8
9
Mr. Baird: It was just a couple. I’ll bring it up now. 10
11
Chair Templeton: Ok great, thank you and Commissioners if you want to raise your hands we’ll 12
go in order. Ok, so we’re going to start with community engagement and outreach. 13
14
Mr. Baird: And I’ll just say, feel free to answer any of these or all of these as you have 15
something suggestive or have an insertion that you’d like to make about what would be a best 16
approach. 17
18
Chair Templeton: Commissioner Lauing. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Lauing: Just a process issue, I thought we were going to go through each of the 1
priority items to give him feedback on those? Was that not next? 2
3
Mr. Baird: So, the way that I have actually… was thinking through this and advising the PTC, 4
though you are feed to comment however you’d like, was to go through these sets of questions 5
that I’ve set up. The items… right now we’re really focused on that Priority Number One, the 6
Item Number 27. We will not be… we really need to set up the Parking Availability Standards 7
first before we can even begin to go through some of those other items. They’re certainly on 8
our work plan but I think we will have plenty of time to get additional community engagement 9
or come back to you at another time when we want specific engagement or feedback on those 10
items. Right now, we really are focused on the LPR, the setting up virtual permits, and then 11
thinking through how best to do community engagements on many of these changes. And I do 12
believe that there’s probably community engagement practicalities for each of the items. So 13
that would be helpful if one of those items has a particular engagement type or thought that 14
you have for us that would be much appreciated. 15
16
Chair Templeton: Just to chime in here, so there… these two slides that Mr. Baird has prepared 17
are prompts for the feedback that he’s looking for. In addition, feel free to speak on any of the 18
bulleted items that are in the Staff Report. So, Commissioner Lauing, feel free to just speak your 19
thoughts. 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: Just briefly then apart from the questions, the parking availability, that’s 2
already been discussed but I would strongly agree with the public comment on that. That there 3
has to be more than just that around any neighborhood. I had the same thoughts on 31 [note – 4
Item Number 31] that Commissioner Alcheck had, but the other side of that is that we’re trying 5
to get the cost down for lower-income employees; which I think is an even more important goal 6
so that was going to be the intention forever. 7
8
And then you’re correct to be looking at… let me get over to 34 [note – Item Number 34], 9
you’re correct to be looking at extenuating circumstances. So, I’m glad that phrase is in there 10
because you might indeed find a big difference between College Terrace and Old Palo Alto in 11
terms of circumstances, density of houses, number of cars, etc. so I think it’s wise to have that. 12
13
And then the last comment on specificity is on Packet Page 14 which is a City Council 14
memorandum, the last sentence it says “that Staff recommends the policy include an exception 15
for residents that demonstrate they have no off-street parking so they can still receive a free 16
annual permit.” I would think that always having free permits for people that live there would 17
be the goal and there would have to be something highly unusual, obviously besides guest 18
parking, to be charging people to park… park cars in front of their house. So that’s something 19
that I think we should be extortionary cautious about. 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
Mr. Baird: I will assert that parking… we only have… we have a limited supply of parking spaces 2
on-street and so some neighborhoods you may have all residents using up all those spaces. And 3
so, pricing become… if we were really committed… if a neighborhood is really committed to 4
having a very low… a low parking availability percentage then pricing is an appropriate tool to 5
help encourage folks to make room in their garage or think through solutions to having a car. 6
And I will say again, pricing for parking is a really important tool to encourage other modes of 7
travel. I live in San Francisco, having a parking space is prohibitively expensive and it does a 8
great job of encouraging me to use the train, to use transit. I look forward to getting to use the 9
Caltrain again when I get to go down to Palo Alto, but I think it’s an important tool. The other 10
thing to consider is that our RPPs do have a cost involve in terms of administering them. We 11
are, on the Staff side, doing the best we can to minimize those costs but it’s not free. And so, 12
one of the major things that Council did this year is that we removed a subsidy that has been 13
previously made to the RPP Programs and give it back to the General Fund because we believe 14
the administrative changes that we’re going to do are going to help us save those costs. But in 15
the future, there is always some sort of cost involved and so even for me, the goal really is to 16
have at least a minimum price. You know $5 is not free but it at least helps us help people 17
make… go through a decision process about whether to park on-street or off or use some other 18
mode. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Lauing: You also made a comment earlier that the goal is not really to be 1
recovery or revenue natural so I think that is a good policy to have in place. I’m not disputing 2
administration fees of $5 to get it done, but when you get into the 50 buck range and 3
somebody needs to park two cars there. It’s just going to… it’s not what the residents want, we 4
know that. 5
6
Mr. Kamhi: I’m sorry just to jump in. I think the recommendation was… I think it was $4 to $6 or 7
something like that per month. Reflective of $50 per year which is essentially the current 8
pricing of some of our RPP zones, but like Nathan just explained it very well. I think essentially, 9
we’re giving away something for free that costs money to enforce in some districts where we 10
don’t have employee subsidies paying for the permit. So, some zones have… the permits are 11
100 percent funded by really the other zones that have employee parking or not quite 100 12
percent obviously because we have a General Fund subsidy going into this and in some years, 13
it’s been really significant. This next future year we were looking at $185,000 subsidy but in 14
years prior it’s been as much as $600,000 so… or $700,000. So, it’s been a very expensive 15
program to enforce and implement. 16
17
Commissioner Lauing: That’s all. 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 Templeton: Alright thank you. Is that all your questions Commissioner Lauing? Ok. 1
Commissioner Summa. 2
3
Commissioner Summa: Thanks, so I think one of the… and I was on the original neighborhood 4
association group that worked with the City for the College Terrace thing. So, I’ve been talking 5
about RPPs for a long and I think one of the things I will note and I live in one of those… I live 6
really close to El Camino in my neighborhood. So, I live in one of those neighborhoods where 7
you make a trade-off. If you want to live walkably, you’re going to have more parking intrusion 8
and that’s just a fact. But I think one of the things that we have to really keep in mind is my 9
commercial neighbors and my residential neighbor, we all need flexibility, we all need short 10
term parking to function. So, I think when you get to the point of 85 percent parking you’re 11
getting to the point where it’s not working as well. And I also think there’s an… there’s a safety 12
issue and a practicality for women and children and disabled people of being close enough to 13
their house. You don’t have to be right in front but it’s pretty hard for some people to manage 14
that so in general I think we should keep that in mind. 15
16
And I hadn’t seen your two slides here but I had gone through the other… the nine items. So, I’ll 17
maybe touch on these three… your slide issues by going through these and that’s I’ve already 18
expressed how excited I am about the efficiencies that you’ll create with the license plate 19
readers and automation. 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
I think it’s important to keep employee… the Employee Permits tiered in a way that 2
disincentives wealthier commuter employees and helps those lower-paid employees. I’ve 3
always thought for… that balance wasn’t quite right and you brought up how expensive it is to 4
get a parking spot in San Francisco; it’s 1,000 and 1,000 and 1,000 of dollars. So that could 5
maybe be tweaked a little as part of finding budget… of the budget to do it. 6
7
I was wondering why with regards to 29 [note – Item Number 29] automatic renewal, and I 8
know this is probably somewhere down the line but maybe it’s not, for residents wouldn’t also 9
be considered. Just to be make things easier and that ties into the renewal dates which was 10
Item 35. What we found in College Terrace is that we based it on Stanford’s school year 11
because… well, the school year in general because our problem was largely the intrusion from 12
Stanford University when they installed their concordance counts as a condition of their 13
General Use Permit. So, it starts around September but we start getting letters to remind 14
people to renew in July and August. And a lot of people are out of town and because of our 15
affiliation in Palo Alto with Stanford, we get a lot of people that move here at the start of the 16
school year. So, I would just be careful with that… those late summer times as renewal dates 17
for residents particularly. 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.
Yes, I think as much as you can standardize it, it would be great but I think there are different 1
areas that have really different needs. Downtown North and South most particularly and as 2
much as we can get commuter parkers out of our residential neighborhoods I think that’s 3
appropriate. I don’t think that was the intention of the streets and as we add units and densify 4
and ADUs and JADUs that are not being parked. We’re going to have more parking demand on 5
our residential streets, so I think that’s something that’s important to keep in mind. 6
7
I think monthly permits for workers would be… give them more flexibility so I think that’s a 8
good idea. 9
10
And yeah, optimizing the use of the garages and parking lots is really important. And I don’t 11
think we had a team that was able to do that before just because of Staffing. So really glad to 12
see you guys and looking forward to improvements. Thanks. 13
14
Chair Templeton: Alright thank you, Commissioner Summa. Mr. Baird, what was the other 15
question that you were looking for input on? 16
17
Mr. Baird: So, if folks want to take on parking pricing [and] parking availability rates. Parking 18
experience was how I was thinking about that alternative to the quantitative measures that 19
we’re talking about. So, some of our residents and speakers were talking about quality of life. 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.
What is a good way of speaking to that for a particular district? For the City as a whole? For our 1
parking? I’m thinking about it as what is your parking experience? There are ways to measure it. 2
Was it zero to five, one to five, your parking experience? What are… what is the best way to 3
measure that neighborhood feel that we’re talking about if folks want to address that? 4
5
Chair Templeton: Alright Commissioners, please raise your hand. It looks like Commissioner 6
Summa is up. 7
8
Commissioner Summa: I can speak to that a little bit because I live on Yale Street at Cambridge 9
and College Terrace. I can… there are times when I come home… and I live in a really old house 10
and we have a driveway but no garage. It’s sort of inadequate off-street parking, this is a really 11
old part of Palo Alto. And there are times when I come home, particularly at lunchtime, when I 12
can’t park on the street because people park… including a lot of Palo Alto City workers 13
especially at lunchtime to go to restaurants on El Camino but that’s kind of a tradeoff. There’s a 14
dentist down… across the street from me down the way but I think it’s the safety and 15
convenience of being able to park close to your house and safety really does come into. And 16
then also I think that… I just… I think it’s the convenience and the safety and the flexibility. If I 17
have a plumber come and my… and I have another… they sometimes can’t… is no… not 18
adequate parking for workers also. So, I sometimes have to put my cars on the street and move 19
cars so I can have a carpenter come here with the painter or the cabinet maker. That kind of 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
thing can get kind of dicey. So, it’s just having flexibility to provide the parking. That being said 1
it really is important to me that I also on my street provide parking for my business neighbors 2
for short term parking. Does that help? 3
4
Mr. Baird: It does, thank you. 5
6
Commissioner Summa: Ok. 7
8
Chair Templeton: Alright any other Commissioners want to provide input on that? So, Mr. Baird 9
are you collecting this input some way or looking for ways to engage with… I see you 10
Commissioner Alcheck. I’ll get to you next. To engage with the parkers and get feedback on the 11
experience or the permit holders? [unintelligible – audio disruption] 12
13
Mr. Baird: Yes, so I will be formulating ways of going about that. It will likely entail surveys, 14
focus groups, talking to people. So, I definitely want this feedback and I’ll be pursuing that 15
feedback from residents and businesses. 16
17
Chair Templeton: Are you looking for something like a Yelp style? People look you up and drop 18
in feedback or do you want something that’s really targeted specifically to a group or a 19
neighborhood or? 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Mr. Baird: It will probably be both. As we are rolling out some of our permit improvements, 2
we’re rolling out some of them to just some of the RPPs to start. So, I’ll want a global picture 3
but then I’ll also want very specific feedback. We don’t have a schedule or a timeline for this. 4
We’re still keeping our eyes on what’s happening in the world right now. We’re lining up the 5
LPR stuff for 2021, but I am very invested in direct feedback from folks on the best ways to 6
move forward. So, I will be setting those types of things up in the future, so if folks have 7
opinions about what works best. I’m right now committed to doing as much online as possible 8
but eventually, we would like to hold some events in person as well. 9
10
Chair Templeton: Very interesting. I wonder if there’s some way to match the data from your 11
LPR to the data for permit registry and figure out ways to target people that have parked in 12
certain areas or had a bad experience. That might be a way to get some (interrupted) 13
14
Mr. Baird: Yeah and I think (interrupted) 15
16
Chair Templeton: Specific data. 17
18
Mr. Baird: As we roll out programs in our commercial districts, in particular, there will be the 19
opportunity to for us to develop some programs in collaboration with the businesses 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.
themselves. How… our businesses have a better sense of who walks or who bikes or who parks 1
to get to their business. So, there’s some real opportunities with if we do get to finally pricing 2
more of our commercial on street corridors without encouraging people to just to go to the 3
RPPs. There are ways for us to work with businesses to help them understand customers better 4
and for us to really cater our systems better. 5
6
Chair Templeton: Yeah that’s really cool and very creative so I applaud you for that. Alright, 7
next up in Commissioner Alcheck. 8
9
Commissioner Alcheck: So yeah, I guess one of my questions would be are we also laying out 10
goals and because the questions you ask or the way we… in my mind the way we determine 11
how to… which questions to ask is based on what our goals are. So, if our goals are Citywide 12
reduction in… let’s say we had a goal that was… that we wanted our streets to not be parked so 13
that we could enjoy them more for the purposes of recreation. 14
15
Mr. Baird: Ok. 16
17
Commissioner Alcheck: In that case, you wouldn’t really want Residential Permits to be very 18
cheap for homeowners because you’d want to create a significant disincentive to purchase 19
them. In turn, I would imagine that would be very unappealing for residents. So, if you ask them 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.
how they felt about it, they might say I feel terrible about this because I hate having to spend 1
$1,500 a year on my Parking Permit for my three or four cars. And so, I guess the point is… and 2
I’m not suggesting I know what the goals for our parking… global parking plan should be but it 3
seems to me like we should have goals. And they should be articulated first and then we can 4
design questions to figure out whether or not we’re achieving those goals. So, if you ask me 5
how was my parking experience on a given day and I had a difficult time finding parking. And I 6
responded and I said my parking experience was terrible because it took me 20-minutes to find 7
a spot, but I live a mile and a quarter from downtown. And that experience made me think 8
twice next time about walking or riding my bike and the goal was to encourage residents who 9
are able to ride or walk to downtown. Then the fact that the answer was very negative wasn’t 10
relative and so I guess I have some bigger… there’s a first hurdle that I just want to know like… 11
and I’m… and I don’t… I think we’re the Commission to determine the goals. I think it’s 12
unfortunate that we don’t have our resident transportation guru on this meeting call tonight 13
because he really does provide significant insight into what is trending and how a lot of these 14
challenges are being met all over the world. And so, it’s unfortunate because I am sure he 15
would have really strong opinions about some of the things and they would enlighten us as a 16
group. 17
18
But I guess it seems to me like I would first want… and it… it obviously would be the role of City 19
Council to help us to figure out what the goals of our parking plan should be. Is it under parked 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.
streets over highly utilized parked streets? Is it residents over everyone? So, I… it would be 1
really hard to give you good feedback. And it’s tough to say what would be the best approach 2
to serve all of our stakeholders or how should we approach each individual district? You know 3
it’s really hard to give direction there because I think it is safe to say that there are some very 4
unique districts that deserve attention differently. And a lot of them have had to wait a long 5
time to address these issues so everybody is a little bit frustrated. I think if you ask the public 6
how to approach this, there is going to be some frustration about process, but I don’t see how 7
you can begin approaching… I mean you have the right plan. You’re going to first try to figure 8
out what’s the utilization that you want and that might differ based on each district and 9
primary use in that area. But I think also we need some direction from Council whether or not 10
our goals are intersective. Are we trying to change our behavior or just the behavior of the 11
people who don’t live in Palo Alto who come to do business in our shops? Who… hello, we rely 12
tremendously on the support of every single thing in our City. I think we’re realizing now more 13
than ever that budget shortfall is entirely related to our businesses being unable to do business. 14
And I think it’s becoming really clear now to our residents that wow, we have all… we’re talking 15
about library hours changes and we’re talking about art places… all these impacts have to deal 16
with how healthy our businesses are. And so, to the extent that we identify the goals, is the 17
goal to make it very easy for a retail consumer to be able to park in front of their shop that they 18
want to frequent because we want to elevate the… our retail store’s ability to execute a sale 19
effortlessly? I think there’s some broader questions there. 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
Mr. Baird: Sorry, I believe… we do have a number of goals for our Parking Program that City 2
Council has signed off on. And I think that’s one of the reasons that I really love working in 3
municipal goals is that I do get to try to tackle multiple goals at once with our programs. And 4
really it is that the high-level goals for the City with parking… there is a sustainability goal, we 5
want to decrease single-occupancy vehicle use. We do want to use less greenhouse gas 6
emissions but we also do want to improve our resident’s quality of life. And we also do want to 7
improve visitors' experience of visiting the City in whatever ways we can. I really believe pricing 8
parking is at all is a really effective way to address multiple of those goals all at once, but before 9
we can start pricing appropriately in a way that really helps influence behavior. We do need 10
that utilization data, we do need feedback about what people are experiencing now. It’s not for 11
me positive or negative feedback though we do record that and I’m sensitive to people’s 12
emotional experiences of our parking and our transportation systems. But the feedback really is 13
about giving us a picture of how to pursue these goals that we do have as a City. So 14
(interrupted) 15
16
Commissioner Alcheck: Right, no I hear you. I’m… and I appreciate the… there’s no question in 17
our community inviting feedback is a significant component of how we like to do business. I 18
mean how we like to do political business. And so, I think that that’s important but I’ll just… by 19
way of example because you brought it up and pricing parking. I think if you would have had a 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.
