HomeMy WebLinkAbout2020-08-12 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: August 12, 2020 2
Virtual Meeting 3
6:00 PM 4
5
Call to Order / Roll Call 6
Approximately 6:03 pm 7
Chair Templeton: Alright, I will start by reading the meeting script, and then we’ll do roll call. 8
Does that sound good? 9
10
Ms. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director: Sounds great. 11
12
Chair Templeton: Ok. Pursuant to the California Governor’s Executive Order N-29-20, this 13
meeting will be held by virtual teleconference only, with no physical location. Spoken 14
comments via a computer will be accepted through the Zoom teleconferencing meeting. To 15
address the Board, go to Zoom.us/join, Meeting ID is 962 7264 8373. When you wish to speak 16
on an agenda item click on raised hand. The moderator will activate and unmute speakers in 17
turn. When called please limit your remarks to the time allotted. 18
19
Spoken public comments using a smartphone will also be accepted through the Zoom mobile 20
application. To offer comments using a regular phone call… oh, using a regular phone call 1-21
669-900-6833, and enter Meeting ID 962 7264 8373. When you wish to speak on an agenda 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.
item hit *9 on the phone so that we know you wish to speak. Alright, thank you and Mr. 1
Nguyen, do you want to do roll call and kick off the meeting? 2
3
Mr. Vinhloc Nguyen, Admin Associate III: Yes. Chair Templeton? 4
5
Chair Templeton: Present. 6
7
Mr. Nguyen: Vice-Chair Roohparvar? 8
9
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Present. 10
11
Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Alcheck? 12
13
Commissioner Alcheck: Present. 14
15
Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Hechtman? 16
17
Commissioner Hechtman: Present. 18
19
Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Lauing? 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: Present. 2
3
Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Riggs? 4
5
Commissioner Riggs: Present. 6
7
Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Summa? 8
9
Commissioner Summa: Present. 10
11
Mr. Nguyen: Ok, everyone is present, thank you. 12
13
Oral Communications 14
The public may speak to any item not on the agenda. Three (3) minutes per speaker.1,2 15
Chair Templeton: Alright so I do see we have a few members of the public here. If you are 16
speaking on an item that is not on the agenda, please raise your hand. If you are speaking on an 17
item, not on the agenda, please raise your hand. Last call if you’re speaking on an item, not on 18
the agenda, please raise your hand. Ok, we do not have any oral communications on un-19
agendize items. So, we will move onto agenda changes, additions, and deletions. 20
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_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
City Official Reports 1
1. Directors Report, Meeting Schedule and Assignments 2
Chair Templeton: Are there any? 3
4
Ms. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director: There are no changes, additions, or deletions. 5
6
Chair Templeton: Excellent. Let’s move on to the City official report. 7
8
Study Session 9
Public Comment is Permitted. Five (5) minutes per speaker.1,3 10
Ms. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director: Good evening Chair Templeton, members of the 11
Planning and Transportation Commission. It's good to see you all even if it's virtual tonight. I 12
just want to give you a few updates and of course available for any questions if you have any 13
about what I report on or just other matters related to planning and transportation. 14
15
For hiring, the Planning and Development Services Department is, fortunately, going to be able 16
to make some hiring due to the budget decisions of the City Council where we are able to bring 17
on a Senior Housing Planner, a Principle Planner, as well as two inspectors for our building 18
work, building inspection work. And so, we have put those postings out, they’ve come back, we 19
have candidates in who we are reviewing and interviewing. And so hopefully in September, I 20
will come back to you with some news and maybe some introductions of our new Staff. So, 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.
we’re very excited about that and just really grateful that we have the resources to do that. And 1
especially with a lot of the items that are coming forward in terms of housing, regional 2
planning, our Housing Element, having a really robust long-range planning team is going to be 3
really important. And so, once we have all that team together we may even just have a portion 4
of this time where I’ll just have all the Staff members come just so you can meet them, get 5
familiar with our new newly assembled. Some members have been with us for a long time, 6
including our new Long Range Planning Manager Claire Campbell who’s been with the City for 7
almost 20-years. So really an asset there, but then we’ll have some brand-new faces so I want 8
to reintroduce our new Long-Range Planning Team when that team is assembled, so very 9
excited about that. 10
11
Building on that we had a busy night at City Council on this Monday. Thank you, Commissioner 12
Summa, for hanging in there. I think we wrapped at like 11:30 I want to say. It was pretty late, 13
not as late as it could be, but it was pretty darn late. And we had the EV charging item which 14
you guys heard in the spring I believe, maybe it was April or May, and got bumped from being 15
heard before the Council’s recess and was heard and unanimously supported. So, again great 16
work to Sam Gutierrez our planner, thank you all for your input and helping us think through 17
how to deal with some of those issues. And we’re excited to hopefully see… it has to go through 18
second reading and then implemented I believe 60-days later, but again on our path helping 19
more EV chargers be in more parking lots as well as some more bike parking for those locations 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 want to provide more opportunity for bike parking. And right now, you probably heard the 1
news that bike sales, bike riding is up. We even were hearing from one of our local bike retailers 2
they cannot stock enough bikes. They are almost sold out of bikes, so really good news for 3
walking and biking going on right now during the pandemic. 4
5
We also had an item regarding Plan Bay Area and the Regional Housing Needs Allocation. A 6
portion of that was heard at the previous Council meeting and the Council did send a letter 7
regarding Plan Bay Area. Comments for Plan Bay Area 2050 on the Draft Blueprint were due 8
today or are due today I believe. So, if you want to get some more… I think you… well actually I 9
think they were due on Monday, I’m sorry. So, hopefully, you were able to take a look at that 10
and opine and the City Council did send a letter which was received. And then on Monday 11
authorized a letter about the Housing Methodology… to the Housing Methodology Committee 12
regarding our preferred methodology for the Regional Housing Needs Allocation. That group, 13
the Housing Methodology Committee, is meeting tomorrow I believe at 10:00 am and so if you 14
want to join you’re able to participate in that meeting via Zoom. And they will continue to… be 15
continuing to discuss the preferred methodology to allocate RHNA to jurisdictions across the 16
Bay Area and they have said that they want to make their decision by the fall. I would say 17
August isn’t technically quite fall, but it’s getting there. So, maybe in September or October at 18
one of their meetings, we will be hearing what the final methodology is and we’ll try to keep 19
you as informed as we can. There is a lot of stuff frequently coming out of ABAG and MTC and 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
we try to both provide it via email, but also these oral updates, but it is rapidly unfolding. And 1
so, we try to give as much up to the minute information as we have. 2
3
We also had a report on the Summer Streets Program which is going to be going into the fall 4
and winter. And so, we’ll be making some adjustments to that to try to get help so that our 5
local retailers, restaurants, and even service providers to be able to provide their services and 6
keep their businesses going outdoors as the pandemic, unfortunately, continues on. 7
8
Lastly, a couple few things, we’ve… in terms of our agenda looking forward, the next meeting 9
will be taking up the Castilleja proposal and the EIR and beginning to chomp through that 10
project and consider that. It also will be going to the Architectural Review Board for a hearing 11
prior to coming to the Planning and Transportation Commission. We anticipate that there may 12
be more than one hearing with Architectural Review Board and likewise, the project will come 13
back to the Planning and Transportation Commission as well. Just a reminder, you may be 14
getting outreach or a request from different groups to… who are related to that project or 15
stakeholders in the Castilleja Project who want to meet with you, which is totally fine. You will 16
want to disclose at that hearing any information that was provided from those persons or those 17
stakeholders that maybe not present and part of the materials. And you don’t want to have any 18
communications that could end up being serial communication between yourselves. If a party 19
wants to relay to you what another Commissioner told them, we don’t really want to have 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.