discussion a year ago with us about parking meters in downtown. That discussion would have 1
been potentially more warm and friendly. The notion… most retailers will say to you, I’m sure 2
you’re aware… and let me just say this also. Your enthusiasm for your task is refreshing and I 3
want you to know that I love that you love to solve these problems and this City needs 4
somebody who’s ready to… who loves to do this. So, but the broader point I was going to make 5
was that the retailers look at 2-hour coin-operated parking meters as a death sentence because 6
they want to have unrestricted walking access and they don’t want to have to rush back… to go 7
to a restaurant they don’t want to have to rush back. They want them to walk down the street 8
so… and today, if you were to bring that up, I’d be like well look, it seems like a no brainer. 9
We’ve got to put that on the back burner because the businesses are going to lose their shirts 10
already. So, I just think we have to figure out… and that’s why available pricing by the way is so 11
attractive because you can really edit it on the fly. 12
13
But anyways I think it would be helpful if we had a little more direction from City Council with 14
respect to how to manage I guess just the residential neighborhood parking goals and… 15
because I think that’s something we’re lacking. 16
17
Chair Templeton: Alright thank you, Commissioner. So, Mr. Baird, just doing a time check, I 18
think we’re going to move onto our next agenda items. I hope that this feedback and study 19
session was useful for you. 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
Mr. Baird: This has been very useful and I look forward to coming back and continuing the 2
conversation with all of you; participants and attendees included. 3
4
Chair Templeton: Likewise, we’re very happy that you’re running forward with this project so 5
thank you so much. 6
7
Mr. Baird: Thank you. 8
9
Chair Templeton: Alright so we’ll move onto Agenda Item Number Three, the ADU Ordinance. 10
11
Mr. Nguyen: Chair Templeton, just a quick question [unintelligible] 12
13
Chair Templeton: Oh, yes? 14
15
Mr. Nguyen: Did you want to continue to move on or reopen the floor for public comments? 16
We have a raised hand. 17
18
Chair Templeton: Oh, are there more… yeah, if there are more public comments. I thought we 19
had closed public comment. Anymore (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
Mr. Nguyen: Well the (interrupted) 2
3
Chair Templeton: Public comments on that agenda item? 4
5
Mr. Nguyen: Well that’s why I want to confirm with you because there is a raised hand. So, did 6
you want to continue on? 7
8
Chair Templeton: Yes, that’s fine. It’s fine, we can find out what this person wants to speak too. 9
10
Mr. Nguyen: Ok so user with the name Awatcher I will unmute you to speak. Awatcher, if you’re 11
there, if you can unmute yourself you may speak. Ok well seeing as Awatcher is unable to speak 12
I suppose we can move on. Awatcher are you there? 13
14
Chair Templeton: Alright let’s move on then to Agenda Item Number Three, the ADU 15
Ordinance. 16
17
Action Items 18
Public Comment is Permitted. Applicants/Appellant Teams: Fifteen (15) minutes, plus three (3) minutes rebuttal. 19
All others: Five (5) minutes per speaker.1,3 20
21
3. PUBLIC HEARING/LEGISLATIVE: Recommendation on an Updated Ordinance 22
Regarding Accessory Dwelling Units: Amending Palo Alto Municipal Code Sections 23
16.58.030 (Development Impact Fees), and 18.04.030 (Definitions), and Deleting 24
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Section 18.42.040 and Adding a New Chapter 18.09 (Accessory Dwelling Units and 1
Junior Accessory Dwelling Units). Environmental Assessment: Exempt From Review 2
Under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Pursuant to Public Resources 3
Code Section 21080.17 and CEQA Guidelines Sections 15061(b)(3), 15282(h), 15301, 4
15302 and 15305. Note: Adoption of This Ordinance Would Repeal the Interim 5
Urgency Ordinance Council Adopted January 13, 2020 Which is Otherwise in Effect 6
Until January 31, 2021. 7
8
Chair Templeton: Thank you, Vinh. We can go another survey to see if there’s people that want 9
to speak to this agenda item when we get there. Do we already have speakers lined up for it? 10
For Three? 11
12
Mr. Vinh Nguyen, Admin Associate III: We have someone who just raised his hand, John Kelley, 13
so he will be our first speaker. 14
15
Chair Templeton: Ok. Alright, so Staff take it away. 16
17
Ms. Amy French, Chief Planning Official: Oh ok, let’s see, it would be good to read the item into 18
the record. I don’t how to do that (interrupted) 19
20
Chair Templeton: Would you like me? I have it in front of me. I have the title in front of me, 21
would you like me to do that? 22
23
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Ms. French: Awesome. Thank you. 1
2
Chair Templeton: This is a public hearing on a legislative item. Recommendation on an updated 3
ordinance regarding accessory dwelling units. Amending Palo Alto Municipal Code Sections 4
16.58.030 (Development Impact Fees), and 18.04.030 (Definitions), and deleting section 5
18.42.040 and adding a new Chapter 18.09 (Accessory Dwelling Units and Junior Accessory 6
Dwelling Units). Environmental assessment, exempt from review under the California 7
Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) pursuant to public resources Code Section 21080.17 and 8
CEQA Guidelines Sections 15061(b)(3), 15282(h), 15301, 15302 and 15305. Note, adoption of 9
this ordinance would repeal the Interim Urgency Ordinance Council Adopted January 13, 2020 10
which is otherwise in effect until January 31, 2021. Alright. 11
12
Ms. French: Thank you, that was a mouth full. 13
14
Chair Templeton: Thank you, Ms. French. 15
16
Ms. French: Amy French, Chief Planning Official. I will say that our Accessory Dwelling Unit 17
Strike Team is not all here tonight but they include our Chief Building Official George Hoyt and 18
Development Center Planning Manager Russ Wrike. We do have Garrett Sauls here, Associate 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.
Planner who has taken this project and will be presenting the PowerPoint tonight. OK, take it 1
away Garrett. That was right when I was presenting. 2
3
Mr. Garrett Sauls, Associate Planner: No worries. Alright well, good evening Commissioners, like 4
Amy had said this is the first at that this new ordinance will be coming to PTC. Previous the 5
Interim Ordinance had come through in January and gone straight to Council. So that the City’s 6
ordinance will be able to update to what the state’s requirements or changes in their own state 7
regulations occurred back in… last year in the fall and have become adopted beginning of 8
January. 9
10
So, to go over the presentation, we’re going to be talking a little bit about the ADUs, what 11
they’ve become over the last couple of years. We’re going to talk a little bit about the state law 12
Interim Ordinance to identify what things have been changed, identify or public outreach, talk 13
about the ordinance structure, talk about the topics that we want to include in the updated 14
ordinance to promote unit development, also discuss potential other regulations; as well as 15
highlight other topics that we did not propose to include, and finally, we summarize it with next 16
steps on how we’re going to be continuing with the ordinance and also how we’re going to be 17
doing some improvements through our own applications, webpages, and checklists. 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.
So, looking at this… looking at the ADU Quarterly Report that was provided on May… at the 1
beginning of May to Council. We had a pretty good representation of what has really transpired 2
over the last couple of years as they related to the changes that initially came in 2017 and what 3
had subsequently been adopted afterwards in 2018 and 2019. Where due to changes at the 4
state level, the City [unintelligible] had really tried to find ways to encourage unit development 5
and from there we can see that unit development sense looking at 2015 to today has jumped 6
substantially. And from there we’ve kind of gleaned from the information that most of these 7
units are within an R-1… they’re a one-bedroom unit within an R-1 Zone District, that the 8
average size is about 466-square feet and that garage conversions tend to be the majority of 9
applications that we receive whether attached or detached. 10
11
Now to give just the timeline, in fall 2019 again the state came through an updated its 12
ordinances related to ADUs which resulted in us having to create an Interim Urgency Ordinance 13
that we brought to Council on January 13 and is valid until January 31st of next year. This was 14
done so that we could bring our ordinance up to compliance with the state regulations. 15
16
And these generally are the topics that had really changed substantially in the state’s 17
ordinance. Some of which were not necessarily greater changes to our own ordinance but we 18
have things like lot sizes now requiring a minimum lot sizes, removing Parking Requirements for 19
garage conversions for ADUs, maximum sizes of units increasing to 850-square feet for one-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.
bedroom or 1,000-square feet for two-bedroom detached ADUs. The state also included 1
requirements that the City must allow properties to develop an ADU that is at least 800-square 2
feet, 16-feet in height, have a 4-foot setback. Additionally, there were zero setback for 3
conversions and this is also going forward for any new unit built closer to a setback or any 4
structure built close to a setback than it’s allowed. Conversion after the fact can also result in 5
the structure also being closer to a property line. Requiring that all ADUs whether they’re part 6
of some additional development on the property like a two-story home has been reviewed and 7
approved for or through a ministerial process and that they can’t have any Owner Occupancy 8
Requirement for the ADU. There also has to be a required action within 60-days and then 9
expanded where we could really allow these ministerial approvals of units to include that 10
properties can have a JADU and an ADU. That they could also be part of multi-family non-livable 11
space multi-family residential buildings and that they could also become detached or create a 12
detached ADUs on multi-family lots. This image just shows a brief example of something that 13
could be approved today which is a detached ADU at 4-foot setback that could be up to 800-14
square feet and 16-feet tall. 15
16
So back in February, there was a survey that was sent out to a group of local architects and 17
applicants that commonly submit permits to the City to receive feedback about the permit 18
process and how we feel… how they felt that the ordinance could be updated or changed or 19
modified to better facilitate unit development. That questionnaire can be found in Attachment 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.
C of the Staff Report. We also had a community meeting last with Palo Alto Forward to talk 1
about what changes had occurred at the state level and to take questions from the public. And 2
we also shared the questionnaire with them but unfortunately, we haven’t received any 3
responses yet from those attendees. I’m hoping that we’ll be about to get some more feedback 4
from them. 5
6
To break down the structure of the ordinance there’s effectively two sections. One that’s in 7
18.09.030 which talks about the regulations that control your ADUs and JADUs based on what 8
the state law requires. And 18.09.040 which is about units that go beyond the state 9
requirements where we can apply additional restrictions like Daylight Plane or tree 10
preservation and Privacy Requirements. And the five topic areas generally discussed in the Staff 11
Report are related to allowing attached or detached ADUs when you’re combining with a JADU. 12
Currently, the state only says that it can be a detached ADU in combination with a JADU. 13
Retaining Privacy Requirements for two-story ADUs and also having some form of allowance or 14
recognitions that lofts could also be considered. This would be more so for units that are great 15
than what the state allowance has because those are… the units that are approved under the 16
state requirements are very strict in what we can apply being only those couple of things I 17
mentioned before. The suggestion or proposals from Staff are to reduce some Parking 18
Requirements for JADUs and effectively provide for the Conversion Allowance that ADUs 19
previously had. When you could convert a garage to an ADU we require replacement spaces to 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
be uncovered instead of covered. So, we were proposing to show… to allow for that to be done 1
for JADUs as well. Reducing the Noise Reduction Equipment Requirements for ADUs only. 2
Meaning current the City requires that noise-reducing equipment be outside the setbacks for 3
the property. This would allow units to be placed closer to the property line and most of the 4
units that we’ve been seeing have been [unintelligible] that are much quieter than larger 5
greater 5-ton units. Lastly, it would be about removing the Deed Restriction Process for ADUs 6
which Staff and the community… and the individuals that we reached out too have expressed a 7
greater interest in really having that be one of the solutions that we find to solving the barrier 8
when it comes to submitting a permit and getting it proved and issued because often times it 9
becomes that the Deed Restrictions is the last thing done. And it can take a couple weeks or so 10
to do that given the amount of communication that needs to happen between Staff and the 11
applicant and time spent going between the county and back. 12
13
Potential additional regulations that we talk about in the Staff Report would be trying to 14
provide a Uniform Exemption for ADUs and square footage for FAR, lot coverage, and 15
Maximum House Size. Similar to how the City provided a 220-square foot bonus to 16
development of ADUs previously. The state has afforded that we have to allow a minimum of 17
800-square feet regardless of our requirements in order to build an ADU and if we treat that 18
unit… if we treat that allowance more like a bonus. It gives a little bit more flexibility to 19
homeowners to possibly build a unit without feeling like they have to utilize their remaining 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.
square footage first and be caught in a trap where they wouldn’t be able to get that back. 1
Additional regulations would be providing an exemption for a 500-square foot floor area for 2
JADUs and this would be to allow for that 800-square foot allowance to be used or shared 3
between two units. Meaning 400-square feet could be for the ADU, 400 could be for the JADU, 4
but it wouldn’t prohibit someone from utilizing all of that square footage to build an ADU 5
instead which would be in conflict with what the state requires. And last would be the 6
treatment of secondary street frontages where we can more clearly identify how we’re calling 7
out street… the street side setbacks to our ordinance. Which we’ve received some feedback 8
that… from HCD that the way that they’ve defined side setbacks in the state’s ordinance 9
encompasses street side setbacks. Which generally Staff is not support… doesn’t feel that that’s 10
an appropriate interpretation of how side and rear setbacks are really being affected with this 11
change to having a 4-foot setback. And we have concerns about safety and alignment along 12
streets that really… we’ll talk a little bit more about in some pocket slides if we want to hear 13
more information about that. 14
15
Regulations, so we haven’t proposed or are not proposing to allow for a doorway between 16
ADUs and the primary unit. So that we can maintain some sense of independence with these 17
units given that we don’t have a system in place to verify how these units are actually rented or 18
used. We haven’t proposed increasing the exemption for Development Impact Fees as the state 19
has increased that exception or exemption to 750-square feet and in general, the size of the 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
units that we are receiving are about 30-square feet less than that on average. And so, we don’t 1
feel that it really would capture a greater number of units by exempting these Development 2
Impact Fees. And lastly, for some of the other regulations that we have proposed for removing 3
the Flood Zone Screening Requirements and Grading and Drainage Requirements. Flood Zone 4
Screening Requirements are part of FEMA regulation so we don’t really have control over 5
removing that. And Grading and Drainage Requirements are things that protect against 6
properties or new structures draining onto an adjacent units’ property. And is more so the 7
purview of the Public Works Department than it is the Planning Department and currently there 8
haven’t been any proposals to change that. 9
10
A couple other additional regulations that we haven’t proposed would be to allow for two-story 11
units, to allow for basements, to reduce the Green Building Requirement for ADUs which is 12
something that Council has directed the Building Department to take a look at about reducing 13
Green Building Requirements for ADUs. The Energy Reach Code is currently not applicable to 14
ADUs. 15
16
Here you can see just a snap image of what is in the proposed ordinance. The structure that 17
we’re trying to follow is that of what you can see in a lot of other sections of the Municipal 18
Code where you have a Development Standards table that makes it very clear and highlights 19
why… highlights more easily what you’re allowed to do within your district. How you have 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.
setbacks or you don’t, what the size… what the maximum size is for a unit could be, how many 1
units you could have, and so this Table 1 represents the category of units that would be able… 2
that are required to be approved under the state law. Table 2 in 18.09.040 is talking more 3
about what units we have more ability to apply restrictions on and so you have that same break 4
down for similar structures shown here. 5
6
So, the next steps that we anticipate would be to take this ordinance to Council, provide any 7
feedback that’s received from you tonight, and we can include some additional changes to the 8
ordinance or possibly come back. We would be also looking to make updates to the City’s 9
website, hand out some checklists, we’ve gotten a good bit of feedback about how a lot of 10
these are out of date and aren’t very helpful or good resources when people are trying to figure 11
out how to develop ADUs or what the requirements are. We’re also looking into possibly 12
looking into the… an express review process for ADUs. Because we aren’t in the office now 13
during Shelter in Place there’s not really an opportunity to consider something like an over the 14
counter review process. And our online permitting system has been working very well to help 15
filter out and get people to a point of being able to submit their project, but it’s very limited in 16
how many types of projects we’re able to approve once something is submitted or rather 17
quickly or immediately. And lastly, we have or are looking to get SB 2 grant funding to be able 18
to look at developing prototype units for approval so that we can try to facilitate an easier 19
process for residents who aren’t familiar with the Building Permit Process, submitting, hiring 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.
architects or other sorts of things. And at least create an opportunity for them to get a leg up 1
and have at least a design that they know that the City is able to approve. And all they would 2
need to really get is someone to be able to provide some site plans and other foundational 3
details to install the unit. 4
5
So, like I said a little bit ago the input that we’re trying to get from PTC tonight is feedback on 6
the ordinance and any recommendations on proposed regulations that we can include into the 7
ordinance. We’re looking to get support for the five streamlining measures that we’ve included 8
in the ordinance as well as a consideration of the three potential items to also be included in 9
the ordinance and that concludes my presentation. I have a couple pocket slides that we can 10
use later on to talk about some of the items in-depth that I’m sure we’ll be spending a bit more 11
time on. 12
13
Mr. Nguyen: Chair Templeton? 14
15
Mr. Sauls: Looks like we might have lost her. 16
17
Ms. French: So, while Chair Templeton is getting back online, would we like to kick off 18
discussion? We could put back up the PowerPoint slide that helps 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.
Chair Templeton: We could have Giselle [note - Vice-Chair Roohparvar] (interrupted) 1
2
Ms. French: Yeah. 3
4
Mr. Albert Yang, Assistant City Attorney: Might I suggest that the Vice-Chair should take the 5
(interrupted) 6
7
Commissioner Lauing: Do we have public comments to hear? 8
9
Ms. French: That’s a question for Vinh. 10
11
Ms. Nguyen: Yes, we do have public comment. 12
13
Commissioner Lauing: So, what if we went to that first? 14
15
Ms. French: We’ll take that first? 16
17
Commissioner Lauing: Giselle [note – Vice-Chair Roohparvar]? 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.
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Yeah, can we do… yeah, let’s do public comment first. Chair Templeton 1
said she… her Zoom crashed but she’s… should go ahead and drive it but I’ll be back on. Let’s go 2
with public comment. 3
4
Mr. Nguyen: Ok sure, so our first speaker here is John Kelley. If there’s anyone else who wishes 5
to speak please raise your hand now. John Kelley I’ve unmuted you, please unmute yourself as 6
well and you may speak. 7
8
Mr. John Kelley: I would really like to address Chair Templeton. Would it be possible to wait 9
until she returns? 10
11
Mr. Nguyen: Sure. 12
13
Ms. Kelley: Ok thank you very much. Oh, and may I ask one other question [unintelligible – 14
audio cut out] 15
16
Mr. Sauls: I think you’ve gone mute. John, you might have muted yourself or something might 17
have happened. 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. Kelley: I just had one procedural question. Does the Commission prefer references to the 1
Packet Page or the Report Page? 2
3
Ms. French: I think Packet Page is fine. 4
5
[note -unknown male speaker:] Packet. 6
7
Commissioner Alcheck: Packet. 8
9
Mr. Kelley: Great, thank you. 10
11
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Was that… is that it? Do we have any more public comment, Vinh? 12
13
Mr. Nguyen: That’s the only one. 14
15
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Ok, lets got to the Commissioners. Commissioner Hechtman. 16
17
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. Just a couple of short questions while we wait for Chair 18
Templeton to get back on. This is a question for Staff on the references to exemptions from 19
Impact Fees. The way that Staff is using that term in the Staff Report, are impacts… Impact Fees 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.
different from Project Application Fees or are they included? Are they including Project 1
Application Fees with Impact Fees? 2
3
Mr. Sauls: No, they don’t. Development Impact Fees are fees that are charged in addition to 4
whatever Building Permit Fees and it’s usually based on however many units that you 5
proposed. So, if we had a vacant lot, new home would be required to pay Development Impact 6
Fees. Similarly, new unit on a… new full unit per say over 750-square feet would require 7
Development Impact Fees as well. 8
9
Ms. French: And these are fees that go to the community centers, libraries, etc. 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: But for example, the now exempted by state law I think its… I can’t 12
remember, JADU less than 750- feet. No Impact Fees but there are still Application Fees 13
(interrupted) 14
15
Ms. French: Correct. 16
17
Commissioner Hechtman: That are paid to the City, correct? 18
19
Mr. Sauls: For the Building Permit and other street work permit stuff, yeah. 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 Hechtman: Ok and the… my process question as Chair Templeton comes back 2
on. My process question is it seems like the plan here… the schedule is this ordinance is 3
stopping here at the PTC and then its next stop is the Council. 4
5
Ms. French: Correct. 6
7
Commissioner Hechtman: Am I seeing, that right? 8
9
Ms. French: Yes. 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: So, I would like before this item is done for us, particularly after we 12
hear the comments of the Commissioners, to talk about the wisdom of having this brought back 13
to us at least one time. Because my personal thought is I have some substantive comments on 14
things that may or may not be appealing to approve… improve the ordinance before it goes to 15
Council. And my concern is if all of our comments are just collected here and you already have… 16
Staff already has a draft ordinance and you take a draft ordinance to Council in your left hand 17
and just this list of other things that might get plugged in from PTC in your right hand, the 18
Council is just going to look at the left-hand ordinance and approve it. So, I’m interested in 19
hearing other Commissioners on whether they have substantive comments and think that we 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.
should bring this back. I note that we have until January of next year before the Interim 1
Ordinance would expire. I’m not proposing taking a long time, but just something that I thought 2
of. So those are my procedural comments. Welcome back, Chair Templeton. 3
4
Chair Templeton: Thank you. Are we on public comment? Did I hear correctly? 5
6
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: No, we’re doing Commissioners and then we’re going to take public 7
comment because there was one public comment and they wanted to address you specifically. 8
9
Chair Templeton: Ok. 10
11
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Is that accurate? 12
13
Chair Templeton: That’s fine, it’s fine. Alright so next is Vice-Chair Roohparvar and then 14
Commissioner Lauing. 15
16
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Sure. So, I had two… again two questions. When you refer to the using 17
the SB 2 funds to create prototypes, what do you mean by that? Is that… are you going to set 18
parameters as to what they should look like or are you going to say this is what it looks like? 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.
This is what the ADU needs to look like and specifically, like four walls looks like this, this kind of 1
roof. What do you mean by that? 2
3
Mr. Sauls: Yeah, I think it can incorporate a lot of different things. I think the idea so far that’s 4
been pitched has to be or is to be that we would have model units that people would be able to 5
choose from. Say Model A, B, and C and you can… all you’d have to do is take that object or 6
you’d come into the counter and you’d say I want to do Model B. Then you go get whatever site 7
plans or other building requirement items on your plans set for like foundations or whatnot and 8
then you’d be able to get that permit. More simply because we’ve already done a preliminary 9
review or pre-review effectively of all the other requirements. 10
11
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Even down to the design? With those prototypes, even down 12
(interrupted) 13
14
Mr. Sauls: It’s possible, yeah. 15
16
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Interesting. 17
18
Ms. French: That was the goal to assist in the cost issues with building these. 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 Roohparvar: Got it. The second question I have relates to the interplay between 1
these ADUs and our RHNA requirements. Of course, they would, I assume, they would apply 2
towards our RHNA numbers, but I also assume that they’d apply towards the moderate or the 3
market income level. The market units for the RHNA requirements. What are we going to do for 4
affordable requirements because that’s where we’re really lacking? And based on the survey 5
results, I think you’d asked the 15 participants and their question was is anyone willing to deed 6
restrict their property to make it affordable? And the answer was no way exclamation mark is 7
what my clients were saying. So, what can we do or is there a way to encourage maybe more 8
affordable units because that’s what we’re really missing in terms of meeting our RHNA 9
numbers. 10
11
Mr. Sauls: So, there are… there is at least one state law that was passed I think after the 12
ordinance or after the state law’s new ordinance where they had provided the opportunity for 13
people to effectively sell their units separately if they were deed restricting them to be 14
affordable. And that was something that Staff had thought about but ultimately didn’t include 15
in the ordinance as we were trying to get it to PTC to get some feedback on, on other items that 16
were a little bit more pressing. 17
18
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: To sell them separately, like as in a separate… you’re going to divide the 19
lot and they’re going to have their own separate property, APN Number? Interesting, ok. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Mr. Sauls: I don’t believe it would be separating it necessarily like a subdivision but I think it 2
might be more an air parcel kind of scenario that you see on commercial properties. 3
4
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Ok. That’s it for questions. Thank you for me. 5
6
Chair Templeton: Alright thank you. Commissioner Lauing. 7
8
Commissioner Lauing: Yes, thanks. I totally agree with Commissioner Hechtman and I’d like to 9
see you and raise you one. I think that an item like this always should have two readings and 10
just like the next item. When it came last time, we said we can’t do this in one meeting. So, I 11
think that that is a policy we should always do on these complicated things as opposed to 12
having it in front of us and then instantly decide. Although, instantly tonight if we go through 13
this whole thing will probably be another 2-hours or so, maybe more. 14
15
There are really multiple stages to this. The first one being doing a permanent approval of the 16
temporary which we could do. We could just stop there and then take up this other thing later 17
or we could take comments on the second one but then bring it back as a second. So, we 18
should break this up a little bit and not try to accomplish both agendas in the same timeframe, 19
in the same meeting. But if there’s an option because there’s some sort of urgency, which I 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
don’t think there is, to get the temporary one replaced by the permanent one. I think we could 1
get through that in this reading. So that’s what I would think, particularly given the time and the 2
rest of the agenda. 3
4
Mr. Sauls: Yeah, yeah there’s definitely… for the time being there isn’t necessarily an immediate 5
need to have this be approved and done today. Especially if there are refinements suggested, 6
so that is certainly a possibility. It’s not one of those things where we’re trying to say you know 7
we have to get this done now or yesterday, so that’s certainly an option. 8
9
Commissioner Lauing: I think the first time we did this it took three meetings to get through it. 10
I’ll be it that was [unintelligible], we were having to create the thing so. 11
12
Mr. Sauls: I think one thing that is a little bit more of value is that there are less things that we 13
have the capability to restrict or try to provide some additional requirements on. So, it is 14
focused a little bit more in terms of what we can do for units that aren’t necessarily following 15
the state’s requirements. But I think Albert wanted to talk a little bit about (interrupted) 16
17
Mr. Yang: Yeah, so I just wanted to briefly address the idea of making the Interim Ordinance 18
permanent as opposed to working with the draft that’s before you. We would strongly prefer 19
not to take that approach just because if you look it, I mean the Interim Ordinance is 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.
horrendously complicated and its really difficult to decipher and we’ve really tried to just 1
simplify things. And I think it’s possible if the Commission’s interest is to just translate the 2
substance of the Interim Ordinance into this new form, to do that, but we definitely want to 3
stick with the format that’s proposed before you. 4
5
Commissioner Lauing: Well I didn’t… I don’t think that’s what I meant. What I meant was if you 6
thought there was any urgency, we could approve your proposal for 18.09.030. That’s what I 7
meant. 8
9
Mr. Yang: I see, so I don’t… the ordinance is written and it is only really applicable as a whole. 10
There are those two sections of them but we do need both. 11
12
Commissioner Lauing: So, process-wise that would be my suggestion. I have another dozen 13
questions but I’ll stop there and decide what we’re going to do on process. 14
15
Chair Templeton: Ok. I think that we should… I don’t see any more Commissioner’s hands up for 16
this part of the questions and answers. So, I’m going to open up public comment, and then we 17
can get into the nitty-gritty of the detailed questions that Commissioners have. Does that sound 18
good? Yeah, ok. Vinh, can you please open public comment? 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Nguyen: Yes, so we have just one speaker for this item which is John Kelley. Let’s get the 1
speaker's time up. Perfect. John, I have unmuted you, if you can unmute yourself as well, you 2
may speak. 3
4
Mr. Kelley: Great, thank you very much. Commissioner Templeton or I’m sorry Chair Templeton, 5
Vice-Chair Roohparvar, excuse me if I mispronounced your name, Commissioners. This is 6
probably I’m guessing the fourth or the fifth time that I’ve spoken to the PTC about ADU related 7
issues. Probably going back now close to 5-years or longer. My wife and I are trying to build a 8
combination of ADU and a JADU. I would just like to give you some reflections on the ordinance 9
as a whole and then specific comments on the Staff Report. 10
11
First of all, in general, I would commend the Staff for what it’s trying to do. I think Jonathan Lait 12
in particular has shown really great leadership in terms of trying to improve and streamline the 13
ADU process. And I certainly commend the Staff for trying to simplify the emergency ordinance. 14
I think it’s very problematic the way it is right now. 15
16
I would however like to draw attention to the bottom of Page 17 in the Packet and the top of 17
Page 18 because this gets back to something I think was mentioned in the discussion of the 18
parking issues previously. What is the purpose of what’s being done here? And I would just like 19
to say at the outset, it doesn’t seem to me that this ordinance and these revisions are really 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.
aimed at homeowners who are trying to retrofit their homes and retrofit their garages and 1
trying to build new housing in Palo Alto. The overall flavor of this seems as though it is 2
addressing issues that have come up much more in the context of new home construction. If 3
you were to take seriously the problems that existing homeowners have in dealing with ADUs 4
and building them. They really come down to money and time. And what I think is missing here 5
is an orientation that looks at the issues that really confront the construction process. 6
[unintelligible] including things such as the sewer rules that are in place right now in Palo Alto 7
which are different from those in other communities, the electrical policies, and whether or not 8
you could simply simplify the permitting process. And some of that is touched upon in the Staff 9
Report but not a great deal. So, I would encourage the Staff to rethink this in general and just 10
very quickly since I’m almost out of time. 11
12
If the goal is to increase production, not simply to meet the minimum. The other thing that I 13
would strongly urge you to do is get comments from the HCD before you pass this to Council. 14
Particularly, if you’re going to bring this back a second time. 15
16
I would say that on Page 19 we should certainly allow both attached and detached ADUs with 17
JADUs. I would also way that liberalizing the JADUs rules, in general, is good on Page 21. The 18
one thing I’d really like to call out though is this notion of just having a simple bonus structure is 19
good but limiting it to 800-square feet to be shared between both an ADU and a JADU is 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.
unreasonable and it doesn’t meet the needs of the community. We should have a larger 1
standard if you’re going to have a single standard for additional bonus space. Thank you. 2
3
Chair Templeton: Alright thank you Mr. Kelley and thank you and the Commissioners for being 4
patient with my technical difficulties. Were there any other comments for… from the public for 5
this agenda item? 6
7
Mr. Nguyen: There are no more raised hands, so I think we can conclude public comments 8
[unintelligible]. 9
10
Chair Templeton: Ok great so Commissioners if you want to do another round with our 11
presenter, Mr. Sauls, please raise your hand. Commissioner… I mean Vice-Chair Roohparvar. 12
13
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Since nobody is speaking on… I had one concern and I recognize that we 14
want to remove deed restrictions in order to remove the cumbersome process, but the 15
attorney in me makes me very nervous about removing deed restrictions. Especially when you 16
made that comment about how certain ADUs could be sold separately, but I think in this 17
instance in Palo Alto you cannot sell them separately but in other Cities… I think it’s going to 18
create confusion and a lot of litigation. If somebody then goes and sells and then you’re back to 19
trying to follow the chain of title because it depends on notice and did they have notice or not? 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.
I think you need to balance it and if it’s more important for us to get these built and it’s that 1
cumbersome to go to the County Recorder’s Office and record a deed restriction. Then so be it 2
but that was the one thing that I’m… that made me a bit uncomfortable because I’ve just seen 3
so many lawsuits because of failed recordings. 4
5
Mr. Sauls: To that Albert, I wonder if you wanted to go ahead instead? 6
7
Mr. Yang: Yeah, so I guess I would just respond to the one concern about and Garrett’s earlier 8
comment about the possibility of an ADU being sold separately. That’s not a realistic scenario in 9
my mind. The state law generally prohibits that from happening but it permits it and it permits 10
local agencies to adopt an ordinance that allows it. So again, we have an option there and we 11
can only allow it in certain circumstances when there’s a non-profit developer that’s involved. 12
So, it’s really an edge case, it’s not something that we have to allow and it’s not something that 13
we’re proposing to allow either. So, when we’re talking about the impact of the deed restriction 14
and whether or not we have it? It’s really going to be a deed restriction that would say you 15
can’t rent this for less than 30-days and we think our existing code already gives us the tools to 16
effectively enforce that. 17
18
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Got it. That’s really helpful. Thank you for the clarification. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Templeton: Alright was that it for your comments, Vice-Chair? 1
2
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Yes. 3
4
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Ok, next up are Commissioner Alcheck and Commissioner Summa. 5
Commissioner Alcheck. 6
7
Commissioner Alcheck: Yeah, no thank you. I just want to reflect on this item. I think that the 8
goal of this… the… this process is the right goal. I also agree that the emergency ordinance was 9
terrible and I’ll just… I mean if I could just for second highlight this issue of the deed restriction. 10
This was a component of the emergency ordinance which I stood so strongly against the last 11
time we reviewed this. I thought it was an absolute terrible idea to incorporate deed 12
restrictions for exactly the reason which is that this is an incredible cumbersome way to enforce 13
rental requirements… rental limitations. And if for example… I mean I also suggested at the 14
time that I thought the requirement that someone has to occupy the main house in order to 15
rent the ADU was insensitive to the multiple individuals in our community who for example 16
work at Stanford or whatnot and maybe they go away for a period of time and then they come 17
back. And that didn’t give them the flexibility of maintaining a housing option for whoever they 18
had rented their ADU too. So, it was incredible… it was almost punitive to someone who is a 19
local resident because the anticipated concern was that how people would just buy these 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.
houses and rent them out and we’d have all these landlords and all these renters in the 1
community. And at the time I was very frustrated with it because it suggested that somehow 2
renter… there was less value or there was a preference somehow that… an opposition of 3
renters and we couldn’t explain it. There was no justifications, sort of profert for why we want… 4
we felt that we couldn’t have two renters on a parcel. Only one… we can only tolerate one 5
renter at a time as a neighbor. And so, I would suggest that remove it… I mean I’m surprised we 6
have a choice when it comes to removing the deed restriction. It sounds like we don’t have a 7
choice. I don’t think that the requirement that owners occupy one portion of the property is 8
even legal anymore so that we’d have to do away with. And then the issue of not being allowed 9
to rent the property for less than 30-days seem superfluous since we already have a code… we 10
already have code that discusses that. So, the act of placing a deed restriction by the City on the 11
property for that sole purpose seems highly unnecessary. So, I think that that’s… I just wanted 12
to shed some light on that one in case there was less context. 13
14
I think that it would… I think that the report is largely helpful in identifying where we even have 15
some room to maneuver with respect to the code and how many of these sections we have to 16
amend because we have to amend them. And so, I guess one of my questions is and I this I 17
guess is directed to Commissioner Hechtman which is what are the items that you imagine we 18
would propose tonight that may not be well… that may not receive the attention and focus that 19
you would want them to receive in… at Council? Because I think if we just focus on those items 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.
that you might be worried about because I’m not sure what they are yet, I think that would be 1
helpful. 2
3
And then my second would be if we could get a little clarification, is it up to us to determine the 4
process of whether or not we have another meeting on this or whether it goes to Council after 5
this meeting or is it apart of the Staff’s plan to bring this back again? I wasn’t… I didn’t get 6
clarity of that because after the public speaker spoke you suggested that before we have it 7
again, we incorporate comments from HCD. And I just don’t know whether that’s Staff initiated 8
the process or if that’s something that we would have to do activity to have it come back again 9
before it goes to Council? 10
11
Ms. French: It’s the ladder through Chair. We had not proposed a second hearing as part of our 12
recommendation tonight. 13
14
Commissioner Alcheck: Ok so I guess I think it would be helpful if Commissioners highlighted 15
the concerns they have with the changes and we can kind of go over them one by one. And 16
then I can also better understand what the question about focus is and how we can address 17
that because I of course always feel like it’s a tricky scenario. We’re an advising body and our 18
discussion tonight will largely take up space in a report to Council. And so, I want to make sure 19
that we have… we spend our time focused on the items that matter the most. 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 Templeton: Great, thank you very much, Commissioner. Moving onto Commissioner 2
Summa. 3
4
Commissioner Summa: So, I’m a little confused, are we going through things one by one, the 5
five items and then the additional ideas and the not proposed ideas? I’m a little confused about 6
how we’re organizing the conversation but I can go ahead and make some comments. 7
8
I actually… that I was going to make, so I’m calling… Staff identified five things in addition to 9
being in compliance with state law which obviously we’re going to do. So, I’m assuming those 10
five things are the most important things to talk about and then the additional ideas. So, with 11
regards to the deed restriction, I think it’s a small thing to get it and I think it’s important. And I 12
appreciate the… our legal counsel’s information but people who rent in this City are not 13
guaranteed a 1-year lease and they are often forced to go into 30-day leases which creates a lot 14
of uncertainty. Especially for young people and while we do have a law that says you have to be 15
offered a 1-year tenancy… renters have to be offered a 1-year lease. If both parties decide to go 16
for 30-day they can do it but that is not my experience with especially young people. My 17
goddaughters were in this situation and they live in fear of having their rent go up, double or 18
triple. So, I think the deed restriction is important and then… we don’t enforce that law in any 19
way. So, I think the deed restriction is important for tenants and I note that the… one of the 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
new state regulations, it’s the last bullet, does prohibit short term rental. So, I would be in favor 1
of keeping that in place. I don’t think it’s an onerous thing for anyone to do. 2
3
I had a question about Item Two which is the privacy concerns with regards to two-story ADUs. 4
I kind of wasn’t sure from reading that over and over if two-story ADUs are now allowed 5
outside of the OS Zone and the RE Zones or I was kind of confused? So maybe Staff could clarify 6
that for me. 7
8
Mr. Sauls: So currently two-story homes are not things that are prepared or proposed. That was 9
shown in the section that [unintelligible] talked about items that were not proposed in the 10
ordinance. There is the capability however based on Staff’s interpretation of the ordinance that 11
units that are built meeting the category… the first category, units that have to be approved by 12
the state, would be built within the buildable area of a property. Meaning the setbacks, 13
Daylight Plane height, and everything sort of thing like that which would allow for an 14
opportunity for those units to be potentially a two-story unit. So that was shown if you look at 15
the table or Table 1 and I can show that to you right here too. Let me bring this up. So here you 16
have Table 1 which relates to the units that came be approved under the state requirements 17
where we talked about you have your maximum height, Daylight Plane, setbacks. These are 18
would be… these would be following the underlying zone standards for the single-family home. 19
And that’s based on our interpretation of what state… the state code says under 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.