happening to ensure that there are no Brown Act violations if those meetings are occurring. 1
And after that, we Plan on September 9th to have a couple transportation items before you. So, 2
we’ll be hearing from the Office of Transportation which again has also been very busy as well. 3
4
So those are the updates that I have for you, but I’m available for any questions if you have any. 5
6
Chair Templeton: Thank you very much, Ms. Tanner. Any questions from the Commissioners? 7
8
Commissioner Lauing: I do. 9
10
Chair Templeton: Alright, Commissioner Lauing. 11
12
Commissioner Lauing: Continued great job Rachael and you and the collected Staff monitoring 13
that, getting real data to analyze ongoing decisions. Just superlative efforts and I know it’s the 14
Public Works is also involved in that. 15
16
You referenced or the City Manager did in the Council meeting that there are some expenses 17
that are being occurred and/or lost revenues. Are you actually tracking that too down to the 18
number on a weekly basis or…? I’m quite sure that it’s well worth what we’re doing for 19
expenses but it might be good to know what those are at the end of the project. 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
Ms. Tanner: Yeah, well we did come back with the ongoing calculations regarding what are the 2
expenses that we are incurring. Things that are relatively easy to calculate would be the value 3
of a parking space for example. We know how many parklets we have, how many parking 4
spaces are being taken up, and just to give an example. If a restaurant has three parking spaces 5
they’re taking up and they were occupying those spaces with a parklet for a year. It’s almost 6
$30,000 worth of revenue, so about $27,000 and change. So, it’s a good amount for a small 7
business and then in terms of Permit Fees. The typical Encroachment Permit Fee to have your 8
fee… you permit reviewed is about north of $2,000, but $2,200 and we have had about I would 9
say at least… I think I had calculated it was like 40 or 48. And so it was like $106,000 roughly in 10
Encroachment Permit revenue that we have not collected on. So, those are at least just two 11
basic kind of senses of what we have. 12
13
What we haven’t been tracking is the Staff hours. How much time have Staff been spending on 14
working on things and we just haven’t been tracking them? We’ve just been just been doing it, 15
so we will have… we do anticipate coming back to Council in October. There were a couple 16
items they asked us to come back and give some review and thought too and so we’ll include 17
that revenue impact in that report in a more thorough way. 18
19
Commissioner Lauing: Ok. 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
Ms. Tanner: Thank you again. Yes, lots of Public Works Staff and shout out to Sylvia Star Lack, 2
Office of Transportation, she organized and is organizing our pedestrian and bike count. So 3
really a great job from her. 4
5
Chair Templeton: Excellent. Thank you Commissioner Lauing. Commissioner Summa’s next. 6
7
Commissioner Summa: Oh, hi. I just had a question about I think it was not this Monday, but 8
the Monday before, the City Council decided people needed to stay live in public hearings for 9
them. Instead of putting up your photo and I believe they voted to do that. Does that… I was 10
just wondering if that extents to Boards and Commissions or is that just for the City Council? 11
12
Ms. Tanner: That’s a good question. Albert, are you aware if that has any impact on the Boards 13
and Commission? If that was the intent of that effort? 14
15
Mr. Albert Yang, Assistant City Attorney: So, I’m not familiar with that vote, but we can go back 16
and look at the motion if it specified that it was going to trickle down to the other Boards and 17
Commission or if it was just for the Council. 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: But something that we could do as a body as well is maybe in our next meeting… 1
well maybe not the next one because Castilleja is going to be quite the meaty topic, but we 2
could also do a little bit of a reflection about how things have been going for us in terms of our 3
modes of operating in term of the remote meeting. Especially, since I think we’re all realizing 4
we’re really in this for the long haul possibly in terms of remote meeting. And so, it might be a 5
good time to just do a little tune-up and see how we’re all fairing with that. 6
7
Commissioner Summa: Ok, thank you. 8
9
Ms. Tanner: Great question. 10
11
Chair Templeton: I think… I want to chime in here too. I think it’s a great point Commissioner 12
Summa. I would say that maybe for now we have a practice that you have… if you want to try 13
and maximize the time that you’re on screen, but you can turn it off if you need to refill your 14
water or step away from the computer or something. Use your discretion, but I think it’s… I 15
really enjoy seeing everybody’s faces and I’m sure the public does too. So, to what extent 16
you’re comfortable until we have a chance to have that deeper discussion and vote on it. Just 17
try and be visible so that we can feel like we’re together. That’s a great idea. 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 Riggs: It’s a deal-breaker for me. I don’t like showing people my home, I don’t… I 1
have to eat dinner during this timeframe. I don’t like stuffing my face in front of the public and 2
so if I take a bite I’m going to turn it off. So, to be candid, I won’t participate in meetings if I 3
have to stay on visual the whole time. 4
5
Chair Templeton: Well, let’s have that discussion later, but you don’t have too at all. No one is 6
making you do anything. It was just a best (interrupted) 7
8
Commissioner Riggs: Just put that on the record, I won’t… I will not endorse that and I’m not in 9
favor of that. 10
11
Chair Templeton: Alright, well thanks for chiming in on that. Any other comments for Staff or 12
questions? Alright, let’s move on then to Action Item Two. 13
14
Action Items 15
Public Comment is Permitted. Applicants/Appellant Teams: Fifteen (15) minutes, plus three (3) minutes rebuttal. 16
All others: Five (5) minutes per speaker.1,3 17
18
2. QUASI-JUDICIAL. 4175 Page Mill Road [20PLN-00040]: Request for Site and Design 19
Review to Allow Replacement of Vault Restroom In-situ With Prefabricated CXT Vault 20
Restroom, Installation of American Disabilities Act (ADA) Parking Stalls, and 21
Construction of an ADA Path of Travel, and Minor Grading of an Existing Gravel 22
Parking Lot. Environmental Assessment: Exempt. Zoning District: Open Space (OS). 23
For More Information Contact the Project Planner Emily Foley at 24
emily.foley@cityofpaloalto.org 25
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Templeton: The quasi-judicial hearing on 4175 Page Mill and then just to give everyone a 1
heads up we’ll probably take a small break after that. 2
3
Ms. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director: Excellent, and I would like to say we are right almost on 4
time. It is 6:17 and we wanted to start this at 6:15. We have Emily Foley who is one of our Staff 5
Planners who will be presenting. She was with us as a consultant for a while and recently 6
hired… I guess not so recently anymore. It was almost a year ago, but we were so glad that she 7
decided to join our team. We’re really, really lucky to have her. She’s very sharp, very bright 8
and we also have Jodie Gerhardt, the current Planning Manager, who’s also here as well. And of 9
course, we also have the applicant who we’ll hear from after Ms. Foley’s presentation. So, Emily 10
if you want to share your screen, we’ll have your presentation and I also want to check are the 11
applicants in the panelist section for the open space preserve? 12
13
Ms. Emily Foley, Associate Planner: Yes, they are. 14
15
Ms. Tanner: Great, excellent, and if you can turn your volume up or speak a little bit louder 16
Emily, that would be great. 17
18
Ms. Foley: Ok, good evening Commissioners I am trying to start the presentation. There we go. 19
So, this is the presentation for the Monte Bello Open Space Preserve parking upgrades. 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.
project is located in the Monte Bello Open Space Preserve which is part of the Mid-Peninsula 1
Regional Open Space Preserve. The site is accessed off of Page Mill Road and that entrance is 2
the project site. The overall preserve is 3,436-acres of open space and it provides a variety of 3
activities including hiking, biking, equestrian trails, and camping. It is also connected to other 4
open space preserves that are part of the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space. 5
6
Some background on the project, this is a Site and Design Permit. It requires Planning and 7
Transportation Commission recommendation before going to the City Council on the Consent 8
Calendar. The Zoning Code doesn’t include provisions for certain minor projects to go directly 9
to the City Council, but in this case, because the project is over the threshold for excavation of 10
10-cubic yards. It goes to the Planning Commission. It has had no prior public hearings and 11
another thing to keep in mind for this project is ADA upgrades are non-discretionary in 12
compliance with state laws. 13
14
An overview of the project scope, this is primarily ADA upgrades. They are replacing an existing 15
vault toilet facility and upgrading it from one stall to two stalls as well as making it ADA 16
accessible. They are paving four ADA parking spaces in their existing gravel parking lot as well as 17
paving the sidewalk area that connects the parking spaces to the restroom facility. And 18
additionally, they are doing some minor maintenance type grading of the gravel parking lot. 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.
As you can see this shows the existing and the proposed Site Plan. The proposed Site Plan is 1
zoomed in to show the area of work which is located in the lower right corner of the existing 2
parking lot. As stated they are paving the four accessible parking spaces and replacing the 3
restroom facility more or less in the location of the existing one. The proposed Site Plan also 4
shows the Tree Protection fencing that will be installed around one of the existing trees to 5
comply with the Urban Forestry Requirements. 6
7
This shows the elevations for the proposed restroom facility. It is a pre-cast concrete structure 8
and it is in a neutral brown color scheme that will not detract from the surrounding open space 9
preserve. 10
11
The recommended motion is that the PTC recommends approval of the proposed project to the 12
City Council and that concludes my brief presentation. 13
14
Ms. Tanner: Thank you Ms. Foley and then we have the applicant here as well. Ms. Foley, who 15
are the applicant representatives? 16
17
Ms. Foley: Sean Smith and Leilani H. 18
19
Ms. Tanner: Great and will you be sharing the presentation for 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.