65852.2(e)(1)(A). So, there is a possibility that you could have an attached unit that would be 1
two-stories but otherwise most of the units unless it was a conversion of a non-conforming 2
structure would be maximum 16-feet tall. Which could possibly allow for a loft but not 3
necessarily a truer second-floor level. 4
5
Commissioner Summa: Ok that helps clarify that so then I think that the concerns you have 6
about privacy would be good to address in Item Two. I am… Item… should we go through all of 7
them now or what do you want to do Chair Templeton? 8
9
Chair Templeton: Thank you. I would like if… Mr. Sauls if you could put up the slides that you 10
want us to… wanted to guide our conversation with one at a time and we can go through them. 11
I think it would be helpful, a way to structure the conversation. So (interrupted) 12
13
Mr. Sauls: Sure. 14
15
Chair Templeton: The Priority Ones are in the red, is that right? 16
17
Mr. Sauls: Out of the five regulations that you see here that are proposed to be included in the 18
ordinance, the red items that you see highlighted are ones that are higher priority to Staff. All 19
of these five are proposed to be within the ordinance but there are a couple that I… that we 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.
feel could be either important to identify like Commissioner Summa was saying about Privacy 1
Requirements for units. Where we can require some sort of screening or some sort of manner 2
to protect views onto adjacent sites. Other things like allowing JADUs that are part of a garage 3
conversion to replace… to have replacement spaces be uncovered instead of covered. That we 4
feel based on the trend of growing or the growing trend of garage conversions for ADUs may 5
allow for an opportunity for ADUs to blossom as we’ve only really received two applications in 6
the last 3-years. And then lastly was the deed… removing the deed restriction process too free 7
up a bit of time during the review process and make it simpler and easy to implement given 8
that our code already includes the language that we have included in our deed restriction. And 9
Code Enforcement Officers are looking first and foremost at our ordinance, not at some other 10
documents that they may or may not be able to have access too. 11
12
Chair Templeton: Great, I think that’s helpful. So why don’t we start here Commissioners and 13
then if you want to speak to items that are… where brought up in further slides we can get to 14
that maybe in a second round. So back to you Commissioner Summa. 15
16
Commissioner Summa: Ok thank you. Ok, so I’ll just go through them really quickly then. 17
Number One, I’m not particularly interested in. I’m… you know we don’t have much control 18
over or we don’t have any control over how people are using their ADUs and while I think it’s 19
great that people are using them for extended family and stuff. I think Number One could be 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
used to game the system just to get a bigger house, so I’m not particularly… and Staff has 1
rightly identified some of these items we don’t really know what the impacts would be. So that 2
one I’m not interested in pursuing. 3
4
I already talked about Two. Number Three is another one where Staff identified that they 5
couldn’t really know what the impacts where. And I think that we should hold off on that until 6
we get back to a normal pattern of street use in our neighborhoods and see what the parking 7
availability is. 8
9
Number Four I’m not very in favor of that one either because we don’t really have a good way 10
in this community to control noise complaints. And we have very reduced… as we know of as 11
last night at the Council meeting, we have a very reduce Code Enforcement Department and I 12
just think we’re putting… there’s no reason to do that. I think these ADUs and JADUs should 13
have the same standards that primary houses do. 14
15
And then I already spoke to the deed restriction process, so I will let someone else go now. 16
17
Chair Templeton: Great, thank you. Next, is Commissioner Hechtman followed by 18
Commissioner Alcheck. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. I first wanted to tell Staff that their organization, really 1
simplifying this into two sections of the ordinance, one section on basically the state law 2
version, the other section on everything else, I really like that organization. I think that was 3
really well thought out and I do know that it’s a complaint that we hear often that the structure 4
of ordinances can be indecipherable for the public trying to make their way through them. So, I 5
can see that Staff has really made an effort here to make things clearer and I think it’s been 6
largely effective. 7
8
So, I want to… I’ll go through each of these five and I do have other comments on subsequent 9
slides which I’ll do later. So, my understanding of Item One is that state law is already telling us 10
we need to allow detached ADUs with a JADU with the question that Staff is wrestling with here 11
was should we also allow an attached ADU to be paired with a JADU? And if I’m understanding 12
Staff is supportive of allowing that. Again, the premise of a lot of the Staff’s work here is what 13
can we do to promote housing units and so by allowing this flexibility to also pair an attached 14
ADU with a JADU, I think it would take a step in that direction. Staff did identify a concern if we 15
do allow attached ADU [unintelligible – audio cut out] to be paired with J… contribute to 16
massing concerns. That you’re basically adding to the bulk of the single-family home and I was 17
wondering about the possibility of having Staff consider limiting an attached ADU to be 18
attached on say the… and I’m going to just pick a figure here… the back half of the existing 19
footprint on a home. So that will basically push the attached ADU toward the back of the lot 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.
where massing will not be as prevalent to the public which is really the concern on massing 1
impacts as they are traveling the street. So that was Item One. 2
3
Item Two, retaining the privacy, I think on this one there’s a… the ordinance and Staff is 4
recommending a series of window treatments to preserve privacy from the two-story ADU or 5
loft and adjacent residential properties. And I support that but I do think that we should clarify 6
in the ordinance that these window treatment requirements should only apply to the second-7
floor windows. Not the first-floor windows where really the concerns are different and so I 8
don’t think for example somebody on the first floor of an ADU should have to have a frosted 9
window that is facing toward the side yard fence. So that’s something that I would like Staff to 10
consider. 11
12
The Item Three, I’m supportive of Staff’s recommendation here. I philosophically I agree that 13
the housing is fundamental, the additional traffic associated with the additional housing is the 14
pill we have to swallow to get the additional housing. So, I’m supportive of that. 15
16
Number Four, I am supportive of Staff’s concept on reducing noise and the Number Five, the 17
deed restrictions. While… I do agree that it’s really very [unintelligible – audio disturbance] 18
record [unintelligible – audio disturbance] document [unintelligible – audio disturbance] 19
(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
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: You cut… you’re cutting out. 2
3
Commissioner Alcheck: It might be helpful Commissioner Hechtman if you stop video for a 4
minute and then speak. And you’ll limit the bandwidth that you’re using and it will be easier 5
because you’re for some reason we’re dropping your audio. 6
7
Commissioner Hechtman: It’s really not that hard but I know Staff is recommending 8
[unintelligible – audio disturbance]. I’m agreeable to that. Ok, am I… are you hearing me? 9
10
Commissioner Alcheck: Unfortunately, we didn’t really hear anything you just said so if you 11
could just (interrupted) 12
13
Commissioner Hechtman: Can you hear me? 14
15
Commissioner Alcheck: Repeat the whole thing about Number Five. 16
17
Commissioner Hechtman: Ok. Can you hear me now? 18
19
Chair Templeton: Unfortunately, you were still breaking up Commissioner Hechtman. 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 Hechtman: I’m going to leave and come back in. 2
3
Chair Templeton: Ok. Please stand by we have technical difficulties but Commissioner 4
Hechtman will be back to continue his thoughts momentarily. I’m just going to blame it on the 5
heat. [unintelligible – audio disturbance] our telecommunication but we’ll see and then the 6
next Commissioner to speak after Commissioner Hechtman will be Commissioner Alcheck. If 7
anyone else would like to speak please raise your hand, if not that’s fine. Alright, I see you 8
Commissioner Lauing, I will add you to the list. Mr. Sauls whiles we wait, could you please page 9
through to 10 and 11 just to give to revisit it. You had some items on there for us to look at as 10
well. 11
12
Mr. Sauls: Sure, so for the protentional additional regulations, the first three would be to 13
provide for a Uniform Exemption of how we calculate the square footage that state law has 14
afforded to units. Secondly, other potential addition would be to allow for JADUs to have a 500-15
square foot exemption only in the scenario when they are utilizing some of that 800-square 16
feet to build a JADU and an ADU. Otherwise, if the other regulations that are proposed in the 17
ordinance like conversion of a garage would be something that is approved for example and it 18
would work in tandem. That they could do one or the other if they wanted to without 19
necessarily having to cannibalize some of their existing home. Which is the current requirement 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.
as the bonus that would provide 50-square feet really doesn’t give them any. And the 1
treatment of the secondary street frontages would be to identify effective… more effectively 2
how we can provide for our street-side setback to be maintained given that HCD has suggested 3
that side more broadly incorporates interior side and street side or any kind of side-based yard. 4
5
And then the regulations that are not proposed on 11 would be one, allowing a doorway 6
between the ADU, an attached ADU, and the primary unit. Increasing the exemption for 7
Development Impact Fee beyond what the code currently has which all JADUs are currently 8
exempted from Development Impact Fees. Garage conversions are exempted for… to ADUs 9
when they… and then when they don’t expand the envelope of the building. And then every 10
unit now is exempted up to 750-square feet regardless. So, if you can imagine to the last 11
example that I was just talking about there is an 800-square foot garage, you could possibly 12
have to pay Development Impact Fees if you expanded the envelope of that garage when you 13
converted it an ADU. The third one was about a suggestion from the group that we reached out 14
too about removing the Flood Zone Screening requirements and removing some Grading and 15
Drainage Requirements. And then the last three things that were not proposed were to allow 16
two-story units which places… some places like San Jose current do allow, to allow for 17
basements within the setback of properties, to allow for people to have greater opportunities 18
to build units below-grade instead of above. And then a suggestion was to reduce the Green 19
Building Requirements for ADUs which the Building Department is currently researching. 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 Templeton: Ok so just to recap, it looks like Slide 9 is what Staff is recommending, Slide 10 2
are things we’re prepared to add in if the PTC recommends, and Slide 11 or 12 are things that 3
potentially we’re not recommending to add in at this time. Is that a good summary or? 4
5
Mr. Sauls: Yes. Yeah, 11 and 12 are once that we’re not proposing. 6
7
Chair Templeton: Ok. Commissioner Hechtman, you are back. 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. Can you hear me? 10
11
Mr. Sauls: Yep. 12
13
Commissioner Hechtman: Ok so I… and is the advice that I turn off my video while I speak? 14
15
Mr. Sauls: It might help. 16
17
Chair Templeton: Yes, please. 18
19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Hechtman: Ok, let’s try this. Alright so I guess first a question, I don’t know when 1
my voice started to cut out. 2
3
Chair Templeton: Bullet 5. 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: On the last slide… pardon me? 6
7
Chair Templeton: On Bullet 5. 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: Bullet 5, ok, alright and I will actually pick up my issue on that later. 10
So, on these possible… we can go to the next slide because Bullet 5, I think that there’s an 11
opportunity maybe for deed restrictions associated with low and low-mod housing which I’ll 12
talk about in a few minutes, a couple minutes. 13
14
So, in the next area, are we ready to move to that, or are we still taking comments on the first 15
page? 16
17
Chair Templeton: I think it’s fine to comment on any of the Slides 9 through 12. We just 18
recapped that 9 was the Staff recommendation and there are things that we could add-in, 11 19
and 12 are things we probably… the Staff recommends we don’t add-in. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Hechtman: Ok so if we can move to the next slide then I’ll… so I’m agreeable 2
with the Staff recommendation here for One and Two. 3
4
Number Three, the secondary street frontage, this is the one where Staff’s view may be at odds 5
with the HCD. And personally, I’ve always felt that the corner lots, that’s what we’re talking 6
about here corner homes, kind of get a little bit of the shaft because they have to leave so 7
much space on two sides that’s not useable privately. And so, I would be in favor of figuring out 8
which sides is the front of the house. And incidentally, that side as I understand it, that has a 9
16-foot required setback and that will give you the corner traffic safety area that you need 10
because you won’t be able to build on the first 16-feet no matter how close you come on the 11
side yard that is close to a street. And then I’d like us to explore at least some reduction in that 12
side yard setback so that it’s not also 16-feet; perhaps 11-feet. I think we have some fencing 13
requirements which are a little different for our corner lots than a regular street lot. So, I would 14
like to see a little for flexibility and treatment of secondary street frontages to again give us 15
more opportunity to squeeze in an ADU or a JADU. 16
17
On the next slide the regulations not proposed, I agree with the Staff recommendation that we 18
should not allow doorways between ADUs and primary units. I think that would be a… that 19
would promote larger homes and unpermitted conversions. 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
Number Two, increasing the exemption for Development Impact Fees, Staff is generally not 2
proposing that but here’s a place where I think that we should talk about promoting low 3
income and low mod [note – moderate] income housing because my view is that… I guess 4
there’s a question. How much is Palo Alto willing to pay to get this housing that we all 5
acknowledge we need, that the state tells us we need, and to me, we should be looking at are 6
we willing to pay an amount equal to essentially waiving the Development Impact Fees. And 7
again, here I’m talking about beyond the state law required exemption and also waiving the 8
Development Application Fees. Again, so in a sense that’s a kind of City subsidy and we would 9
want to explore that not just for any rental unit but for a commitment for a period of time and 10
there is an economic component that would have to be looked at here. But it would be a 11
commitment to rent that unit for low or low mod [note -moderate] housing and that would be 12
a situation where we would enforce that commitment with a deed restriction. And so that’s the 13
exception that I would suggest for the Item Five on Page 1. So anyways, so that’s an idea I have 14
for where I think I’m a little at odds with the… I would be in favor of increasing the exemption if 15
we can use it to attract low and low mod [note -moderate] housing. 16
17
And then the flood zone, I agree with Staff that we shouldn’t propose that, and then if we can 18
go to the last slide I can finish up my couple of items. So, this would be regulation not fully 19
analyzed. 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
Mr. Sauls: Yes. 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: So, I’m not seeing that on my screen but the first one is two-story 4
ADUs and I’m agreeable with Staff’s position on that. And then the basements, allowing 5
basements, I guess my… I have a question here, Staff. In the Staff report, there’s an issue of 6
impact to neighbor’s trees and I was curious as to how much of an impact that is really because 7
if I can build an ADU, I’m going to be able to dig down somewhat to build my foundation. And 8
so how much of the root structure of the tree next door am I allowed to destroy and how 9
much… going down another 10-feet, how much more an I really going to impact the tree? So, 10
I’m not sure that maybe saving a tree is worth not having an additional rental unit in Palo Alto. 11
12
And the thought I had is that perhaps in the .40 section [note – Section 18.42.040] which is 13
again the flexibility, not the state law, if the builder wants to pay for this complex process which 14
Staff describes in the ADU, then that should be ok. But the question I had on basements, here 15
are… and I don’t know if this is true in Palo Alto, a lot of the jurisdictions I work in basements 16
actually don’t count as square footage under circumstances and here I wouldn’t want those 17
kinds of regulations to exempt ADU square footage. And so, I’m wondering if Staff knows 18
whether having a basement would entitle them to not have the square footage count? Those 19
are my comments. 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
Mr. Sauls: Ok. Yeah so just to the immediate question that you’re asking about, for basements 2
they do not… as you say do not generally count towards floor area for the site and we have 3
included regulations in the ordinance that says basically that. However, a basement space 4
would be contributing towards the maximum size of a unit. So, you may have 450 above ground 5
and 450 below ground. And overall, you’d still have a 900-square foot unit but only 450-square 6
feet is what we’d really be paying more direct attention too. 7
8
And then as was highlighted in the Staff report generally your sense is… your sense is correct 9
that we were interested in proposing basements. In my conversations with the Building 10
Department and Public Works, it seems as those Planning is really the only one who currently 11
prohibits that to occur. And while somebody certainly could it might belabor a little bit the 12
process for submittal and make it more expensive. If we were to remove the requirement, it 13
could be an opportunity for people to build units that are partially above ground and partially 14
below ground and be able to capture more square footage without making it seem like a giant 15
structure in your back yard that takes over everything. So that is something this is a possibility. 16
We hadn’t really… we had thought about. We didn’t really think it was maybe something that a 17
lot of people would be interested in because of the expense, but it would be interesting to hear 18
other people’s… other Commissioner’s feedback too if they’re in support of something like that. 19
Perhaps that is something that we could look into and consider more seriously. 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 Hechtman: Alright thank you. It turns out I did have one more question and I 2
think this one might be for Albert. Part of the new ordinance is a definition of what constitutes 3
a kitchen. And every now and then I get a Code Enforcement Action in another jurisdiction 4
where somebody has converted a garage and they put in a little kitchenette and it’s less than 5
the 16-square foot fridge/freezer and the two burners and either an oven or a microwave. And 6
I’m wondering are we going that… do we have coverage on our ordinance so that somebody 7
can add something less than the new definition of kitchen? And then when Code Enforcement 8
comes knocking they can say well that doesn’t… that’s not a kitchen because it’s less than the 9
definition. Are we protected on code violations outside of an ADU JADU? 10
11
Mr. Yang: So yeah, we’ve added some more structure to the definition of a kitchen for an ADU 12
because that’s a question that we’ve commonly got in ADU construction. It’s not a question 13
that comes up for a primary structure and so that’s why we didn’t feel the need to expand that 14
additional provision to all construction. But the situation you’re talking about, the conversion of 15
a garage, were talking about adding a second unit into there, that’s why… that’s what we’re 16
trying to address here. I’m not sure maybe… if I’ve misunderstood your question. 17
18
Commissioner Hechtman: Well let me try one more time. My concern is someone who does not 19
want to go through the process of making the garage into a JADU and they put in a single 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.
burner and a microwave and a 10-square foot fridge/freezer. And then when Code 1
Enforcement comes knocking and you’ve illegally converted without permits to a JADU, they 2
say no, this isn’t a JADU because it’s not a kitchen because it doesn’t meet the requirements in 3
your ordinance. 4
5
Mr. Yang: That’s an interesting question I’ll have to think more about and get back to you. 6
7
Chair Templeton: Alright thank you, Commissioner Hechtman. Next up in Commissioner Alcheck 8
followed by Commissioner Lauing. 9
10
Commissioner Alcheck: Ok, alright, if… yeah, I was going to ask you to jump back to the first 11
slide. I think… so my sense is that these five items are going to be well received by Council and I 12
would suggest that we encourage Council to adopt them. I’ll run through quickly. I think that 13
allowing attached and detached ADU with a JADU are… that’s just cleaning up a discrepancy 14
that we have that there’s isn’t significant logical behind. And I think that it’s… there’s a question 15
about… I think the sentiment was whether or not the… I think Commissioner Hechtman said 16
something about whether or not we could force location of those attachments to the rear in 17
order to address massing. Am I getting that right to some extent? Yeah. So, here’s what I would 18
say, I think that the requirements that we have in our code with respect to massing are there 19
and they apply to the whole structure. And so, I think in this particular case, we’re really talking 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.
about a lot new construction opportunities and it would seem unlikely to me that the 1
placement of the ADU as an attachment would be cause for concern with respect to massing 2
because, at the end of the day, it’s the entire envelope. It wouldn’t be evaluated exclusively 3
with respect to massing the structure that’s there and then the attached ADU could somehow 4
get around that. So, I think that that requirement allowing it to be attached would not result in 5
the offensive massing concerns that one could have but I would suggest that I would except 6
that premise. And then if that became… I could encourage adoption of this element and then 7
suggest that if it became a problem we could address it later in our Single-Family Development 8
Guidelines to identify appropriate massing regulations to address it. 9
10
I think we’re taking the Privacy Requirement… so one of the things that was clear to me on 11
the… from the comments, I agree with almost every single comment Commissioner Hechtman 12
made. And one of the astonishing things is that it’s clear to me that you didn’t… and it’s not 13
that you should of… you weren’t there for our last conversation about this but these are almost 14
exactly issues we talked about. We had a discussion about well why would anybody care if 15
there was a very high window for a 12-foot tall, one-level ADU that provided light? Why would 16
we care about privacy if there was no one that could look down through that window into your 17
yard and so I agree with that? I think that the concerns there regarding… again I think we need 18
to amend those privacy requirements to be more realistic and more logical. 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.
1
And then I would suggest, I think that the… reducing the parking requirements for JADUs is also 2
a no brainer and if we’re comfortable with… here’s the thing that happening right now and 3
maybe this is a component of all of the elements. We have a process right now which 4
encourages the development of new homes without ADUs so that they can then obtain a bonus 5
space and create an ADU. And this ties into something else that I’m familiar with which is 6
detached parking requirements that force many homeowners to place their parking… their 7
enclosed garages in the rear of their home. So, our code now has some unique requirements 8
with respect to that and what we’re incentivizing right now is the development of these rear 9
enclosures that then are converted into ADUs. The result is there is no parking because we’ve 10
converted this detached garage which is 500-square feet into a lovely ADU and we no longer 11
have the parking requirement. And what I would suggest is that if we amend our code to 12
encourage the development of ADUs alongside the original development by… this goes to the 13
second area which is expanding the exemption to allow for that. What we will be doing is we 14
will actually be creating more onsite parking if you build your ADU at the same time as the new 15
construction as opposed to back to back which is how we are incentivizing it now. And I know 16
that that’s how it’s executing for a number of people because in a lot of homes rear enclosed 17
covered parking is the exact place they want to build out their new ADU and incorporate that 18
former covered parking. So, if we do that, if for example… if we go to the next slide really quick 19
if we provide a Uniform… this Uniform Exemption then we will be encouraging people to 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
develop both at the same time because they can benefit from it at the time they’re building 1
their original house. And that will actually require them to still have onsite parking because you 2
can’t get plans approved without onsite parking. So, I’m not talking about requiring parking for 3
an ADU, I’m talking about the way our code’s written now we require parking for single-family 4
residences. As soon as you file that permit you can then convert that parking into an ADU. 5
You’ve eliminated parking for the residence, you’ve not provided new parking for the ADU, you 6
are now down a deficit of more than just what you had. And so, if we allow this exemption… if 7
we provide the Uniform Exemption concept then what we’re doing is we’re encouraging people 8
to do both at the same time and then you might actually have a slightly larger home, yes, but 9
you might also have preserved parking which I think would be a worthy result. 10
11
I think with respect to the noise equipment, I agree largely with the rationale in the report that 12
new equipment is significantly quieter and the loudest equipment that we… that is common 13
now like pool equipment wouldn’t apply here. So, we’re… and the type of equipment that 14
would serve an ADU is significantly smaller than the sort of unit 4-ton AC or 5-ton AC that you 15
would have serving a main residence for a 4 or 5 or 7 or 800- square foot ADU. You would have 16
a significantly smaller sized unit and so the likelihood of it being loud is minimized and I think 17
that some of the other things they suggested a sound screen or whatnot. I think those are 18
realistic. 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, and then finally I just want to say that this is exactly a conversation we had at this 1
Commission the last two times. We… I was largely in favor of a deed restriction process that 2
would for example… and by the way, you’re talking about exempting fees. I was suggesting at 3
the time that the spectrum for this discussion should be on one side exempting fees and 4
depending on how much we want this housing, subsidizing the cost of the development. Not 5
simply exempting the fees if, for example, the owner would restrict… would record a deed 6
restriction that would limit their ability to rent the unit to anybody, not on the list of… we a 7
waiting list for low-income rental. And I suggested that we wouldn’t require you to rent to that 8
individual but you couldn’t rent to someone not on the list and we wouldn’t… and that would 9
be the only restriction. If you felt that that lease was going sideways and you needed to exit, 10
you could exit but the next person that you wanted to rent you had to go through that list. You 11
have to open your application to the group of people on that list and so I think that’s an… I 12
think your suggestion is an excellent one. I think there are a lot of components of that that 13
would have to get worked through and so it’s definitely not something that I think we can 14
incorporate into the ordinance that needs to be rewritten today or that we need to recommend 15
today. And so, I would love if Staff would explore that because… and maybe there isn’t an 16
appetite for subsidizing the development but there might be an appetite for not charging the 17
fee which is in essence a form of a subsidy as Commissioner Hechtman mentioned. And I think 18
there are people out there who would say yeah, I would love to rent at the rate… just to be 19
clear by the way you wouldn’t even have to be involved in setting the rental rates because 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.
when your pool is smaller when you can only rent to a smaller pool then the demand is what 1
sets your floor rent. And so, I do think that there are interesting ways that this could be 2
implemented and it would be a first in the nation sort of thing and it’s something that we could 3
really be proud of. That… in that particular case I do think deed restrictions would be 4
appropriate; 35-years, whatever it is, and it would impact following owners. And I’m… I actually 5
don’t think that there’s that many Palo Alto residents who will say wow, this… I can’t afford to 6
do my ADU unless I rent it to the individuals on this list and get subsidized or the exemption. I 7
don’t think there’s that many people who will say I need this exemption or the ADU is a no go. I 8
think they’ll probably say I won’t spend money on marble and I’ll be able to build the ADU and 9
I’ll have to pay this Exemption Fee. But I do think there are Palo Altans who will say I am 10
intentionally deed restricting this so that I can encourage this behavior, this renting to 11
individuals on the low-income housing list and ensuring that future owners of my property will 12
have to do the same. I’m doing that and I think one of the ways you create that story by giving 13
them something for it because otherwise, the deed restriction is a little bit complicated to 14
process. 15
16
Ok and then if we go to the next slide real quick, sorry. 17
18
Ms. Sauls: Before we go to that one I had a question. Just a clarifying [unintelligible] 19
(interrupted) 20
21
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Alcheck: Yeah. 1
2
Ms. Sauls: Number Two, you had talked about making Privacy Requirements I guess more 3
understandable, more clear. Could you maybe clarify what it is that you mean by that because I 4
believe we… at least in the Staff Report indicated that we tried to be putting the three things 5
that we’d be including which would be either [unintelligible] sill windows or having frosted 6
glazing (interrupted) 7
8
Commissioner Alcheck: Yeah so, I… yeah, I can be clearer, I can be clearer. I agree with 9
everything you say in that section about the unlikely possibility of these two-floor units within 10
the 16-foot height limit. I don’t think it’s very likely and I think the 16-foot height limit really is a 11
reflection of an individual property owner’s effort to match the… and this might be the wrong 12
word… the gable or the rake of their roof to the rake of their ADU. I think it’s a little… I 13
shouldn’t say it’s a little awkward because frankly, I have a… I love all forms of architecture. But 14
oftentimes you’ll see an ADU attempt to achieve a maximization of the headspace and then the 15
result is that there isn’t a lot of room to create a roofline that is complimentary to the roofline 16
of their home. And so, imagine that that’s really what the 16-foot height limit’s goal is, right? 17
Not to allow a two-story… two 8-foot stories and so I think the point that Commissioner 18
Hechtman made earlier which is are we over scrutinizing the window placement? Probably 19
because the fencing and the… there are other ways to allow these units to served by more glass 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.
that don’t… that can improve privacy. And I think creating to much focus on window placement 1
is probably unnecessary because you’re talking about… anyways so that was my point. 2
3
And the (interrupted) 4
5
Chair Templeton: Sorry to interject you guys, hold on just a second. Our Chief Planning Official 6
raised her hand. Amy, did you need to interject? 7
8
Ms. French: Yes. I just wanted to bring up time check because (interrupted) 9
10
Chair Templeton: Yes. 11
12
Ms. French: There’s been some indication of interest in continuing this matter. We do still have 13
one more matter that is a second-time item so it may be something the Board [note – 14
Commission] would like to deliberate as far as the agenda. 15
16
Chair Templeton: Yeah, sorry, I think that we do have two more comments that are coming. I 17
would ask everybody to try to keep it tight and if we… I have my eye on the clock here. If we go 18
too much longer I think we would end up continuing it. So please let’s share your thoughts but 19
let’s be a little bit tighter and see if we can come to the action that has been put before 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.
1
Commissioner Alcheck: Ok I’ll try to wrap this up then. I guess my point is that I think that One 2
and Two and Three are all over complicating without real justification. So, if for example there 3
was a real privacy concern, let’s identify what it is and explain it and then see if what you’re 4
doing even addresses it. 5
6
And then if we could go to the next slide real quick and I think there is some… I agree with 7
Commissioner Hechtman about the corner lots getting short shrift. I think actually it’s a 20-foot 8
setback on the front and then 16 on the side. And I would argue that I’ve never quite 9
understood that element and but I wouldn’t be prepared to make a recommendation tonight 10
without more information with respect to that. So, while I do think we should be incorporating 11
Number One here because if we incorporate Number One, we will be eliminating this two-step 12
process that people are going through where they final a new home. And then they convert an 13
ADU because everybody wants this second unit and then they loose parking for both. I think 14
Number One would largely do that. 15
16
And so… and then if I could just make one last comment about the basements which is another 17
conversation we had last time. To me, we already have regulations in place in the City that 18
protect neighboring properties from excavated work. And so, it’s a really unclear area… there’s 19
absolutely no logic to justify the decision not to allow a basement under an ADU. So, for 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.
example… I mean one of the reasons we don’t count the square footage of a basement is 1
because it has no impact if (interrupted) 2
3
Mr. Sauls: Sorry are you talking about Slide 12 or are you still on Slide 10? 4
5
MOTION 6
7
Commissioner Alcheck: I’m talking about regulations not proposed. I wanted to just address 8
Commissioner Hechtman’s comment which is that it’s… we allow basement under houses and 9
we do it in such a way that we can ensure that properties that are adjacent to houses aren’t 10
affected. We could also apply that same code to any basement on the pro… I mean it is. It 11
applies to any basement on the property so you couldn’t just build a basement that’s somehow 12
torn up every… somebody else’s tree. Our basement regulations are significantly stronger than 13
that. And one of the things that I would mention is I also… there doesn’t seem to be any logic 14
for why you couldn’t have an 800-square foot ADU that also has 800-square feet below grade 15
and in essence, is a 1,600-square foot ADU. It’s not clear to me that it is offensive if you can 16
have a 4,000-square foot home and a 4,000-square foot basement and that doesn’t bother 17
anybody. Why would we care if we made an even more appealing ADU that could house maybe 18
a small family? And so, I think that the disallowing basement… basements are expensive and it’s 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.
unlikely that a lot of ADUs will be based… built with basements but disallowing them is not… 1
there’s no logic behind that. 2
3
So I’m going to end with this, I’d like to propose a motion where we recommend to Council 4
Items Number One through Five with the amendment that Item Number Two be… with the 5
suggestion that Staff focus more attention on Item Two to make sure that the suggestions that 6
they have with respect to privacy are identify the real concerns for privacy and demonstrate 7
how those concerns are addressed by the items… the privacy regulations that they are 8
suggesting. And so, I’m not suggesting that there aren’t any privacy concerns you can address, I 9
just think that we need to do a better job there. And I would not include but I would suggest to 10
Chair that I would then later… actually no, I’ll do it. And I would also add Item Number One 11
from the second slide which was providing a Uniform Exemption of ADU to the motion so it 12
would be I guess One through Six. I would recommend that we encourage Council to adopt the 13
recommendations in the Packet with respect to One through Five and Number One on this 14
slide. 15
16
Chair Templeton: Thank you Commissioner Alcheck. Is there a second? 17
18
SECOND 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Templeton: [unintelligible](interrupted) 1
2
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: I have a friendly… sorry (interrupted) 3
4
Chair Templeton: Go ahead. 5
6
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Amendment and (interrupted) 7
8
Chair Templeton: Vice-Chair Roohparvar, go for it. 9
10
FRIENDLY AMENDMENT 11
12
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: I agree with all of… everything that Commissioner Alcheck, I would 13
second it except I also think the idea that Commissioner Hechtman raised about relaxing or 14
providing incentives for development that would be… create affordable housing. Can we 15
somehow include that? Not recommend they do it but flag the idea for them to hear it. Is that 16
part of a friendly amendment? Correct me (interrupted) 17
18
Commissioner Alcheck: I would accept… I would… I would suggest that we make a secondary 19
recommendation… I would suggest that we make this proposal and then I think it would… my 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.
preference would be we could have a second motion that would suggest that we would love for 1
Council to consider directing Staff to review the possibility of deed-restricted incentivization for 2
(interrupted) 3
4
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Affordable housing. 5
6
Commissioner Alcheck: Affordable… subsidizing the development of ADUs for affordable 7
housing. 8
9
FRIENDLY AMENDMENT WITHDRAWN 10
11
SECOND 12
13
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Ok. So, I’ll withdraw and then second your motion. 14
15
Commissioner Alcheck: Ok, thank you. 16
17
Chair Templeton: Ok. I see some hands up. If you would like to respond to this motion please 18
do so. Try and keep it under a minute or so if you can, but just be aware of time. So, I see hands 19
up of Commissioner Lauing and Commissioner Summa. 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: Yeah, so am I now restricted to speak about just the motion because I 2
hadn’t even gone yet. 3
4
Chair Templeton: [unintelligible] you were in line for more so I’m sure you can speak more. Do 5
you want to speak to the motion or do you want to just (interrupted) 6
7
Commissioner Lauing: I would like to end with the… a motion because as I said to begin with I 8
don’t even think we should be doing this tonight. I think we should take it to a motion and a 9
second reading after Staff puts our comments together, makes a few changes, and then it 10
comes back for a second reading. 11
12
Chair Templeton: Alright feel free, you can have more than one minute but try and be 13
(interrupted) 14
15
Commissioner Lauing: So, I just want to… I wanted to go back all the way to Page 2 where we 16
started a long time ago. It was interesting reading that ADU Quarterly Report and I’d like to 17
request again that it comes automatically quarterly to PTC Members in addition to Council. And 18
I just had two questions on that. The first is that it lists all Q3 as still in plan check since October 19
and it also lists processing time as 5-months. Are both of those correct? 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
Mr. Sauls: Yeah so that date includes weekend times. To my understanding, it also includes 2
time that is not spent during plan check review. So, in terms of when you submit a permit to 3
the City, we have 30-days to review it. And then once we provide our comments it’s up to the 4
applicant to resubmit and address those and when you resubmit we have 14-days to review 5
that permit. So, to say that it was 183-days in plan check is definitely not the case because that 6
would mean we have about 10 or 15 review periods and that doesn’t happen. 7
8
Commissioner Lauing: Yeah, so I thought that’s what you meant but I wanted to get that on the 9
record that we’re not making residents wait for 5-months to get approval from us so I’m glad to 10
have you clarify that. 11
12
And then this stuff… these do count for RHNA numbers so I guess I should ask this question 13
quietly which is have we ever done any audits to see what these ADUs are being used for just 14
out of interests? 15
16
Mr. Sauls: No, there’s no system in place for us to verify that they are being used appropriately. 17
18
Commissioner Lauing: So, we don’t know if it’s grandma or a pool house or an art gallery or 19
anything? 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
Mr. Sauls: Correct. 2
3
Commissioner Lauing: So relative to some of the other conversations this could be just a way to 4
extend the FAR of the house. 5
6
I had a number of questions on the interpretations of these rules but I won’t go into that now. I 7
can just send you individual questions about some of the new rules that took effect on the 8
setback and things like that so I won’t go into that. 9
10
I think I understand the first one and there is an intention to not be able to just expand that 11
house with the JADU. Hence you can’t have the doorway and so on. It has to have separate 12
entrances, but it comes back to the point that we’re not going to audit anything. So just like 13
Commissioner Hechtman talked about a stove changing size is after the permits or whatever, 14
we don’t know that a door is not going to be put in between there and so that’s a risk. 15
16
Mr. Sauls: The point having it in there was to be intentional so that on a plan set when a Code 17
Enforcement Officer goes out to see, they would at least… everything being held constant. They 18
would know that there’s not supposed to be some sort of interior passageway. So, if they see 19
one, that would mean that there’s some conflict with what the code requires unless they had 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.
explicatively called that out on their plans as a junior unit which can have an interior between 1
the primary unit and the Junior Accessory Dwelling Unit. 2
3
Commissioner Lauing: A rough-in of a future doorway would be caught is what you’re saying. 4
5
Mr. Sauls: Correct. That is the intention, yes. 6
7
Commissioner Lauing: On the comment about privacy of two-story ADUs, Number Two, I think 8
they should be but I’m quite amenable to how that’s done as long as it’s specified. So, I thought 9
my colleague’s comments there were quite helpful and that it should be protecting just the 10
second floor, not the first. 11
12
The… let’s see, yeah, I agree that unfortunately, parking is the… for eliminating this current 13
restriction on JADUs, less parking is just the pain that we pay for that. And yes, we are still a lot 14
better than San Francisco. 15
16
I’m comfortable with the Staff research on noise-producing equipment. I do think it’s gotten 17
better and as I think Commissioner Alcheck said, there’s no pool noise here. So, it’s not 18
something that’s that severe. 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.