1
Ms. Foley: Yes, I can pull up that up now. 2
3
Ms. Tanner: Great. Great and so Sean and Leilani, if you want to begin your presentation and 4
just let Emily know when you’d like to advance the slides. 5
6
Ms. Jodie Gerhardt, Planning Manager: I think Vinh we brought over Sean, but maybe not Layla 7
[note – Leilani] 8
9
Mr. Sean Smith: Yeah, good evening, thank you all, and thank you Emily for that presentation. 10
11
Ms. Tanner: Great. Vinh, can you promote Layla H. [note – Leilani]. She’s in the attendee’s 12
category right now. 13
14
Mr. Vinhloc Nguyen, Admin Associate III: Got it. 15
16
Ms. Tanner: Great, well we have both of you now and so when you’re ready you can start your 17
presentation. 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. Smith: Great, thank you, and good evening Planning and Transportation Commissioners. 1
My name is Sean Smith, I’m the Capital Project Manager with the Midpeninsula Open Space 2
District, and tonight I will present the district’s Monte Bello Open Space Preserve ADA Barrier 3
Removal Project. 4
5
A little background on the district. The district is an independent special district that has 6
preserved nearly 65,000-acres of public land and manages 26 open space preserves. The 7
district’s mission is to preserve a regional green belt of open space land in perpetuity, protect 8
and restore the natural environment, and provide opportunities for ecologically sensitive public 9
enjoyment and education. [unintelligible - audio cut out] pandemic our preserves have become 10
a much-needed retreat for the mental and physical well being of the Bay Area community. Next 11
slide. 12
13
In May of 2019, the district completed the American with Disabilities Act self-evaluation in 14
Transition Plan Update. This transition plan evaluated the conditions of district facilities and 15
preserves with current ADA codes and standards. From the Transition Plans recommendation, 16
the district created an annual ADA Barrier Removal Project to systematically remove accessible 17
barriers at district facilities and preserves. In general, these projects include modernization of… 18
and ADA upgrades to restrooms, accessible parking and pathways, easy access trails, signs, and 19
other amenities. Within the past 5-years, the district has successfully installed new restrooms 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 improved ADA access at La Honda Creek, Bear Creek Redwoods, and Purisima Creek 1
Redwoods Open Space Preserves. 2
3
For the district’s maiden ADA Barrier Removal Project, Staff prioritized the replacement of 4
three dilapidated restrooms and accessible parking stalls based on input from our Land of 5
Facilities Department. This project includes three sites, Windy Hill Preserve, Russian Ridge 6
Preserve, and our proposed project tonight located at the Monte Bello Open Space Preserve in 7
the City of Palo Alto. 8
9
The Monte Bello main parking area is located directly off Page Mill Road after a short drive west 10
from Interstate 280. Monte Bello is a desirable multi-use preserve and we are optimistic that 11
the proposed project improves facilities and access for the Palo Alto community to safely and 12
responsibly enjoy outdoor recreation. Next slide. 13
14
The Monte Bello improvements include removing the existing dilapidated single stall vault 15
restroom and installing a new double stall ADA and California Building Code Compliant CXP 16
vault restroom. Additionally, the improvements include installing ADA parking stalls and 17
constructing ADA accessible walk paths from the parking stalls to the restrooms. The proposed 18
improvements will provide the required number of ADA parking stalls at the parking site 19
consistent with current ADA requirements and remove a number of ADA barriers identified 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.
the district's ADA Transition Plan. As shown in this slide, the district is replacing the restroom 1
institute which keeps the project’s footprint within the existing parking area. Accessible parking 2
stalls will be consolidated near the restroom and accessible walk paths will facilitate access to 3
the preserve’s features. Installing a vault toilet eliminates trenching for utilities which allow for 4
the lightest touch on the environment. Additionally, a vault toilet is an economical facility which 5
allows the district to self-perform routine maintenance in an orderly and sanitary manner. Next 6
slide. 7
8
As I previously mentioned the district implements a gentle touch on the environment to 9
execute project goals. The restroom is sighted in a manner to blend into the surrounding 10
vegetation and terrain. The building is dressed in natural colors for a delicate influence on the 11
view corridor. As shown in this slide the new restroom will tuck into the gently sloping terrain 12
and is surrounded by existing trees and vegetation. Also, the design studied stormwater quality 13
implications and created a design to minimize the impervious footprint in the parking area. 14
Next slide. 15
16
The CXD double vault restroom is a district standard restroom upgrade to manage increased 17
user capacity and implement an orderly maintenance plan. During the current pandemic, 18
district preserves have experienced a substantial increase in visitor use, and therefore providing 19
a sanitary restroom at the parking area is a necessary resource for our parking areas and 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
preserves to maintain a clean and healthy environment. This slide shows an example of a CXD 1
double vault restroom successfully installed at the district's Bear Creek Redwoods Open Space 2
Preserve. Monte Bello’s proposed new restroom promotes good stewardship of the land by 3
providing a clean and sanitary restroom facility in this popular parking area. In addition, the 4
proposed project and maintenance plan is conditionally approved by the Santa Clara County 5
Department of Environmental Health in accordance with the County Vault Toilet Operating 6
Procedures. Next slide. 7
8
This concludes our presentation for tonight. Thank you all for your consideration of our project 9
this evening. We are optimistic that the proposed improvements are consistent with City and 10
district shared Open Space Land Use Goals to protect, conserve and enhance responsible 11
outdoor recreation use for all visitors at the Monte Bello Open Space Preserve. Thank you for 12
the opportunity to present this evening and I’m happy to answer any questions at this time. 13
14
Ms. Tanner: Thank you, Mr. Smith. I think that concludes the presentations from Staff and the 15
applicant and turn it back to you Chair Templeton. 16
17
Chair Templeton: Alright, thank you, Mr. Smith and Ms. Foley. Commissioners, please raise your 18
hands. I see Commissioner Summa first. 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: Hi, thank you for the presentation and I just really want to thank 1
Midpen [note – Midpeninsula] for upgrading the facilities for persons with disabilities. I think 2
it’s really important that people with disabilities can also use open spaces to the extent that is 3
possible. And I’m very happy to hear about these upgrades and I’m ready… once everybody has 4
had a chance to speak if you need a motion I’d be happy to make one. 5
6
Mr. Smith: Thank you, Commissioner Summa. 7
8
Chair Templeton: Thank you. Any other comments from Commissioners? Commissioner 9
Hechtman. 10
11
Commissioner Riggs: You’re muted, Commissioner Hechtman. 12
13
Commissioner Hechtman: Rusty after a month off. So, I want to thank both Staff and Mr. Smith 14
for the presentations. I have one question for each of you. I guess I’ll start with the Staff 15
question. It was mentioned that the ADA improvements are non-discretionary and I hadn’t seen 16
that in a prior Staff report. And I just want to clarify what that means I think is that some form 17
of these ADA required improvements must be approved, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be 18
this form. Am I right about 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.
Ms. Tanner: So, I think what (interrupted) 1
2
Mr. Albert Yang, Assistant City Attorney: That’s accurate. 3
4
Ms. Tanner: There you go. Thanks, Albert. 5
6
Commissioner Hechtman: Ok, I don’t any issue with these, I just wanted to understand the 7
terminology better. And then the question I had for Mr. Smith is whether your Burial… Barrier 8
Remover… sorry, Barrier Removal Project includes accessibility improvements to any of your 9
trails? 10
11
Mr. Smith: Good question, so this scope of work improves access to the trailhead. This 12
particular project does not include any trail enhancements, but part of our overall district goals 13
in ADA Transition Plan Goal is to identify and locate trails that can be made accessible 14
throughout our preserves districtwide. 15
16
Commissioner Hechtman: Excellent, thank you. Those are my questions. 17
18
Chair Templeton: Alright, thank you very much. Commissioner Lauing is next. 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: Yeah, I had a quick question that was related to that. In terms of the 1
ADA, how long can something go non-compliant from Palo Alto's standpoint? 2
3
Ms. Tanner: Well, I think I’ll… go ahead, Albert. 4
5
Mr. Yang: For public facilities, the requirement in the ADA is for the public agency to prepare a 6
Transition Plan to explain how and when… first to identify barriers and then to explain how and 7
when they plan to address those barriers. Once that Transition Plan is in place your duty is to 8
carry it out, but there’s no specific time limit in which you have to do so. 9
10
Commissioner Lauing: Who’s that report submitted too? 11
12
Mr. Yang: It is just a locally prepared and maintained plan. 13
14
Commissioner Lauing: Ok and then just a quick question about when do you think construction 15
might start if you get the approvals? That’d be to Mr. Smith maybe. 16
17
Mr. Smith: Good question so as we move through the approvals we’d be targeting of a mid to 18
late September mobilization and then total project duration is estimated at [unintelligible – 19
audio cut out] 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
Ms. Tanner: One month? 2
3
Mr. Smith: Yes. 4
5
Ms. Tanner: Excellent. 6
7
Commissioner Lauing: I think that’s a great job what you’re doing up there and just making it 8
more accessible and more inclusive is just wonderful so thanks much. 9
10
Chair Templeton: Alright, thank you Commissioner Lauing. I’m in agreement, I think this is a 11
great project and very excited about it. So, let’s go back to Commissioner Summa for her 12
motion. 13
14
Ms. Tanner: No moment Chair Templeton, did you want to open public comment on the item? 15
16
Chair Templeton: Oh, my goodness. Yes, I would, thank you. Alright, if any of our attendees 17
wanted to speak on this item please raise your hand in the public. If anyone in the public wants 18
to speak on this item please raise your hand and we’ll give a third notice. If anyone in the public 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.