On the deed restriction, maybe Albert could speak about the protection for the tenant that 1
Commissioner Summa raised. I think I understand that there’s some loophole here that could 2
still be a problem and that’s one thing. And the other thing is just protecting a tenant so just so 3
we could get that clarified Albert. 4
5
Mr. Yang: So yeah, the primary function of a deed restriction is to provide notice to a future 6
purchaser of the property. That’s really the only time when it’s going to come up is when 7
someone is doing a title search and they see issues that are related to the deed. A potential 8
tenant is not going to see a deed one way or another and in terms of our enforcement 9
availability, a deed restriction doesn’t have much impact on whether or not… we already have a 10
Municipal Code section that is more than adequate in terms of enabling us to enforce. 11
12
Commissioner Lauing: Right but relevant to a tenant that it’s market price so if they’re month to 13
month and the current owner wants to raise the price, they can do that. 14
15
Mr. Yang: I mean I don’t think that’s something that relates to this deed restriction issue. 16
17
Commissioner Lauing: Ok. That’s all on the main ones. I quite like the creative suggestion from 18
Commissioner Hechtman and I agree that kind of the devil is in the details, but if that could 19
work out and Commissioner Alcheck’s enthusiasm for that, it would be terrific but that does 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.
need deed restriction. I was waiting for you to say that Commissioner Hechtman when you 1
were talking but I think that would be a terrific way to address a chronic problem. That’s all. 2
3
Chair Templeton: Alright thank you Commissioner Lauing. Commissioner Summa and 4
Commissioner Hechtman are next. Will you be speaking to the motion? 5
6
Commissioner Summa: Well, so the process for this evening's meeting was a little unclear. I 7
only spoke to the first five initial ideas. And it was expanded beyond that but I don’t want to go 8
back and waste everyone’s time by insisting I get the same amount of time. I (interrupted) 9
10
Chair Templeton: Your input is never a waste, Commissioner Summa. 11
12
Commissioner Summa: No, no but I just… I don’t want to do that because… but I will say that I 13
have thought a lot about how to achieve more affordable… truly affordable housing in Palo Alto 14
and the area. And I really think in the absence of any information about how these extra square 15
feet are being used, and I like I said I am not judging people for using it for their family. I think 16
that’s very necessary but let’s not confuse the two issues. Real affordable housing is unlikely to 17
be created by this method. We had a speaker tonight, one speaker on this issue. I wonder if he 18
was… he and his wife that he referenced were planning on devoting the JADU and ADU they 19
want to deed-restricted affordable housing. But not… I mean there’s no… and we have so much 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.
of that already informally in Palo Alto where people can’t afford their houses anymore. So, they 1
rent out rooms and they share kitchens and bathrooms. I just don’t see that any surety that this 2
is creating true affordable housing is baked into what we’re doing here. I think it’s a separate 3
conversation I’d love to have some time but I don’t think it belongs here tonight. I don’t think it 4
was agendize tonight and I appreciate the proponents of it in Commissioner Hechtman and 5
Alcheck, but it’s got to be agendize and we have to talk about it separately because it’s a big 6
thorny issue. I’m not even sure our affordable housing provider and manager would find it a 7
possible idea to even pursue because of the… a lot of the specific difficulties with it. I mean it’s 8
less difficult if the owner is not required anymore to live on the property because there’s just… 9
there was a conflict in my mind before having the owner be assigned to somebody from the list; 10
which people wait for years and years to get affordable housing in Palo Alto; decades. And you 11
assign somebody because that’s the only fair way to do it and they’re incompatible. Maybe it’s 12
less problematic since we no longer have the restriction from the state that the owner lives in 13
one but I truly think this is a conversation well worth having on another evening. I cannot 14
support it being thrown in tonight as kind of an added thought with (interrupted) 15
16
Chair Templeton: Yeah and it would be a separate motion but you make a good point. Let’s get 17
Mr. Yang to weigh in on whether it’s in scope or if it would need to be agendize separately. 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. Yang: Yeah since we’re just talking about affordable housing in the context of ADUs, I think 1
that’s properly within scope of this discussion. 2
3
Chair Templeton: Ok, thank you, and thank you for your comments, Commissioner Summa. 4
Commissioner Hechtman, did you want to speak to the motion? 5
6
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah just to the motion. First of all, I’m supportive of the fact that 7
this affordable housing component is not part of the motion. I’m persuaded by… I’m heartened 8
that so many Commissioners are supportive of the concept. I agree it’s a Phase Two item and I 9
would like to know if the Council is interested in pursuing it and so they can direct Staff to do 10
that but I’m fine with it not being in the motion. 11
12
But for the maker of the motion, I was curious as to why Item Two on our current slide, 13
providing 500-square foot First Floor Area Exemption for a JADU is… was excluded from his 14
motion? My reading and Staff’s recommending that that be an additional regulation but it’s not 15
included in the motion. So, I’m looking for a why that is because I’m supportive of it. 16
17
And then on Item Three which is not in the motion either, I just want to make sure I understand 18
from Staff that if it’s not in the motion then what it means is we are going to abide by the 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.
informal HCD guidance which means there’s only one front as I understand it. That HCD doesn’t 1
view… is not consistent with how we view things in our current ordinance. 2
3
Mr. Yang: So, I guess I can’t speak to what Staff’s recommendation ultimately to the Council will 4
be on that issue or if we provide a recommendation. At this time, we were really just looking 5
for feedback from the PTC about how big of a… how important of value is this idea of the 16-6
foot side setback and is this something that the PTC thought that Palo Alto should be fighting 7
for and would be willing to litigate or is it something where we are more willing to 8
compromise? That we’d look at other approaches and I think we’ve gotten that feedback at 9
least from the Commissioners who’ve spoken to the item so thank you. 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. 12
13
Chair Templeton: Alright so Commissioner Alcheck, can you clarify what is included in the 14
motion? So, everything on Slide 9 plus One and what from Slide 10? You’re… is that… go ahead 15
Commissioner Alcheck. No. 16
17
Commissioner Alcheck: I’m not sure if you can hear me but (interrupted) 18
19
Chair Templeton: We got you now. 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
MOTION AMENDED 2
3
Commissioner Alcheck: I was referring… so I… my motion to be more precise, I was referring to 4
including the exemptions in general. So, I actually think the exemption… the Uniform 5
Exemption and the 500-square foot Exemption are so… are very similar and they sort of apply 6
uniformity across the two types of ADUs. So, if it’s alright I suggest to you that the portions of 7
the additional regulations slide that refer to the exemptions, both One and Two, suggest be 8
incorporated into the motion. And I would seek a second from the seconder of that 9
(interrupted) 10
11
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: I’ll second. 12
13
Commissioner Alcheck: Ok, yeah, that’s my bad. I just was probably rushing through it and 14
didn’t think through identifying them both. Its because it was in black. It didn’t pop out so I 15
didn’t… I saw the red and I thought (interrupted) 16
17
Chair Templeton: Alright we’re good, we’re good. 18
19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Alcheck: And I will just say with respect to what Albert just said about secondary 1
street frontages. This is a much more complicated issue and the… I think that we would need to 2
incorporate conversations with even the ARB to understand what would happen if you 3
amended the side setback of 16-feet? What would that do the homes next door that are on a 4
street that are 20-foot setback and what would happen? So, I’m a little nervous that we have to 5
somehow come up with this solution on the fly without an additional review by maybe the ARB 6
or somebody who has a better sense of how this would affect the landscape. 7
8
Chair Templeton: Alright, I would like to comment and then we should vote. I’m prepared to 9
support the Staff recommendation on Slide 9. I’m not sure that the stuff that’s on Slide 10, 11, 10
and 12 are really flushed out enough for me to be wholly comfortable with it. However, based 11
on what that Staff has just mentioned that some of these are conceptual and some of these are 12
ready to go and how it will be presented to Council will be up to Staff. Then I feel a little bit 13
more comfortable with it because they can use discretion to know what is ready to go. 14
15
With that said I’m inclined to support this motion and I think it’s important because we need to 16
clean up the code. And there’s a lot of improvements and some publications that prepared and 17
ready to be put before Council. However, I also agree with what Commissioner Lauing said that 18
there are some deeper conversations that need to be had about the ideas that were brought 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.
forward. And that perhaps if Council so directs those items to come back before us, that we 1
would be prepared to have a more in-depth discussion on those items. 2
3
Mr. Sauls: If I may just quickly to answer your question. We are more (interrupted) 4
5
Chair Templeton: Yes? 6
7
Mr. Sauls: Than capable or readily available to implement on this slide One and Two than we 8
are the other comments or questions about the affordability or deed restricting affordable units 9
and looking maybe more so about the treatment of the secondary street frontages. 10
11
VOTE 12
13
Chair Templeton: Great, that’s very helpful, thank you very much, Mr. Sauls. Ok so let’s do a 14
voice vote. Who will be conducting the voice vote? 15
16
Mr. Nguyen: I can do that. 17
18
Chair Templeton: 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.
Mr. Nguyen: Ok, Commissioner Alcheck (interrupted) 1
2
Commissioner Alcheck: Aye. 3
4
Mr. Nguyen: Is the maker and Commissioner Roohparvar [note -Vice-Chair Roohparvar] is the 5
second, is that correct? 6
7
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Yes, correct. 8
9
Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Hechtman? 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 12
13
Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Lauing? 14
15
Commissioner Lauing: No. 16
17
Mr. Nguyen: Vice-Chair Roohparvar? 18
19
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Yes. 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
Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Summa? 2
3
Commissioner Summa: No. 4
5
Mr. Nguyen: And Chair Templeton? 6
7
Chair Templeton: Yes. 8
9
Mr. Nguyen: Ok I believe the motion carries. 10
11
MOTION PASSED 4(Templeton, Roohparvar, Alcheck, Hechtman) -2 (Summa, Lauing) -0-1 (Riggs 12
absent) 13
14
Chair Templeton: Alright, thank you all. I budgeted myself until 10:00 Ms. French so we just 15
barely made it and (interrupted) 16
17
Commissioner Lauing: Can we speak to our no? 18
19
Chair Templeton: Is there any more discussion? Yes, did you want to speak to your no vote? 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: Yes. 2
3
Chair Templeton: Yes, please do. 4
5
Commissioner Lauing: Thank you. So first of all, as I said at the outset, an ordinance of this 6
magnitude should have a second reading to benefit both Commissioners and the public. 7
Secondly, the Interim Ordinance may not be good but it doesn’t have to be replaced today. It’s 8
in effect until January so we could do a much better job of making our recommendations to 9
Council if we took a little bit more time with it. Flushed out those other items and could get 10
behind it as opposed to all the doubts about it from two no votes and one questionable yes. 11
Thank you. 12
13
Chair Templeton: Thank you Commissioner Lauing. Any other comments on this item before we 14
close? Commissioner Summa. 15
16
Commissioner Alcheck: I think if it’s alright with you I think it’s worth the effort of suggesting or 17
seeing if there’s interest in asking Council to consider directing Staff to work with the Planning 18
Commission to study whether or not we can create an incentive for subsidized… for 19
development of ADUs for affordable housing through some subsidization of fees or something. 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 Templeton: Well we need to make a motion on that or is the discussion sufficient? Staff 2
could you weigh in, please. 3
4
Mr. Sauls: I think in general I think we’ve gotten a good bit of feedback about the direction that 5
PTC wants us to go and having a great analysis about what the impacts would be for doing deed 6
restricting affordable units. I think it could be beneficial if we have some more hands-on work 7
together with it so that way we can craft things more uniformly or at least in similar mindsets. 8
Amy, I don’t know if you wanted to add anything. 9
10
Ms. French: Just that I do think this… these conversations do carry in the Planning Commission 11
minutes to the Council and certainly, their inclination to direct us in some ways could yes, send 12
us in that direction or we could… you know if we have some time before we get to Council to 13
talk more we can do that. Albert, do you have any comments on that? 14
15
Mr. Yang: Yeah, I guess I think that the conversation about affordable units will likely get 16
reflected in the Council Staff Report in the same manner that PTC recommendation form a 17
motion would be reflected in the Staff Report in the same way. 18
19
Commissioner Alcheck: I’m satisfied with that. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Templeton: Ok. 2
3
Commissioner Alcheck: I can withdraw the interest. 4
5
Chair Templeton: Alright, I appreciate it and I appreciate the discussion and the intent of 6
everybody wanting to really make this code as beautiful and smooth as possible. So, it’s… I 7
appreciate that Commissioner Lauing shared his thoughts about that it might benefit from 8
another session with the PTC. Commissioner Summa, did you have anything else to add on this 9
item before we close? 10
11
Commissioner Summa: Oh, I was going to speak to my no vote, thank you. 12
13
Chair Templeton: Yes. 14
15
Commissioner Summa: Well, actually it was Commissioner Hechtman’s idea originally that we 16
take this in a two-step process which Commissioner Lauing agreed with. So just (interrupted) 17
18
Chair Templeton: 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.
Commissioner Summa: Yeah, just to point that out and I think it’s a little challenging to do this 1
on Zoom but I would hope that we could try to make it as organized as possible because I don’t 2
feel like… we started out commenting on one set of things. And then we switched the whole 3
thing and there’s wasn’t… it’s taken a lot of time and… but I don’t feel that I fully got to express 4
myself and that’s nobody’s fault. It’s just it’s a little more challenging being in a Zoom situation. 5
6
As to my no vote, I really don’t feel like… I don’t think we have the information to understand if 7
any or even a small percentage of these units are being actually used for below-market-rate or 8
even rental housing. I suspect a lot of them are going to become home offices because of the 9
COVID crisis and the way people are going to be changing and working at home which is great. 10
I’m not at all against any of those ideas but to insist that we are achieving some sort of housing 11
goal, we just don’t have the data to prove that. And I understand that Staff doesn’t have a way 12
to collect it but if we’re going to pursue that idea we should probably have some better hard 13
data to back it up. Thank you. 14
15
Chair Templeton: Thank you and thank you for sharing your thoughts. We should think about it 16
and maybe Mr. Yang you can chime in on this. We should think about ways that we can capture 17
additional thoughts the Commissioners may want to share with each other after the fact. And 18
just to speak to the organization of the meeting, I think Staff did a really good job of preparing a 19
very complicated Staff Report and presenting it in a way that was digestible. It is still a lot of 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
information, you’re absolutely right, and it is difficult to fit into a discussion when we have two 1
other items that are discussion-worthy on the agenda. So that’s just a note to take forward, 2
that we want to think about that balance as we plan agendas. So that we can have the time to 3
really get all of the discussion and Commissioner Summa, I feel you. I did not get my chance to 4
weigh in very much on this as well. So, I’m glad we were… I was able to provide those air time 5
for the rest of the Commissioners. Ok, so thank you, we’re going to close that agenda, and 6
move onto Agenda Item Number Four which is parking related. 7
8
Commission Action: Alcheck moved, Roohparvar second. Motion passed 4-2 (Lauing and 9
Summa against) 10
11
4. PUBLIC HEARING. Recommendation on an Ordinance Amending Palo Alto Municipal 12
Code Chapters 18.52 and 18.54 Adjusting Parking Stall Requirements to Facilitate 13
EVSE Installation, Parking Substitutions, Parking Lot Re-striping and Maintenance, 14
Compliance with Accessibility Requirements, State Law AB 1100, and Associated 15
Code Clean Up for Consistency with the Above Changes. Environmental Assessment: 16
Exempt pursuant to California Environmental Quality Act Guidelines Sections 15301, 17
15302, 15303, and 15061(b)(3). Zone District: Citywide. For More Information 18
Contact the Project Planner Samuel Gutierrez at samuel.gutierrez@cityofpaloalto.org 19
20
Chair Templeton: See if I can find the entire title to read unless Ms. French has it handy. I think I 21
found it. Ok, parking adjustments to facilitate EV ES installation, ADA compliance, and restriping 22
is Agenda Item Number Four. Who would… is there someone on Staff who wants to read the 23
full title and do the public hearing part or shall I read it? 24
25
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Ms. Amy French, Chief Planning Official: Yes, let me introduce Sam Gutierrez. I believe he might 1
have come before Planning Commission before but perhaps not. 2
3
Chair Templeton: He has, welcome back. 4
5
Ms. French: Alright, Sam is here to present. 6
7
Mr. Sam Gutierrez, Planner: Ok, I believe the Chair requested we read the full title. Should I do 8
that? 9
10
Chair Templeton: Only if it’s required. 11
12
Mr. Gutierrez: I’m not sure. 13
14
Ms. French: I think it's typical that we read that, correct. 15
16
Mr. Albert Yang, Assistant City Attorney: Yeah, it’s typical. It’s not necessarily required. 17
18
Chair Templeton: Go forth Mr. Gutierrez. Please feel free to read the title and then we will 19
move on. 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
Mr. Gutierrez: I will read the full title to keep with the… our standard. So, this is a public 2
hearing, a recommendation on an ordinance amending the Palo Alto Municipal Code Chapters 3
18.52 and 18.54 adjusting Parking Stall Requirements to facilitate EVSE installation, parking 4
substitutions, parking lot re-striping and maintenance and compliance with accessibility 5
requirements, State Law Assembly Bill 1100, and associated code clean up for consistency with 6
the above changes. The environmental assessment is exempt pursuant to the California 7
Environmental Quality Act Guidelines Sections 15301, 15302, 15303, and 15061(b)(3). This 8
would be applicable to the Citywide so it would be applicable in all zoning districts. Ok, I know 9
that was a lot. So, I will move into the Staff presentation right now. One moment while I adjust 10
and share my screen. Ok, so I’m hoping that this displaying correctly for everyone. 11
12
Again, we’re presenting today an ordinance that went through four other PTC before to amend 13
primarily (interrupted) 14
15
Chair Templeton: One… I’m sorry, sorry to interrupt. Is anyone else seeing the presentation? 16
I’m not seeing it. So, the share screen didn’t work, you may have to work with (interrupted) 17
18
Mr. Gutierrez: Ok, thank you for confirming 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.