wants to speak on this item please raise your hand now. Alright, we will close public comment. 1
Now to Commissioner Summa. 2
3
MOTION 4
5
Commissioner Summa: Oh, thank you and I’m… thank you again to Staff and Midpen [note- 6
Midpeninsula] for making these improvements and I’m really excited to hear you’re thinking of 7
making some trails that are more ADA accessible. I was really happy the last time I was at Ano 8
Nuevo, I hadn’t been there in a while, but they now have a whole area to get to see the… where 9
you can get to the coast to see the sea lions. That is planked so you could actually go in a 10
wheelchair which I was really happy to hear. So, I am happy to move Staff recommendation on 11
this. 12
13
SECOND 14
15
VOTE 16
17
Chair Templeton: Great, I’m happy to second it. Any further discussion or have you said what 18
you wanted to say about it? Alright, I think I don’t see any more hands so let’s move to a vote, 19
please. Mr. Nguyen. 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: Yes, we’ll take a roll call vote. Commissioner Alcheck? 2
3
Commissioner Alcheck: I support the motion. 4
5
Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Hechtman? 6
7
Commissioner Lauing: Unmute. 8
9
Chair Templeton: I think he’s working on it. 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah, my spacebar did not unmute. Aye. 12
13
Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Lauing. 14
15
Commissioner Lauing: Yes. 16
17
Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Riggs? 18
19
Commissioner Riggs: Aye. 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: Vice-Chair Roohparvar? 2
3
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Yes. 4
5
Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Summa? 6
7
Commissioner Summa: Yes. 8
9
Mr. Nguyen: Chair Templeton? 10
11
Chair Templeton: Yes. 12
13
Mr. Nguyen: The motion carries 7-0. Thank you. 14
15
MOTION PASSED 7(Alcheck, Lauing, Hechtman, Riggs, Roohparvar, Templeton)-0 16
17
Chair Templeton: Excellent. Alright thank you everybody and thank you again to Staff for the 18
presentations and to the applicant. It was very helpful. Ok moving onto Agenda Item Number 19
Three. 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
Commission Action: Moved by Summa, Seconded by Templeton. 7-0 vote 2
3
3. PUBLIC HEARING / QUASI-JUDICIAL / LEGISLATIVE. 788 San Antonio Road [19PLN-4
00079]: Recommendation on Applicant’s Request for a Comprehensive Plan 5
Amendment, Zoning Text Amendments for the Site and Adjacent CS (Service 6
Commercial) Zoning District Properties Between Middlefield Road and East 7
Charleston Road including 1) Applying the Housing Incentive Program; 2) Allowing 8
Rooftop Gardens as Open Space; and 3) Exempting Certain Retail Floor Area from 9
Parking. The Request Also Includes Citywide Zoning Text Amendments to the 10
Definition of Gross Floor Area and Exemptions from Retail Preservation. Applicant 11
Also Seeks a One Lot Subdivision for 102 Condominium Units and a Variance To Allow 12
a Protrusion Into the 24-Foot Special Setback Along San Antonio Road. Environmental 13
Assessment: Environmental Impact Report was Circulated for Public Comment From 14
July 31, 2020 to September 14, 2020. Zoning District: CS. 15
Chair Templeton: A public hearing, quasi-judicial, legislative item on 788 San Antonio Road. 16
17
Ms. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director: Excellent. Thank you, Chair Templeton. This project, 788 18
San Antonio, has been before you before. Most recently last fall if you can remember all the 19
way back, September 11th to 2019. So, we’re almost back to that data which is just man, time 20
flies. So, this is a project for 102-units of housing on San Antonio Road, and when it was before 21
us last time we had a very robust discussion with Commissioner’s really thinking about what the 22
future of this area might be like. And so, it’s a great opportunity to think not just about what it 23
could be like but what it might be like in the very near future with this project. And as you all 24
know housing remains a top priority both not only for the City Council but if you look at the 25
National Citizen Survey which Palo Alto participates in, it is year after year one of the top 26
priorities of the citizens as well and the participants in that survey; which is representative of 27
our community and so this is a great opportunity to advance that key priority. 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.
1
We have Sheldon Ah Sing who is with us thing evening. He is one of our contractor planners and 2
as you know we have very few left as we have tightened our belt and also done a lot of hiring 3
last year, but Sheldon’s been carrying this project and we want to make sure that it got across 4
the finish line with the same planner who has been shepherding it thus far. So, we’re really 5
delightful to have him and then we also Jodie Gerhardt, our Manager of Current Planning, who 6
is with us also to answer questions. So, we’re going to hear from Sheldon first and then we will 7
go to the applicant who also has a presentation. As you can see this item is set to be a bit 8
lengthier than the previous one. A lot more moving pieces than just a restroom and ADA 9
upgrades and so please do take notes and feel free when we have question time if you’ve got to 10
go back to a slide, we’re happy to go back to those for you. So, Sheldon, if you want to share 11
your screen and begin your presentation, we’re ready. 12
13
Mr. Sheldon Ah Sing, Contractor: Sure. I know sometimes that the Commissions or Boards, they 14
want to have disclosures. Is that something that they want to do at this point through the 15
Chair? 16
17
Chair Templeton: Yes, of course. Let… does anyone have any disclosures about this property, 18
please raise your hand. Alright, we don’t have any disclosures. Thank you for asking about 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.
Mr. Ah Sing: Thank you. So, it’s a pretty complicated project, there’s a lot to unpack, so I just 1
wanted to give you a little bit of overview what we will be talking about this evening. But I’ll be 2
talking about the project overview, a little bit of background includes a site context, a little bit 3
about where we are with the Housing Incentive Program at this point, a little bit about the 4
proposed project, and the various components that are requested including the Comprehensive 5
Plan Amendments, the Zoning Text Amendments, the subdivision, Tentative Map request as 6
well as a Variance. But also, there’s Environmental Impact Report subject to CEQA, California 7
Environment Quality Act, and then we have some recommendations on the project. 8
9
So, the project includes 18 parcels totaling just under 10-acres between Middlefield Road and 10
Charleston Road with all but one parcel being on the east side of San Antonio Road. The eastern 11
property lines of these properties form the boundary between Palo Alto and the City of 12
Mountain View. So, these properties are located across from the Greenhouse Neighborhood. 13
These properties otherwise under separate own ship. Two of the parcels at 788 and 796 San 14
Antonio Road area at the intersection of Leghorn Street and San Antonio are proposed to be 15
merged and developed with a mixed-use project. So, this proposal serves as the catalyst project 16
for the larger programmed area and so that program area is highlighted or outlined in yellow 17
and the development project area which we will refer to in the presentation is outlined in 18
orange. 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.
The project proposes a 4-story mixed-use building with 102-dwelling units and approximately 1
1,800-square feet of commercial on the ground floor. The building would have a Floor Area 2
Ratio of 2.0 and based on the existing zoning in the Comprehensive Plan the project would… 3
could not be built. So, therefore, they need to do a number of requests and those include a 4
Comprehensive Plan Amendment. In particular, there’s one implementing program from the 5
Comp Plan that states housing opportunity sites need to be removed from the San Antonio 6
Road and we’re concentrating those in the downtown area as well as California Avenue. So, 7
that amendment is to in the program to increase housing [unintelligible] San Antonio Road. We 8
also have a Zoning Ordinance to be amended by expanding the Housing Incentive Program to 9
these areas in the program area. For the development project, there are also typical 10
entitlements such as the Architectural Review, the subdivision in results of a variance request. 11
So, all these are discretionary actions and the Comprehensive Plan Amendment and Zoning 12
Text Amendment, they’re legislative items as well as the Subdivision and Variance are subject 13
to the purview of this Commission. And so, you’d be giving a recommendation to the City 14
Council and the architectural review component will be under the purview of the ARB. So being 15
a discretionary action there’s an Environmental Impact Report prepared and is circulated now 16
and addresses some potential environmental impacts. And then finally we have the 17
recommendation for approval. 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, a little bit of background here. The project has had several meetings starting with two 1
prescreening meetings with the Council to discuss potential increases in density and the 2
changes to the Zoning Ordinance. At those meetings, it was acknowledged that there are some 3
trade-offs between commercial space and housing, but in general, they did proceed… the 4
applicant did proceed with the project. The Planning and Transportation Commission almost a 5
year ago did conduct a scoping meeting for the project. The scoping meeting was for the 6
Environmental Impact Report. It talked about the various issues that would be studied and then 7
the ARB also had two prior hearings this year and then the applicant on their own sponsored a 8
community meeting. This was conducted last week virtually and they had several people that 9
participated in that. 10
11
So, a little bit about the site context. Middlefield Road and East Charleston are major 12
intersecting streets within the program area and include transit connections for the area. San 13
Antonio Road is 80-feet wide from curb to curb, it included four lanes and a landscaped median 14
with a left turn pocket. The corridor includes detached sidewalks that are 5-feet wide and 15
bicycle do share the traffic lane. A new 300-room hotel is currently under construction as… just 16
down the block at 744 San Antonio Road. This was approved as well as… with a 2.0 FAR, so it 17
represents a similar scale project in relation to the property size. And there is a 24-foot special 18
setback along San Antonio Road as well as a 15-foot special setback along Leghorn Street which 19
could be used to accommodate additional bike facilities in the future so be 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
To the west of the project and across San Antonio Road are 228 condominium housing units 2
that are 3-stories in height on a 15-acre site. This development is known as the Greenhouse. 3
The buildings are over 150-feet away from the project site and the project site is also adjacent 4
to within the vicinity of several 1-story commercial buildings that were built in the 60s and the 5
70s. So, these low-rise commercial developments currently dominate this corridor. The area’s 6
gradually being developed with other buildings that rise to a maximum of 50-feet. Another 7
notable development is the Taube Koret Campus with similar mass as proposed of heights… lies 8
at the intersection of San Antonio Road and East Charleston. 9
10
So, the Housing Incentive Program was adopted to implement the Comprehensive Plan policies 11
to promote additional housing production for the City. This included a holistic approach that 12
allows additional floor area, lot coverage, rooftop gardens to count as open space, and 13
streamlined parking requirements. The HIP as it’s known currently enables development having 14
Floor Area Ratio of up to 1.5 to 1 in the CS Zone along El Camino Real. The HIP also provides a 15
waiver for lot coverage requirements. Currently, the maximum lot coverage is 50 percent of the 16
lot area. Among other incentives to encourage additional [unintelligible]. In comparison, the 17
HIP allows Floor Area Ratio of up to 2.0 in the CC2 District and 3.0 in the downtown area. 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, for the proposed project, it’s located at the intersection of San Antonio Road and Leghorn 1
Street which [unintelligible] before. It includes two parcels that would be merged, it would be 2
about 1-acre in size, with two existing buildings on the site would be demolished. One of the 3
buildings at 788 San Antonio, there’s a private corner there at the intersection, is determined to 4
be eligible for listing on the State’s Historic Register. As mentioned the site does include special 5
setbacks; San Antonio Road 24-feet and Leghorn 15-feet. There are four trees that are 6
proposed to be removed. Three of those are protected trees along Leghorn Street to allow for 7
the street improvements. The project proposes 4-stories mixed-use building and the 8
commercial ground floor space most likely will a café type of use. Of 102-dwelling units, 32 are 9
studio units, 66-units are 1-bedroom units, and then you have two 2-bedroom units. These 10
range in size from 500-square feet to approximately 1,200-square feet in size. Sixteen of the 11
units will be Below Market Rate restricted units and the project does include two levels of 12
basement parking with a garage access from Leghorn Street. A prior iteration of the project 13
included one level basement with stackers. After listening to the public they decided to go with 14
two levels of basement parking with no stackers. The primary access [unintelligible] to residents 15
is the only accessible access into the building. The secondary pedestrian access is off of Leghorn 16
Street. 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.
So, in order to implement the project, the following is necessary as I mentioned. 1
Comprehensive Plan Amendment… I guess I’ll speak to all of these in separate slides, the Zoning 2
Text Amendment, Subdivision, a Variance, and architectural review. 3
4
So, there are several Comprehensive Plan Programs and Policies that need to be advanced by 5
implementing the [unintelligible] of within a programmed area. Number one Program is L2.4.1 6
of the Land Use Element in the Comprehensive Plan in that case the San Antonio Road housing 7
inventory sites as shown in the 2015 to 2023 Housing Element, it should be removed in the 8
favor of concentrating residential density in the downtown/California areas. The idea there was 9
to move some of these housing densities over to where there was more transit-rich areas. So, 10
to further support this Land Use Policy, in considering future demand for housing, Staff 11
recommends an amendment to this program to ensure complete consistency. So, we would 12
amend the Housing Element to increase selected housing sites along San Antonio Road and 13
increase residential densities in downtown and California Avenue. 14
15
There are various Zoning Text Amendments that need to be considered. One of them is to 16
extend the Housing Incentive Program to the program area, to amend Citywide definition on 17
Gross Floor Area, and to amend Retail Preservation requirements for CS Districts Citywide. The 18
Zoning Code was amended in 2019 to provide incentives to produce additional housing units 19
that are an alternative to the State Density Bonus Code. So, these incentives were packaged as 20
Page 36
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
HIP, the Housing Incentive Program. In accordance with the City’s Comprehensive Plan, the HIP 1
targets properties along the El Camino Real and the downtown area. Especially the CS District 2
properties along El Camino Real are eligible to use this HIP as well. So, the HIP does include 3
several provisions that incentives housing production, the proposed amendments would 4
further these incentives for housing production, clarify or modify existing standards, and add 5
the San Antonio corridor to this program. So, one of the things is to allow up to 2.0 FAR which is 6
.5 higher than what is allowed along El Camino Real for CS Zoned properties, but it would be 7
the same for CC (2) zoned properties else ware in the City and the same FAR as I mentioned 8
before that was approved for the hotel just down the street. The 2.0 FAR is proposed within the 9
program area due to the area’s greater height limits and surrounding land uses. So, while there 10
are residential properties across San Antonio Road, the immediate area does not have other 11
sensitive land uses and butts light industrial commercial land uses next to the City of Mountain 12
View. The other component is to apply those standards for building height setbacks and other 13
Development Standards remove the 30-units per density limit. So, there would not be any 14
density limit as long as it meets other Development Standards. So, would allow for a design of a 15
building and the site provide necessary aesthetic qualities to be consistent with the 16
Architectural Review Findings. The other component is to allow rooftop garden area to count 17
for up to 60 percent of the required open space. This would allow again for more flexibility to 18
design the projects. Another component is to allow for reduced parking for small retail, so this 19
would exclude the first 1,500-square feet of ground-floor retail from the Retail 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.