Chair Templeton: The host to be permitted. Yeah, sorry about that. 1
2
Mr. Gutierrez: Ok, let’s try it again. Is that working now? It looks like it is. 3
4
Chair Templeton: We got it now. 5
6
Mr. Gutierrez: Perfect, thank you for that. So, this is again an ordinance amending PMAC [note 7
– PAMC] 18.52 and 18.54 primarily. These are the parking code sections. Moving into the 8
presentation. 9
10
There’s a number of code update items but I do want to give a general overview of tonight’s 11
presentation on this item. We are going to go through the code updates and the itemized list 12
which then makes the list or the numbering system in the Staff Report where it goes in greater 13
detail for each item. We’ll briefly speak to the timeline overview of how we started this process 14
initially and how did we get to the point that we’re at today. And then of course a summary of 15
each of the seven code changes that Staff is proposing and then a recommendation. 16
17
So, moving onto the code update Items One and Two, Item One reduces standard vehicle 18
parking stall dimensions to allow installation of Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment which is 19
commonly referred to as EVSE. These are the charger for electric cars. Update Two re-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.
establishes and updates a prior code to allow extra bike parking to replace required vehicle 1
parking spaces. Three through Seven, moving to Three, establishing language governing 2
motorcycle parking. Four provides local standards for lot re-striping and maintenance and Five 3
brings local code language in compliance with state requirements and the Americans with 4
Disability Act. Number Six enables parking lot retrofits for accessible parking and EVSE utility 5
equipment and Item Seven adjusts codes associated with the proposed changes and provides 6
internal consistency and clarity within in the amendment chapters of the Municipal Code. 7
8
So, a brief timeline overview, initially this all started with a discussion in front of the PTC in 9
March 3rd, 2019 where we brought to the PTC some issues that Staff had been experiencing 10
when dealing with EVSE permitting and installation. And we wanted to see what the feedback 11
from the PTC would be for some possible solution to explore drafting some ordinances to 12
address that. Then on January 29th, 2020 we had another PTC study where Staff actually had 13
some more detailed suggestions for an ordinance possibilities. We wanted to gather the PTC’s 14
thoughts, concerns, and feedback on those before we refined a draft ordinance which we are 15
bringing forward to you today. Next steps would be moving to Council should the PTC make a 16
recommendation on the draft ordinance as presented tonight. We do have a tentative date of 17
June 22nd of this year to go before the City Council with this… with these ordinance updates. I 18
do want to remind everyone that some of the code updates that we’re proposing are actually 19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
to bring us in line with state law and make sure that our code is consistent with state law in 1
terms of EVSE regulations and accessibility compliance. 2
3
So, moving to the first ordinance or code update is the reduction install size for EVSE. So, this is 4
to address an issue that’s very common when we’re retrofitting for EVSE chargers. The Staff is 5
suggesting that we allow new code or introduce in the code section that allows for minor size 6
reductions. You can see them as an encroachment into the required stall space and this would 7
be for exiting sites. And the reduction install size could be up to 18-inches for these charges, a 8
maximum cap of 10 percent of the required parking stalls or two stalls whichever is greater. 9
And the associated utility equipment that would accompany EVSE chargers such as 10
transformers and switchgear, could also utilize these minor encroachments depending on the 11
parking lot facility design. And here you can see a small image of the example in the green box 12
there. I’m not sure if my curser comes up, the mouse cursor on this screen that I’m sharing. 13
Here you can see an example of an EVSE charger with two cars parked in their standard stalls 14
where the charger itself with the collision protection bollard partially encroaches at the further 15
in corners of the parking stall. Typically, the way the code is written now the… this would result 16
in a loss of space. There is no allowances for these reductions and that’s kind of where Staff was 17
going before. And that’s the example on the far right where we would have restriped, resulted 18
in a loss of space, create this charger parking area striped area, and upon further review and 19
analysis, we found that if we allowed some minor encroachments after looking at different 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.
types of EVSE equipment. That actually it would still work and we wouldn’t have to lose an 1
entire parking stall or several depending on how the parking lot would be. And as Staff 2
developed this code amendment we did want to make it as minimal as processor… less process 3
attentive as we could because these are usually just Building Permits that are coming in only to 4
install chargers. So, to minimize processing time and cost to property owners and tenants, we 5
did develop in the manner which would be more ministerial to allow these minor 6
encroachments into the parking stall. Also, the cap and the allowance for a minimum of two, 7
whichever is great, counts for large parking lots and small parking lots as well. 8
9
Moving on to the second code update and change is the bicycle parking substitution for a car 10
space. This allows for more bicycle parking on sites. The substitution would be eight short term 11
bicycle parking or four long term, typically bike lockers, to replace one car parking space. A 12
substitution would be for extra spaces above what the site is required to provide. Per the code 13
each site, depending on the use based on its square footage, is required to provide an X 14
number of bicycle parking spaces. Just like it would automobiles or loading spaces and this 15
substitution would be in excess of that. It would not be a mechanism to achieve that code 16
minimum. And again, we copy the same logic as the previous code update where we account 17
for large lots and small lots by having a cap of 10 percent and a minimum allowance of two. 18
Again, we want to make this less process of intensive and allow for greater bicycle parking 19
capacity. If somebody has retained space that is frequented a lot by the biking community in 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Palo Alto, we didn’t want to make them go through a more intensive process just to put in 1
some extra bike racks. And then we did put in some provisions that it would need to meet best 2
practices for bicycle parking. It would need to be close to the building. This would not be a case 3
where bicycle racks would be far away from the primary entrances of a building; you know far 4
in the back of a parking lot. And this would be of course something that’s requested by a tenant 5
or a property owner. 6
7
Number Three, motorcycle parking, so in reviewing different jurisdictions, best practices for 8
EVSE, charger installation, something that Staff continuously came across is the use of 9
motorcycle parking. And then the photo example that you see in this slide you’ll see that the 10
motorcycle parking is obviously much smaller. Motorcycle is smaller than the vehicle and it 11
could be used to optimize parking capacity overall in a parking lot where a motorcycle could fit 12
where a standard vehicle or a loading space would not work at all like in the example in the 13
larger photo. [unintelligible] the porkchop area of a parking structure where someone would 14
make that turn to move to the next aisle. A car couldn’t park there but now we have 15
motorcycles that could fit there avoiding the situation in the smaller picture where we have a 16
motorcycle, which at maximum can whole two people, take up an entire space where a car that 17
depending on the size of the car or SUV could fit between four and possible eight people 18
wouldn’t be the best use of that space. So, we did want to establish this because we found that 19
it could be useful in certain circumstances but the new code does not allow motorcycle parking 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.
to be a substitution or counted towards the required parking for a site. It would just be 1
something again to optimize the parking lot as is. 2
3
Moving on to Four, parking lot re-striping and maintenance, this allows for existing facilities to 4
be re-striped for improvements to circulation, meet current parking standards, possibility the 5
City waste management objective for refuse enclosures, and stormwater policies. Often times 6
Staff has encountered sites that have been long-existing, their grandfathered in legal non-7
conforming and it is a strange situation where we have to continuously approve parking lots 8
that don’t have the current code required backup distances or parking stalls or turning radiuses 9
where we could improve circulation overall. So, this allows for some adjustments to be done 10
and possible parking stall loss. As a result, if the end result is improved circulation or we have a 11
location that can actually fit a trash enclosure or a site that’s already built out and existing 12
cannot physically fit one and again that ties into the stormwater policies for the City overall. 13
This… because it is more analytical and would need to be reviewed by several departments, we 14
are suggesting this to be a Director’s Adjustment because it would vary case by case. There 15
would be different situations and different adjustments needed to maybe achieve some of 16
these goals that we’re identifying here. So, this is another avenue to improve just parking lots in 17
general for existing developments with the existing buildings. 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.
Moving onto Number Five, this is state law compliance for accessible parking and EVSE. Again, I 1
mentioned earlier that some of the code updates are required per state law and we’re just 2
aligning with state law and making sure that’s reflected in our code. In particular, Assembly Bill 3
1100 regulates how local jurisdictions would count or calculate EVSE and EVSE ready spaces 4
towards the minimum required parking numbers for a site. Aligning with that would make it so 5
that we have a code section that clearly states that EVSE and EVSE ready parking spaces would 6
count toward our parking numbers as one parking space. We’ve already done this by practice 7
but we wanted to be sure that that was clear in the code. And then the state does require that 8
accessible EV and EV ready spaces do count twice. So, these are your van accessible space or 9
the spaces that have the accessible path of travel adjacent to them. And previously when this 10
was suggested to the PTC, we did suggest for consistency in our we count accessible spaces 11
between the EV and non-EV spaces to align that double-counting, and that seemed to be 12
supported by PTC at the time. So, we are suggesting to have a uniform method for how we 13
calculate accessible parking spaces so there isn’t a different standard and possible ambiguity in 14
the code. Again, this is pretty standard, straight forward update and it would make us align with 15
state law. 16
17
Moving on to Number Six, this local code compliance with accessibility requirements and 18
retrofitting EVSE. There’s certain circumstances where an existing site might be doing some 19
tenant improvements, only internal, and that triggers a certain threshold. That then they have 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.
to require or they’re required to update the site in terms of accessibility. That could be a door 1
width or the door pusher to open the door but in particular for parking lots, this often triggers a 2
requirement to bring whatever accessible spaces, be the… an insufficient number of total or 3
dimensionally insufficient, to current standards. Again, this is a state mandate, so Staff has in 4
practice always allowed this to happen. We don’t really have an avenue to prevent it as it’s 5
required but we did want to formalize that practice in the code. So, this is a part of this allow a 6
minor stall loss as they adjust where perhaps they didn’t have a van accessible space and now 7
they have to have one and that extra hash loading area will take up some spaces. So that is now 8
just codified in this suggested code update. And then the other part of this is its EPASE utilities’ 9
equipment. Earlier I stated that they could take advantage of that minor encroachment but of 10
course, this utility equipment is large. Typically, they take up about a 5-foot by 5-foot space in 11
terms of the physical footprint of the switchgear or transformer that would support the 12
electrical demands of installing these EVSE chargers. And then also the clearances that utilities 13
require to access them and service them. So again, trying to make the process as easy and as 14
simple as possible. We tied another component of this code update to allow for minor stall lots 15
for EVSE utility equipment as shown in that image below where you see these tall cabinets. 16
These are the transformers actually proposed at the Stanford Shopping Center where they have 17
actually more parking than what’s required per code and they have the luxury of being able to 18
lose spaces; whereas pretty much everywhere in the City doesn’t have the ability because they 19
have an overparked situation. But if they want to install EV chargers, where would these 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.
transformers and switchgear go? In some circumstances, you have a building that’s built to 1
basically the property line, and then the parking lot is built to the property lines as well. There 2
isn’t much-landscaped area so the only solution would be to place it in a parking space and that 3
would allow EVSE chargers to be installed. So, this kind of addresses the second half of the EVSE 4
charger issue that we run into where we could get the chargers in but then we have problems 5
with the supportive utility equipment for those chargers. So that’s the premise of this code 6
update and again, this minimizes process and formalizes current practices. And this allows for 7
additional flexibility associated with EVSE installation and this would only be for existing sites, 8
not for new sites or new development excuse me. 9
10
And finally, we have Number Seven, code clean up. This is for minor changes to the code that 11
provide clarification, definitions associated with some of the code language that we’re 12
proposing in this ordinance, and for internal consistency because some of these allowance in 13
stall encroachment or reduction or losses. If we didn’t update other sections of the code we’d 14
have a conflict where they say you cannot reduce the size and whatnot. So, this addresses 15
those situations and also, we found in looking at the code there were some areas that 16
presented possible conflict or ambiguity. For example, it would be downtown Parking Code 17
Section 18.18 along with 18.52. So, we wanted to make sure that since we’re updating a 18
number of sections related to parking, that we address a lot of these ambiguous points 19
throughout the code. So, we are suggesting some internal revisions for consistency purposes. 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 again, we wanted to update the code to provide definitions for EVSE for example which is 1
not referenced currently in the 18.52 or 18. 54 or motorcycle parking for example. That’s also 2
not referenced in the code at all so we have to create these references and definitions to make 3
it clear and a true code update. 4
5
And the recommendation tonight is the Staff recommends that the Planning and 6
Transportation Commission take the following action. Recommend that the City Council adopt 7
the proposed ordinance and Attachment B amending Title 18 of the Zoning Code Chapter 18.52 8
and 18.54 of the Palo Alto Municipal Code and that concludes Staff’s presentation. 9
10
Chair Templeton: Excellent. Thank you, Mr. Gutierrez, for a thorough and detailed and well-11
organized presentation. So, we have seen this material before so that is… should be helpful to 12
the Commissioners. I would encourage folks who want to speak up to raise your hand. Be 13
prepared to limit your comments to 5-minutes or less if possible. Of course, if you have more 14
we can continue. As far as public comment goes, I don’t see any attendees that have signed in 15
for public comment. If you are listening online or on the radio, now would be the time to join 16
the meeting and request to participate in the public comment. So, we’ll let that percolate for a 17
movement and then we will move on. I don’t see any hands raised, so this is an action item. If 18
you don’t have discussion you’re welcome to make a motion. I see Commissioner Lauing. So, 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.
hold on, before you start Commissioner Lauing, I’m going to close public comment and now you 1
may continue. Thank you. 2
3
Commissioner Lauing: Ok, you can hear me? 4
5
Chair Templeton: We can, yes. 6
7
Commissioner Lauing: Ok, I’m going to stay on message tonight and say this is excellent to get a 8
second reading because the improvements here… I’m not speaking to the ordinance but in 9
terms of the content and the things that you even learned about. That’s good because now we 10
have a better thing to recommend to Council. I just have a few very brief questions but 11
otherwise, I’m in total support. 12
13
I just found it curious on the bottom of Page 73 that you couldn’t find anybody else that was 14
doing this in all the other territories that you looked at. Was that surprising to you? 15
16
Mr. Gutierrez: A little, yes because some of the other jurisdictions that I looked at and I looked 17
at some locally. The county actually complied a large report that did an audit of EVSE codes in 18
the Santa Clara County so that was a large research item. And then I spread it out to a couple 19
other Cities that seemed to have similar sustainability goals like the City of Santa Monica for 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.
example and there wasn’t this allowance for encroachment to parking spaces. I do however 1
should mention that no every jurisdiction requires collision protection for the EVSE chargers 2
whereas our Fire Department does require them along with other jurisdictions locally. So, if the 3
bollards are actually eliminated, it does actually help the situation a bit and doesn’t cause much 4
conflict but we do require them. There are legitimate reasons to require that and then that’s 5
where we have not just the unit itself but then these extra vertical barriers that cause 6
problems. So, I think it’s a little bit more complex. 7
8
Commissioner Lauing: On the bike parking, Page 74, is this… I want… is this for inside and/or 9
outside? The bikes are only for outside. 10
11
Mr. Gutierrez: This would be outside so this would actually physically take up a parking space. 12
That’s [unintelligible](interrupted) 13
14
Commissioner Lauing: Right but only for outside parking? 15
16
Mr. Gutierrez: Oh, are you referring to a garage parking perhaps? 17
18
Commissioner Lauing: Yeah, I am. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Gutierrez: The ordinance doesn’t speak specifically to that. It could potentially utilize 1
garage parking if the bicycle parking was near an elevator. Again, mimicking best practices for 2
bicycle parking and then if it is in a garage it’s likely to be a bicycle locker which is what’s 3
typically allowed in garage parking. 4
5
Commissioner Lauing: If there’s any ambiguity there in terms of enforcing it you might want to 6
clarify but that’s up to you guys. And is it… does it require either racks or containers, whatever 7
those are called? Bike lockers. 8
9
Mr. Gutierrez: So, it really leaves it a bit more open-ended so it depends on the use. So, for 10
example, a retailer would want racks. 11
12
Commissioner Lauing: Let me make sure you understand my question. Could you leave it with 13
nothing or you have to put something there to designate it as a bike space? 14
15
Mr. Gutierrez: It needs a rack. It would need a rack or a locker, yes. 16
17
Commissioner Lauing: Because otherwise, it could just be a secret parking space. 18
19
Mr. Gutierrez: Right. 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: That’s what I was checking on. 2
3
Mr. Gutierrez: Got it. 4
5
Commissioner Lauing: Ok and I think that’s it. That’s it, thank you. 6
7
Chair Templeton: Thank you very much. I saw Commissioner Summa’s hand. Did you still want 8
to talk or was your question addressed? 9
10
Commissioner Summa: Sure, thank you very much. So (interrupted) 11
12
Chair Templeton: Of course. 13
14
Commissioner Summa: Just a few quick questions and one is I know we want to encourage 15
bicycle use but I really wonder about trading bicycle parking spots for vehicle parking spots. 16
Especially downtown where there are so many different exceptions to vehicle parking that kind 17
of add up and have contributed to the need for parking in the neighborhoods by commuter 18
parkers. So that’s my first question and that’s about Number Two basically. 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.
And then Number Three, I was wondering… this is kind of the flip side of bike parking, I was 1
wondering what the need for motorcycle parking was because I’m wondering if there’s not 2
more of a need in those little interstitial spaces that aren’t big enough for cars in parking 3
structures. If there’s not more of a need for bicycle parking, I just don’t know how much there… 4
demand there is for motorcycle parking. It’s just a question I had thought about. 5
6
And then finally… and the rest of this is great bringing us to speed with state law, thank you. 7
And then on Number Seven which is the downtown code cleanup, there was a mention in the 8
Staff Report that there were a few discrepancies in the two places in the code that deal with 9
downtown. That didn’t have to do… I was wondering if just all of the discrepancies had to do 10
with these EVSE issues or if there were other discrepancies? I couldn’t quite compare those two 11
places in the code. So just quickly if there are any other areas where there was… there were 12
discrepancies in between… internally in the code between the CD parking rules? 13
14
Mr. Gutierrez: Sure, so in the downtown parking regulation section it basically mimicked what 15
was in 18.52 except that it was worded slightly differently. If you glanced at it you’re correct, it 16
would be difficult to see the difference but you’d really have to read it in great detail to really 17
see that they use slightly different verbiage which ran a little conflict. Albert actually found this 18
conflict in the code and suggested that we clean it up. So maybe Albert could speak a little bit 19
more to it. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Mr. Yang: I can provide a little bit more detail about the areas where there were minor 2
differences between what was in 18.18 and what was in 18.52. One of them was… I’ll just go 3
through each one. One of them was where there was a reference… a cross-reference to 4
another part of the code, but just numbers had been mistyped. One of them was where there 5
was a typo where there was a number missing and so the sentence didn’t make as much sense. 6
Another section where there was just a difference in wording and one phraseology was clearer 7
than the other so we went with the clearer version. And then, let me see if I can pull this up and 8
I can just share my screen because that’s probably the easiest way to go with it. 9
10
Commissioner Summa: So, where I’m going here is because of the sensitivity about parking 11
issues downtown and the concern from a lot of people that there’s already a lot of reductions. I 12
just wanted to make sure we’re not throwing out a baby in the bathwater. I just want to make 13
sure we’re not getting rid of a parking restriction that we need in other words. 14
15
Mr. Yang: I guess I can say going from having two sections saying basically the same thing to 16
one section. We’ve really just tried to clean up of typos and that sort of issue. 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.