Requirements for mixed-use projects. This development project that’s being proposed is not 1
proposed to utilize this exemption. However, it could be considered as part of the HIP for other 2
potential projects within the program area. And lastly, for the Zoning Text Amendments for the 3
Housing Incentive Program, maybe encourage the 100 percent affordable housing project by 4
extending the same provisions that support 100 percent affordable housing projects to the 5
program area. 6
7
The other component of the Zoning Text Amendments is to add a Gross Floor Area Exemption. 8
The City uses this Gross Floor Area along with Floor Area Ratio to help regulate the size of 9
buildings on the property as well as it’s intensity. Definition states what’s included and what’s 10
excluded from the calculation of Gross Floor Area. Basement parking garages within the 11
commercial zone are generally exempted from the Gross Floor Area unless the space is deemed 12
useable for commercial uses by the Planning Director. Though Staff does propose an 13
amendment here because it’s just sometimes an ambiguity to this current code definition that 14
would in basement areas exempt electrical and fire equipment rooms. So, other basement 15
areas could be determined exempted by the discretion of the Director and this is floor areas 16
that do not increase the intensity of the use of the site. It’s a minimum necessary area to 17
comply with regulations. So, these areas would not generate additional parking demand and 18
since these areas are below grade they would not directly add [unintelligible] to the project. 19
Page 38
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 areas for trash and recycling would continue to be counted as we’re trying to encourage 1
these facilities above ground. 2
3
The last component for the Zoning Text Amendments is to amend the Retail Preservation. The 4
purpose for Retail Preservation is to maintain the amount of retail or retail-like ground floor 5
space in the City. So, providing retail space on sites is sometimes challenging for housing 6
developers. We recognize there’s sometimes this tension between preserving retail and 7
providing housing. So, the project site [unintelligible] its site does include about 6,000-square 8
feet of retail space. The applicant proposed to build approximately 1,800-square feet of the 9
retail floor area and requests a partial exemption from the Retail Preservation Ordinance to 10
exempt the remaining 4,100-square feet of retail space. So, for sites that have substantially 11
more retail space, redevelopment for housing becomes less attractive for a couple reasons. So, 12
first, it reduced the amount of floor area that can be dedicated towards housing units, and 13
secondly, retail area must be parked and that adds additional cost to the project. So, the 14
ordinance does require replacement of ground-floor retail space permitted as of March 2nd, 15
2015 with another retail use. The ordinance does notice two grounds for requesting a waiver or 16
adjustments to the Retail Preservation Requirements and these include economic hardships 17
and alternative viable active use. So, documentation is required to prove these grounds that 18
they have merits to warrant such waiver or adjustment and the bar to grant these are high. So, 19
we are recognizing also that the CS District is automobile-oriented retail versus pedestrian-20
Page 39
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
oriented retail, and while it will likely see more pedestrians-oriented retail at higher density 1
residential projects for the corridor. So, Staff does propose that and Council consider adding to 2
the ordinance a partial exemption from the Retail Preservation or residential high density. So, 3
these are use or projects to 30-units or higher per acre on a mixed-use project on CS zoned 4
properties, except for areas that have a ground floor or retail combining district overlay that 5
protects the retail. And so, this proposed waiver would… exemption would allow for 6
replacement of retail and retail like uses within housing and replaced with a minimum of 1,500-7
square feet of retail space. 8
9
The next component of the project is a Subdivision and the request is a lot merger. It’s a one lot 10
condominium subdivision or 102-units as well as the retail space acknowledges the common 11
areas. Although at occupancy the applicant may decided to rent the unit. I think it… well, it is 12
much easier to file a Subdivision Map upfront than to do through a condominium conversion 13
process. Given the requirements, it maybe be unlikely that the converse could occur in the 14
future. So, the project would be designed with the condominium project and the applicant will 15
pay the fees in accordance with the subdivision project. Any subdivision project with more than 16
50 units is required to provide parkland dedication or payment in lieu. The Municipal Code 17
using the Density Formula to calculate the required parkland. For this project that requirement 18
is .85-acres. The City had determined that in accordance with the Municipal Code that the 19
payment in lieu fee is appropriate and current that Impact Fee amount is $4.4 million. This 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.
amount would be payable prior to the issuance of on the first building permit for the project 1
and the fees may be used by the City for purchase of land for future parks or for improvements 2
of existing parks. The project is also subject to the affordable housing requirement of the City; 3
15 percent of that total amount of housing would be made affordable and that amount to 15.3 4
units. The applicant could have elected to pay an in-lieu amount from a factional number, 5
however, the project does propose 16 Below Market Rate units and of the 66 percent will be 6
affordable to households of 80 to 100 percent of the Area Median Income and up to 33 percent 7
affordable to households of 100 and 120 AMI. 8
9
And then just here repeats some of the Findings. These are Reverse Findings because they are 10
necessary to improve the Subdivision Map. Of any of these Findings can be made, so it’s a little 11
bit opposite than some of the other Findings you may be accustom too, then those are grounds 12
for denial of the request. So, that’s why we call it Reverse Findings in that case. 13
14
So, for the Variance, the development does propose a pedestrian ramp that would protrude 14-15
feet into the 24-foot setback along San Antonio Road. This is the only accessible access for 16
people with disabilities into the building. A Design Enhancement Exception is not allowed for 17
special setbacks. A strict application of this special setback to the applicant’s project site would 18
deprive the property of privileges enjoyed by other properties in the vicinity. And there are 19
other properties along the San Antonio Road that have the same… are subject to the same 20
Page 41
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
setback, however, they don’t have a second special setback such as Leghorn as the subject 1
property does. And there are other notable properties along San Antonio that do not meet this 2
setback as noted in the Staff report. Some of them are at 19-feet, 16-feet or 17-feet and they 3
were built after the special setback was established. We do have a Condition of Approval to 4
address potential future mobility improvements along San Antonio Road as mentioned earlier. 5
This 24-foot setback may be an area that the City wants to include so bicycle improvements to 6
connect to other transit in the area and then these are just the Variance findings. Unlike the 7
Subdivision Findings, all of these need to be made in the affirmative for the approval of the 8
Variance. 9
10
Then we have the Environmental Impact Report, these are all discretionary actions and requires 11
CEQA review. A Notice of Preparation and scoping was conducted and the Notice of 12
Preparation was circulating between September 4th and October 7th last year. We had the 13
scoping meeting on September 11th with the Planning Commission last year. The Draft EIR is 14
currently in circulation now from July 31st through September 14th and we’re open for public 15
comment. And then since July 1 what’s really notable for all CEQA projects of this year, 16
transportation impacts are now analyzed using Vehicle Miles Travel and not by Local Service. 17
Some of the impacted topics for this project include air quality, biological resources, cultural 18
resources, geology and soil resources, greenhouse gas emissions, hazards hazardous resources, 19
Page 42
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
noise, tribal cultural resources. So, mitigation measures proposed to reduce impacts to less 1
than significant except for cultural resources. 2
3
The development project results in the demolition of the buildings as I mentioned that may be 4
eligible for listing in the California Register of Historic Places and two of these buildings would 5
be destroyed. One of them is potentially eligible and there are four criteria to be eligible for 6
listing on the California Register; includes Events, Persons, Architecture, Information Potential. 7
At least one of these criteria would need to be found significant and the site is found to be 8
significant with respect to Criteria One Events for its association with the California 9
Chrysanthemum Grower Association. It’s a long-term representative of the importance of the 10
Japanese American horticulture in the industrial copies of the Bay Area. This period of 11
significance for the building is from its period of construction in 1953 to 2002 and that’s the 12
ending of the merger of this Grower’s Association with California Flower Market. So, for a 13
property to be eligible for the National or State designation on the criteria related to its height, 14
period or method, construction, essential physical features, or the character-defining features 15
enable the property to [unintelligible] identity must be evident. There are several character-16
defining features that are original to this 1953 construction and the site does retain integrity for 17
location, setting, design, and materials for [unintelligible] association. Therefore, that building 18
at 788 San Antonio is eligible for individual listing in the California Register under Criteria Events 19
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.
1
So, there are going to be mitigation measures, however, they’re not enough to bring it down to 2
less than significant and some of those mitigation measures include doing photo 3
documentation. There will be a website that’s interruptive. The applicant has gone a little bit 4
beyond those mitigation measures and proposing some design improvements to acknowledge 5
the history of the sites. So, there will be some stamped pattern paving at the corner plaza, 6
they’re adjacent to the retail portions as well as within the courtyard area. 7
8
So, transportation here, I’ll try to take my stab at this. I’m not a transportation engineer, but 9
there… as I mentioned there was a change in July 1 from transportations impact from LOS to 10
VMT for CEQA. The LOS does remain an evaluation criteria for the Comprehensive Plan, but just 11
not for CEQA, and so VMT does refer to the amount the distance a vehicle automobile travel 12
contributed to a project. And one factor that leads to higher relative daily VMT is the imbalance 13
of the jobs and housing within the area. So, Palo Alto does have a lot of jobs so the inclusion of 14
housing to an area is a good thing to help balance that out. So, the project could not be 15
screened out based on the adopted thresholds that the City just adopted recently. So, therefore 16
the that warranted some further analysis. The VMT per resident for the project is anticipated to 17
be similar to existing residential areas boarding San Antonio Road and these rates were 18
estimated using the VMT estimator. The average VMT for the Transportation Analysis Zones 19
Page 44
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
near San Antonio Road is 11.19 miles per resident which is lower than the threshold 11.33 and 1
therefore there’s no significant impact for CEQA. 2
3
We’re almost there, so with the next steps for the project we have ARB meeting scheduled for 4
next week, we have to complete the CEQA process. Right now, the public comment period so 5
we’ve been accepting comments through this meeting, the ARB meeting, as well as any written 6
comments that may come in. We have to develop response to comments. Depending upon the 7
level of comments, it could take some time and then develop a Final Environmental Impact 8
Report that [unintelligible] the edits that we need to do or revisions to the Draft EIR. And then 9
we need to schedule a meeting with the City Council considering the recommendations that we 10
get from this Commission as well as from the ARB. We’re anticipating that to be sometime in 11
October or November. 12
13
So, with that, we have four recommendations. One is to consider the Draft EIR, the other is to 14
recommend that City Council adopt Record Land Use Action approving the Tentative Map and 15
the Variance subject to the Findings and Conditions of Approval. And then also to recommend 16
that the City Council adopt the attached ordinance from the various Zoning Text Amendments 17
related to the Housing Incentive Program and the changes to the Retail Waiver and the 18
definition. And then recommend that the City Council adopt the attached resolution for the 19
Comprehensive Plan Amendment. 20
Page 45
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 that concludes my presentation. I’d be happy to answer any questions. The applicant is also 2
here with their presentation. Thank you. 3
4
Ms. Tanner: Thank you Mr. Ah Sing and with the Chair’s permission we’ll hand that over to the 5
applicant to do their presentation. 6
7
Chair Templeton: Thank you, that’d be wonderful. 8
9
Commissioner Riggs: Can I ask a question before we do that because the applicant might be 10
able to answer the question in the flow of his presentation? 11
12
Chair Templeton: Sure. 13
14
Commissioner Riggs: Is that ok Chair? I can hold it, but I just feel like [unintelligible] 15
(interrupted) 16
17
Chair Templeton: It’s fine if it’s contained. Yeah, go for it. 18
19
Page 46
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Riggs: I just want to hear about… there was some comments in the Staff report 1
about ARB and one of them I wanted to flag was a TNC pickup and drop off suggestion. And I 2
wanted to see how that had been handled and what the thing was there? It just… I’m not… I 3
wouldn’t have recommended it and so I just… I wanted to see if that had been retained. If that 4
had just been responded too how that was embedded in what was being proposed? 5
6
Chair Templeton: Alright, thank you and just to explain the order of operations here. So, after 7
the applicant does their presentation we’ll have a brief amount of time for technical and 8
clarification related questions. Then we’ll go to public comment and then for the rest of the 9
discussion will be held amongst the Commissioners after that. Thanks, and your applicant can 10
begin their presentation. 11
12
Ms. Tanner: Great, go ahead. I think that Ted is with us, is that… Ted O’Hanlon, are you doing 13
the presentation? 14
15
Mr. Ted O’Hanlon: Yes, I am. You see and hear me ok? 16
17
Ms. Tanner: We do see you and we hear you and we see the presentation so go ahead. 18
19
Mr. O’Hanlon: Great. Sheldon you’re going to advance it when I ask you too right? 20
Page 47
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Mr. Ah Sing: Yes. 2
3
Mr. O’Hanlon: Ok, thank you. Introduce myself to the Commission, again my name is Ted 4
O’Hanlon. I’m the Project Manager for this working closely with the owners on this project at 5
788 San Antonio. Sheldon, could you move us forward? 6
7
I thought I’d start my brief presentation with a little bit of how we got here. Starting way back 8
at the beginning when we acquired the site in May 2018. There was a Yield Study done based 9
on the existing zoning which included not a whole lot of housing units and some office and a 10
pretty significant chunk of retail. So, our thoughts were to utilize some State Density Bonus Law 11
in order to provide a variety of housing and also a re-zone to an RM-40 and really a peer play 12
residential proposal. We had the pre-screening with the Council in October 2018 and the 13
overall opinion was favorable. We’d like to hear more so we took that as a sign to continue to 14
explore what we thought was a good vision for housing. Shortly after that October meeting, the 15
City approved the Housing Incentive Program focused on El Camino and downtown. And our 16
thinking was that’s some good criteria and a great way to create some housing, but we’re on 17
San Antonio. So, given that, the suggestion from Staff was well, we’d recommend you do 18
another pre-screening with City Council. So, we took them up on that and we went back in 19
March 2019 with a proposed building that was using a 1.5 FAR also incorporating a ground-level 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.
retail presence we were advised in October would be favorable for the project. And as you can 1
see we scaled up pretty significantly the number of units as we go on the continuum of existing 2
zoning to State Density to using something that Palo Alto’s created for themselves with the 3
Housing Incentive Program. Again, we left that meeting feeling that there was an appetite on 4
City Council to learn more about housing opportunities on San Antonio Road; but we really 5
started looking more closely at the Housing Incentive Program and thought there was good 6
reason to utilize it’s 3.0 FAR. And also respond to another thing that we had heard in our two 7
previous Council pre-screenings is we’re in a little bit more of a commercial area of the City. So, 8
we thought it would be appropriate to design this building for more units but smaller units. Not 9
necessarily directed at families which would have been more predominately 2 and 3-bedroom 10
units and we ended up with this mix of pretty significant on the smaller size units where the 11
studios of about 500-square feet. A big chunk of 66 of 1-bedroom units that range anywhere 12
from 600 to 700-square feet and then just a little handful of 2-bedroom, 2-bath units to take 13
advantage of that street corner on Leghorn. Sheldon would you advance? 14
15
We continue to think this is a great idea because of our proximity to housing and the 16
advantages of housing near jobs. If you look at the larger dots on this one-mile radius map, you 17
can pretty quickly back into the fact that this site is within one mile of about 10,000 jobs. 18
Sheldon, would you go next? 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 we also thought that this site has some logistical advantages to it. It’s got good 1
proximity to 101, it’s got a one-mile proximity to the San Antonio Caltrain Station which is a 2
straight shot, and then locally with some of the bus and shuttles that run in Palo Alto and 3
between Cities. We saw some good connectivity there and the more important of all was the 4
advantage that cyclists would have with this site. Particularly being a 5-minute bike ride to 5
Google’s World headquarters which essentially would be accessible by riding a bike down 6
Leghorn Street to Reinsdorf and Reinsdorf has a bike lane over that overpass to 101. And that’s 7
not just Google’s World Headquarters there. We all know that there’s a lot of significant 8
businesses and jobs over in that stretch of North Bay Shore. Sheldon, go ahead. 9
10
So again, the project overview, 102-units. It’s really critical to be able to utilize the Housing 11
Incentive Program. We’re beneath the 50-foot height limits that the CS Zone allows. We have 12
adapted the parking to instead of one level that was stacker centric to now two levels below 13
grade. That’s a significant construction cost change but we feel it was responsive to the 14
community’s needs. Particularly for what would be a rental building. To have open spaces 15
rather than parking stackers and this also now includes 20 spaces that would be dedicated to 16
retail that the building would have. 17
18
And again, going back to that idea of this being a great cyclist location. Our bicycle parking, the 19
long-term bicycle parking, 102 bikes, is on the ground level. Infrequent cases, in multi-family 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.
buildings your bicycle parking is somewhere below grade, probably near all the cars. This is 1
adjacent to the lobby behind nice shiny glass and will really show that this a bicyclist building. It 2
also has repair stations and bike cleaning apparatuses as well as short term bicycle parking on 3
the exterior; particularly for the café. 4
5
We have been cognizant and very conscientious about using and providing inclusionary housing 6
with the 16-units provided based on a 15 percent contribution. We also noted recently the 7
Strategic Economic Study that was commissioned by the City to look at alternatives to the 15 8
percent contribution be it 20 or 25 percent. And based on our observations and reviews we 9
would align ourselves with saying that that one has a lot of truth in it as far as saying 15 10
percent… as far as Palo Alto seeing projects, that’s about… it’s a very slippery slope above 15 11
percent such that if construction costs keep going up and rental rates get soft. Then 2023 might 12
not be as great for this as one might think, but again, going back to something Sheldon 13
mentioned in the Subdivision Map. When we maneuver this project to go from 1 and 2-14
bedroom for-sale units and we said you know what, let’s make this professionals and more 15
singles and maybe young married couples type of building. We also made a commitment to 16
ourselves to say this is going to be a rental project. We’re going to lease this thing up because 17
we had gone so far down the road with the Subdivision Map we decided to continue with it 18
because it’s a barren application. And maybe 5, 10, 20-years down the road perhaps there 19
might be a conversation to for-sale condominiums in this building like in other Cities do from 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.