Commissioner Summa: Ok, that’s all I wanted to know. I mean I read it and read it and read it 1
and read it and I thought oh, this word is in a different place here versus there. So, it didn’t 2
seem substantive to me so that was my only concern. 3
4
Mr. Gutierrez: Right and then to answer your question about motorcycle parking. Again, that’s 5
something that I ended up coming across in researching other jurisdictions and as my… in my 6
time at the Development Center and counter in my early years with the City. This would come 7
up but I would have to tell people there is no… we can’t approve this. We don’t have… it 8
doesn’t exist in our code so essentially, they would have to use a standard parking stall to park 9
motorcycles. Which again isn’t the best use of that standard stall so that’s why I… we thought it 10
was a good idea to introduce it into the code where we could utilize these leftover areas of 11
parking lots to facilitate a space for smaller motorcycles. 12
13
Commissioner Summa: Yep seems like a good idea. I was… and down the road, if they’re not 14
being used by motorcycles I guess we could change it to bikes because (interrupted) 15
16
Mr. Gutierrez: Correct. 17
18
Commissioner Summa: It almost seems like we might have more need for that so thank you 19
very much. 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
Mr. Gutierrez: Sure. 2
3
Chair Templeton: Thank you, Commissioner Summa. Commissioner Hechtman. 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you and Chair Templeton I will try my best to keep myself to 6
my… to 5-minutes but no promises. 7
8
Chair Templeton: That’s all we ask, thank you. 9
10
Commissioner Hechtman: First of all, I want to say I’m guided on this item really by part of the 11
discussion we had earlier tonight about the RPPs and the recognition that every time we lose a 12
parking space in a parking lot, that puts some pressure on whoever would have parked in that 13
space, to park somewhere else and some of those people eventually are going to look for a 14
permit to park in a residence… a residential area. And so, I don’t think we should be easily 15
surrendering existing parking spaces. So, looking at the… your seven categories which are tied 16
and I thought the Staff Report really nicely laid things out. Your seven categories are really tied 17
to specific provisions of the new ordinance or the… that you’re proposing and so I just want to 18
use your numbering and go through those. 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, Item One, which is reducing the stalls… the stall size for EVAs [note-EVSE] 10 percent or two 1
stalls, which is greater. I’m supportive of Staff recommendation there. 2
3
Item Two, the substitute for bike parking which is in 18.52.045 sub B, so this is one we talked 4
about last time. And I gave the effort… the example of the Ross Road YMCA which on both sides 5
of the entry has great off parking lot, on-site bike parking. And my question then and is today is 6
why wouldn’t we make it a prerequisite for someone who wants to convert an existing car 7
parking space into bike spaces to demonstrate first that there is no place on the property off 8
the parking lot near the entrances that would be equally suitable? And I actually would like that 9
to be a prerequisite to converting an existing space into a space for either four or eight short-10
term long-term spaces. I’d like to see that language in that subpart. 11
12
Item Three, motorcycle parking, I like the idea of using these little odd areas but I don’t 13
understand why we wouldn’t allow some number of paired motorcycle spaces to replace 14
parking spaces. For example, 5 percent of the total spaces or two parking spaces whichever is 15
greater. While I understand that it would be nice, it's possible that automobile parking in the 16
space brought four people. The more realistic scenario is it just brought one and in that one 17
space, we could have two motorcycles that definitionally would have led to at least two people. 18
And so, I don’t understand so I would… I don’t feel strongly about this but it seems like we 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.
could be promoting fuel efficiency if we would allow some small number of parking spaces to 1
be replaced with two motorcycle spaces. 2
3
Item Four, maintenance of existing parking spaces, now the slide that Sam showed… so the real 4
issue here isn’t whether you should re-stripe. Of course, I don’t have an issue with that. The 5
issue is whether in re-striping we’re going to reduce the number of parking spaces and while 6
the slide that was shown said that it could result in a minor reduction in parking spaces, when 7
you look at the code language that proposed, it's not limited to minor reductions. It’s the 8
Director who can reduce the number of parking spaces for the following reasons. And I’ve got 9
no problem with any of those reasons except as I did the last time this idea of making 10
improvements to onsite circulation because I can go to virtually any parking lot and if you let 11
me take out two spaces to widen the drive isle, I will have improved the onsite circulation. So, 12
we basically are giving people potentially a free pass to take away parking spaces under the 13
guise of improving circulation. It's too vague, so last time I had suggested you want to tether 14
that something else, fine, but that hasn’t happened. And so, my request would be that we 15
delete that. That is not a justification just to improve on-site circulation. If it can’t be connected 16
to something else then my feeling is it’s too vague and we’ll lose parking spaces where… and 17
these are existing parking lots where circulation has somehow made it this far. 18
19
Item Five, the ADA parking, I’m supportive of that. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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
Item Six, the parking lot re-striping, this is really about where EVAs [note -EVSE] equipment has 2
no place to go. The language I didn’t like here and I never like is in this Section 18.52.045(a), it 3
says to the maximum extent feasible. To me, that is an undesirable standard because it sets the 4
bar too high. We need people who are making use of our ordinance to act reasonably, not 5
extremely, and so what I’d like to see there to the extent reasonably feasible rather than to the 6
maximum extent feasible. 7
8
And then the last Item Seven, code clean up, in 18.52.080 subpart G, there’s this same make 9
improvements to onsite circulation. Again, its parallel code clean up but to the extent, we 10
change the earlier version of that. I think this one needs to follow suit. Those are my comments. 11
Thank you Staff for a concise report. 12
13
Chair Templeton: Thank you Commissioner Hechtman for speeding through all of that meaty 14
content. I don’t want to put you on the spot so it’s ok if you don’t have an answer for this but 15
on your comments on Item Five. Did you have suggested alternate wording that would provide 16
the restrictions that you’re looking for? 17
18
Commissioner Hechtman: Item Five was the ADA parking, I was in agreement with Staff’s 19
recommendation. Do you mean (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 Templeton: Oh, that was Six and five was one about improving flow. Losing a space if you 2
improve the flow. 3
4
Commissioner Hechtman: Oh, the circulation. 5
6
Chair Templeton: Yes. 7
8
Commissioner Hechtman: My recommendation at this point is just to remove that. 9
10
Chair Templeton: I see. 11
12
Commissioner Hechtman: So, remove the reference in… so this is actually Item Four which is 13
18.52.050 it’s… I think it’s in Table 4. Make improvements to onsite circulation. My 14
recommendation would be to delete that. Again, I think it’s important but it’s just going to 15
stand alone it’s subject to abuse. 16
17
Chair Templeton: Mr. Gutierrez would you like to speak to this concern. I’d be interested to 18
hear your thoughts on the abuse concern. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Gutierrez: Yeah, I’m… as Staff, I’m not quite seeing your concern on it being abused and just 1
eliminating parking because this would be for existing development. This wouldn’t be for new 2
and if they have to reduce parking in most cases the property owners and tenants don’t want to 3
do that. We’re talking about an instance that we know that perhaps there is a problem. The 4
backup distance is very narrow and it causes an issue. So, it would be in a special case and again 5
that’s why we suggested a Director’s adjustment because it would be analyzed by the Office of 6
Transportation. We found that there is a potential hazard, then that’s what we were trying to 7
get at where we could correct that. I Director’s adjustment doesn’t mean you are automatically 8
granted it. That’s where the analysis comes in and if we find that it’s not necessary. Yes, it’s 9
maybe undersized or a turning radius isn’t quite up to par with today’s code but it still pencils 10
out from a transportation engineering standpoint. Then we wouldn’t grant that in that 11
circumstance. 12
13
Mr. Yang: I guess I’ll just add-in, I think that this is something that we can take a closer look at 14
and especially because we do still have that reference in there to allowing this adjustment to 15
bring the lot into compliance with current standards. And so that might actually encompass all 16
the potential circulation improvements that we’d be interested in but we’ll take a closer look at 17
it. 18
19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Hechtman: Or actually Mr. Gutierrez your reference to eliminating a potential 1
hazard. Even that alone I think would be an improvement, right? Improving onsite circulation as 2
necessary to remove a potential hazard. Something like that, that again it tethers it so the… I 3
think the kind of intent that Staff had. 4
5
Mr. Gutierrez: Understood. I think I understand now. 6
7
Chair Templeton: Alright thank you all who have comments. Raised your hand if you had 8
anything to add to this discussion or if you wish to make a motion. Commissioner Hechtman. 9
10
MOTION 11
12
Commissioner Hechtman: So, I suppose I’ll have to put my motion where my mouth is and I will 13
move approval of Staff recommendation with the following revisions. And will it… let me just 14
try to work through it and see if it’s clear enough. If not, we can clean it up. 15
16
Chair Templeton: Before you start may I interject and ask Mr. Gutierrez to display the Staff 17
recommendation again on his shared screen. I think that would be helpful, thank you. 18
19
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 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
Mr. Gutierrez: Yes, one moment. Whoops. 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: You can go back there. 4
5
Mr. Gutierrez: I skipped around. One moment while I pull that up. Here we are. 6
7
Commissioner Hechtman: Ok, are you waiting for me? 8
9
Chair Templeton: Yes, you’re on. 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: Ok, alright, so moving the Staff recommendation with the following 12
revisions regarding Category Two in Section 18.52.045 subpart B, a requirement that the 13
applicant first demonstrates that there is no available area on the property off the parking lot 14
near the… reasonably near the entrance to provide the bicycle parking. And I would leave it to 15
Staff to craft better language to fulfill that purpose. Second change would be in Item Four, 16
18.52.050 Table 4, the language makes improvements to onsite circulation. I would add to that 17
to the extent necessary to reduce a hazardous condition. Item Five is fine. Item Six, which is 18
18.52.045 subpart A, replace maximum extent feasible with the [unintelligible- audio 19
disturbance] extent reasonably feasible. Subpart G, make the same improvement… sorry, make 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
the same addition to the language make improvements to onsite circulation. And I left out the 1
motorcycle parking, I think it is more complicated… a more complicated issue may be to be 2
taken up sometimes in the future. So that’s the motion. 3
4
Chair Templeton: Thank you. Any seconder? I see Commissioner Summa’s hand. 5
6
FRIENDLY AMENDMENT 7
8
Commissioner Summa: So, I have a question for the maker of the motion. I… if I would willing 9
second this but I was wondering if you would on Item Two, I won’t repeat the code, but if… I 10
would say if you could make it conditional on finding a substitution place rather than… like it 11
wouldn’t be allowed to remove parking spots. It would just find… I mean to me sure, they 12
should look for a better space than removing a parking spot because of the paucity of parking 13
spots. But it’s kind of weak because it allows them to do it if they can’t find another place and in 14
existing buildings and parking lots that’s probably not going to be very possible. So, I would 15
second this motion if we can make Number Two stronger. 16
17
Commissioner Hechtman: So, I’m hesitant to do that because I think there will be situation… I 18
want to preserve some flexibility to the Director to make these calls. My idea for this language 19
would be to give the Director guidance as to this first step but there will be situations where I 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
think there won’t be a place. And so, then it will be appropriate to move to step two so I would 1
decline that friendly amendment. 2
3
Commissioner Summa: Ok. 4
5
SECOND 6
7
Commissioner Alcheck: I’m happy to second (interrupted) 8
9
Chair Templeton: Thank you for bringing that up. 10
11
Commissioner Alcheck: The amendment… I’m happy to second the motion. 12
13
Chair Templeton: Thank you Commissioner Alcheck. Any other comments? 14
15
Mr. Yang: Can I ask one clarifying question? 16
17
Chair Templeton: Please. 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. Yang: So, Commissioner Hechtman, your last comment suggested to me that if a developer 1
or a property owner were able to show that there were, make that showing, there’s no other 2
location on the lot where you could have the bike parking, that you would still want then the 3
next steps to be a discretionary decision by the Director as opposed to a ministerial approval of 4
the substitution. And I just want to confirm that that’s the thought. 5
6
Commissioner Hechtman: I’m taking a quick look at the language of that code section in the 7
Staff Report because I wasn’t really intending to add more layers to discretion. I thought that 8
this was already in there. Hold on a minute, I’m looking right now. 9
10
Mr. Yang: Ok, yeah, I can clarify, it’s currently set up as a ministerial action. 11
12
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. So, I’m comfortable (interrupted) 13
14
Chair Templeton: Please share page numbers. 15
16
Commissioner Hechtman: Page… sorry… Packet Page 74, it’s the code language towards the 17
bottom of the page and as a practical matter, I think by inserting language along the lines that 18
I’ve suggested will… it creates a discretionary determination by Staff to see if there is a place or 19
not where things can go. So, I… and I’m comfortable with that. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Mr. Yang: Great, thank you. 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: So, no other change. 4
5
6
Chair Templeton: Yeah, I think he was just clarifying and to make sure I understand it. Your 7
adjustment is that if the bicycle parking can be sufficient not in the parking lot itself, that would 8
be ok with you. Is that what you’re seeking? 9
10
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes, they have to show that they can’t do it outside the parking lot 11
before they can take up a parking space. 12
13
Chair Templeton: Right, ok, yeah ok. I don’t see any hands raised. I will speak in favor of this 14
motion. I really appreciate all the work that Mr. Gutierrez has done to tidy things up and 15
incorporation with other members of Staff. So, thank you, everyone, who contributed to this. I 16
think anything we can do to improve more fuel-efficient vehicles being welcome in parking lots, 17
as strange as that may sound, it’s good. So, I appreciate this and I’m inclined to support it so 18
thank you. Any other thoughts before we take a vote? 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Yang: I’m sorry, do we have a second? 1
2
Chair Templeton: We did. 3
4
Mr. Yang: Oh, ok. Sorry. 5
6
Chair Templeton: Commissioner Alcheck. 7
8
Mr. Yang: Sorry I missed that. 9
10
VOTE 11
12
Chair Templeton: No problem. A good thing to check. Alright, let’s take a voice vote, please. Mr. 13
Nguyen. 14
15
Mr. Vinh Nguyen, Admin Associate III: Yes, Commissioner Alcheck? 16
17
Commissioner Alcheck: Aye. 18
19
Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Hechtman? 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 Hechtman: Aye. 2
3
Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Lauing? 4
5
Commissioner Lauing: Yes. 6
7
Mr. Nguyen: Vice-Chair Roohparvar? 8
9
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Aye. 10
11
Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Summa? Commissioner Summa? 12
13
Commissioner Summa: Sorry, I forgot to unmute, no. 14
15
Mr. Nguyen: And Chair Templeton? 16
17
Chair Templeton: Yes. 18
19
Mr. Nguyen: Ok the motion passes. Thank you. 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
MOTION PASSED 5(Templeton, Roohparvar, Lauing, Alcheck, Hechtman) -1 (Summa)-1 (Riggs 2
absent) 3
4
Chair Templeton: Alright thank you all for a good discussion and we hit our 30-minute target so 5
good job, everybody. 6
7
Commission Action: Hechtman moved, Alcheck second. Motion passes 5-1 (Summa against) 8
9
Approval of Minutes 10
Public Comment is Permitted. Five (5) minutes per speaker.1,3 11
5. April 29, 2020 Draft PTC Meeting Minutes 12
13
Chair Templeton: So, let’s move onto the next agenda item which I believe is minutes if I can 14
find the… yes. Would anyone like to discuss the minutes? Welcome, Ms. Tanner. 15
16
Ms. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director of Planning: Hello. 17
18
Chair Templeton: Hi. 19
20
Ms. Tanner: I finished my obligations, I figured I’d just zoom in and see how things were going. 21
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Templeton: Awe, we’re still here. So, there were minutes that were circulated, there were 2
adjustments that were shared as well through Commissioner Hechtman, so would anyone like 3
to move that we approve the minutes? 4
5
MOTION 6
7
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: I’ll move that we approve the minutes. 8
9
SECOND 10
11
Commissioner Alcheck: Second. 12
13
VOTE 14
15
Chair Templeton: Who did the second? Alright, so it was moved to approve the minutes by 16
Vice-Chair Roohparvar and seconded by Commissioner Alcheck. Shall we do a voice vote? 17
18
Mr. Vinh Nguyen, Admin Associate III: Yes. Commissioner Alcheck? 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Alcheck: Aye. 1
2
Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Hechtman? 3
4
Commissioner Hechtman: Aye. 5
6
Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Lauing? 7
8
Commissioner Lauing: Yes. 9
10
Mr. Nguyen: Vice-Chair Roohparvar? 11
12
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Aye. 13
14
Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Summa? 15
16
Commissioner Summa: Yes. 17
18
Mr. Nguyen: And Chair Templeton? 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Templeton: Yes. 1
2
Mr. Nguyen: The motion carries thank you. 3
4
MOTION PASSED 6(Templeton, Roohparvar, Summa, Lauing, Alcheck, Hechtman)-0-1(Riggs 5
absent) 6
7
Chair Templeton: Excellent. Thank you, everybody, we’re almost done. I appreciate everyone 8
hanging in there for a very full evening of discussion. 9
10
Commission Action: Roohparvar moved, Alcheck second. Motion passed 6-0 11
Committee Items 12
Chair Templeton: Committee items? Please raise your hand if you have anything to share from 13
Committees? 14
15
Commissioner Summa: Well I’m… since Rachael joined us maybe she’d like to briefly debrief us 16
on the NVCAP meeting last night. 17
18
Ms. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director of Planning: Thank you, Commissioner Summa. We had 19
our first virtual NVCAP last evening. I think it went pretty well. [unintelligible] lasted over a time 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.
but I will say it did not feel long to me which either means I really am drinking the cool aide or it 1
was a really great meeting. So hopefully everyone felt the same way as I did; really good 2
discussion just hearing from folks. You may remember when we were with you last time we 3
sent to you some of the designs of alternatives that some of the working group members had 4
made in the email follow up. And so, we got to discuss those and just hear from folks what they 5
liked about folk’s submissions, what they thought could be improved and I know I learned a lot 6
and it was just a really good discourse. So, we’re looking forward to next month. We’re going to 7
break up into some smaller groups because we’re a large group of 14 so we’re going to have 8
some smaller group meetings in order to hopefully facilitate some more discussion and getting 9
to really two alternatives. So, I’m taking all of these different ideas and kind of can be put them 10
into two alternatives and hopefully come back together as a larger group in July to talk about 11
that. So, we should be coming back towards PTC in the fall as we really begin to refine those 12
and get towards choosing the one preferred alternative ultimately later this year. And I don’t 13
know, Commissioner Summa, you had any color you wanted to add from your perspective from 14
yesterday’s meeting? 15
16
Commissioner Summa: Not really. I mean I was wondering if we’re going to hear again from the 17
creek… the hydrologist consultants actually? 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.
Ms. Tanner: Yeah so, he’s working on a final report for that, and part of that is working with 1
other agencies to get them to look at the report and give it their blessing or input. So hopefully 2
we’ll hear from him later this summer. 3
4
Commissioner Summa: Ok. 5
6
Chair Templeton: Excellent, thank you for that update. 7
Commissioner Questions, Comments or Announcements 8
Chair Templeton: Moving onto Commissioner questions, comments, announcements, and the 9
future agenda items. Ms. Tanner, when is our next meeting, and what is agendize? 10
11
Ms. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director of Planning: Our next meeting is June 10th. We will be 12
bringing forward a discussion about below market rate policy and that should be a rich item. 13
We will also have the annual look the Planning Commission does at our Capital Improvement 14
Projects and their conformance with the General Plan. So, we’ll have those two items. 15
16
Chair Templeton: Excellent. Alright, anybody have any absences, big trips? Gets me every time, 17
I’m so sorry everybody. 18
19
Ms. Tanner: I’ll have one. [unintelligible] be taking a vacation even if it’s just at home. 20
Page 195
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Summa: I’ll add one little thing about the NVCAP meeting. There was one 2
submission by members of the working group that contained a completely new and novel idea 3
for funding affordable housing projects which is interesting to look at and that is Option M. It 4
was very different than the other options in case you guys are interested. 5
6
Chair Templeton: Yeah, I’m interested in hearing more about that. Would I find that on the 7
NVCAP website or? 8
9
Commissioner Summa: You would. 10
11
Chair Templeton: Alright. 12
13
Ms. Tanner: It is there. If you look at the Packet from yesterday’s meeting you’ll find it. 14
15
Chair Templeton: Alright I’ll take a look. Alright anything else under questions, comments, 16
announcements, and future agenda items? Going once, going twice. Thank you all for hanging 17
in there. I know it’s past my bedtime. I’m sure everyone else is ready to get off of this call as 18
well so thank you to the Staff, thank you to the public who called in earlier, and to all the 19
Commissioners. Good night. This meeting is adjourned. 20
Page 196
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Adjournment 1
11:07 pm 2