time to time. But it would really very much be put on the shelf and we would operate this as 1
again a rental. Sheldon, go ahead. 2
3
The objectives of the plan, this was outlined in somewhat in the EIR. This was something that 4
we took when we first studied the site. The site is a housing opportunity site in the Comp Plan 5
and we think that there are good residential roots in this area between the Taube Koret Center 6
and the Greenhouse; to have more residential in this area and more people who live there 7
rather than just work there. Our project, given the unit sizes and the BMR components, will 8
serve a variety of renters and a variety of income levels. And again, going back to that bicycle 9
idea, this is going to encourage an alternative transportation use. Particularly, for that 10
connectivity to the San Antonio Caltrain Station and I think for Palo Alto it’s a good project 11
because it shows that Palo Alto can implement something, such as the Housing Incentive 12
Program, and create housing. Rather than other projects that might come in and try to utilize 13
the State Density Bonus Law or other state laws to increase housing density. And again we’re 14
102-units and that’s a pretty significant contribution towards a City that has a goal of 300 units 15
created per year for 10-years. Sheldon, go ahead. 16
17
We wanted to try to quantify what is the community benefit of this project. Earlier this year we 18
noticed that housing was a number one priority of the City Council and there was also an 19
interesting subtext to that. It said that the housing in and of itself is the public and community 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.
benefit. There is a particular interest in affordable housing too and we feel like we’re providing 1
both, so we’re really hitting number one on the City Council’s objective for 2020. Terner Center, 2
which I’m sure a lot of you guys on the Planning Commissioner [note – Commission] are familiar 3
with at UC Berkeley, published this study in March 2020 to try to quantify… we use it to try to 4
quantify what’s the dollar value of what we’re proposing the City of Palo Alto. So, for seeing this 5
at 600,000 per unit, the estimated value of this community benefit on a dollar basis is $9.6 6
million. Sheldon, go ahead. 7
8
And that concludes my proposal. Sheldon did all the heavy lifting for this and the heavy lifting 9
for the consideration. Is very much appreciated Staff working with us, all you on the 10
Commission, here to answer questions and… as needed, and thank you so much for your time. 11
12
Chair Templeton: Great, thank you so much, Mr. O’Hanlon and Mr. Ah Sing for the 13
presentations. So, we’re going to do a quick round with the PTC before going to public 14
comment. Commissioners, if you have something that needs clarification from our presenters 15
and this would be the time for that. And then we can if you wouldn’t mind please hold the 16
discussion until after the public comment. Please raise your hand if you have questions for the 17
presenters. Commissioner Alcheck. 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: Thank you, Staff, thank you applicant for your presentations. A quick 1
question for Staff. Although the Planned Community Zone is not on the table tonight, I think it 2
would help inform the discussion if Staff could clarify how the PC Zone has evolved most 3
recently as a result of Council discussion or action. 4
5
Ms. Tanner: Great. I can talk a little bit about the Planned Community Zone and how that’s 6
evolving. So, what we had happen earlier this year was the revival of the Planned Community 7
Zone and the… it’s kind of a different name not in the code but the Plan Home Zoning. The idea 8
that it’s really focusing on housing and as the applicant suggested that housing is the benefit; 9
instead of trying to perhaps have open space or other types of community benefits be included 10
in the project but really to focus on housing. And the goal of those projects having 20 percent 11
affordable housing onsite, again to further that affordable housing is one of the benefits that 12
those projects are providing. 13
14
This was launched pre-pandemic and so we did initially have quite a number of interested 15
property owners who reached out, who’ve been taking to Staff, and some are continuing to 16
pursue that. Most recently 3300 El Camino was at Council for pre-screening in June prior to the 17
Council recess and we still have other projects that despite the economic downturn are 18
considering advancing under the Planned Home Zoning. 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: It’s just… the… so has it in fact been codified or is it still in process? 1
2
Ms. Tanner: It will be the PC Zoning, so it’s essentially still using the PC Code. Part of our 3
(interrupted) 4
5
Commissioner Alcheck: So, we didn’t actually… we didn’t amend the code yet? 6
7
Ms. Tanner: And we don’t…. there’s no need to amend the code for the PC Zoning to be 8
revived. It was a policy decision from Council to not continue to allow PCs to go forward. So, it 9
was just (interrupted) 10
11
Commissioner Alcheck: No, no I know that, but the… that I completely understand. I didn’t 12
think that the existing code language provided a lot of clarity with respect to interrupting the 13
concept of public benefits. I’m excited about what sounds like an evolution so I’m just trying to 14
understand if… I guess is the take away that simply the addition of housing now from the 15
perspective of our code is a public benefit? 16
17
Ms. Tanner: I don’t know if it’s from the perspective of the code as much as (interrupted) 18
19
Commissioner Alcheck: No, the leadership. 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
Ms. Tanner: Yes, yes, that is correct. 2
3
Commissioner Alcheck: Alright, alright, thank you. I will hold my comments for the second 4
opportunity. 5
6
Chair Templeton: Great, thank you. Commissioner Riggs. 7
8
Commissioner Riggs: So, my question didn’t get answered so I just want to make sure it gets… I 9
want to understand what happened with some of those ARB comments? 10
11
Ms. Tanner: I’m going to ask Ms. Gerhardt or Mr. O’Hanlon if you want to address where the 12
TNC, the rideshare drop off and pick up, I think was Commissioner Rigg’s question. That there 13
had been some comments regarding it and how those were addressed or where that kind of 14
shook out in the design. 15
16
Commissioner Riggs: Well, there were a bunch of ARB comments and I didn’t just see those 17
covered and I just wanted to understand how those folded in, but that’s one of them that I had 18
not been made aware of yet and so I’d love to understand that comment. How is it absorbed? 19
How it was responded too? 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
Ms. Tanner: Yes, I do want note I don’t know if we’re prepared and we certainly can try to make 2
time to go over all the architectural review just because that’s not what’s before this body. So, 3
we do want to focus on the items which are pretty in-depth that are before this body’s review, 4
but at least if we could address the (interrupted) 5
6
Commissioner Riggs: Well, I would argue that is… that that item… this particular comment is in 7
our purview and a couple of the items that were commented by ARB particularly that are in our 8
Staff report are in our purview. 9
10
Ms. Tanner: Certainly, but if you… I’m not sure what else you would like besides the TNC to be 11
addressed. 12
13
Mr. O’Hanlon: I can speak to that if you’d like. 14
15
Commissioner Riggs: That’d be great Ted. Thanks. 16
17
Mr. O’Hanlon: So, the… Sheldon, I don’t know if maybe you have something in the presentation 18
since I can’t share my screen. It shows the proposed site if you were to see that we are creating 19
10 parking spots on San Antonio Road on that frontage and we think that two of those 10 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.
front of the lobby would be restricted parking during certain hours. So, that would promote day 1
time drop-offs, Amazon trucks, etc. Uber drop and go. Perhaps that would be able to have an 2
overnight parking component to it. 3
4
On the Leghorn side of the street, we’ll create three parking spaces but at the same time we’re 5
going to have no parking along in between the garage entry which is in the lower right corner of 6
that particular drawing and the front of the… basically the corner. So, if you can kind of see 7
where it’s… the sidewalk is hashed out there. This is going to be where garbage pick up is done 8
and then of course when garbage pickup isn’t being done there will be no parking. Which is 9
another opportunity for deliveries or pickups and drop-offs of car shares can service clients as 10
well. So, we… it’s nice that we can have these two frontages available to support people coming 11
and going and packages coming and going from the site. 12
13
Commissioner Riggs: Ted, is that a white zone or a yellow zone? Do you know specifically or 14
maybe Sheldon knows that? And also, maybe following up because I tried to get a copy of the 15
site plans. They couldn’t get me one. I don’t have a hard copy, but on this presentation which I 16
was given earlier it looks like this is rendered as a Class Two bikeway, but I’m pretty sure it’s not 17
a Class Two bikeway and you don’t have plans to make it a Class Two bikeway. So, I wanted to 18
understand is that something that the City is going to… are you aware that something that 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.
City is going to do in parallel with the project? And I know that’s something I heard briefly from 1
Rachael or Sheldon but it’s rendered like that and I don’t think that’s a reality. 2
3
Ms. Tanner: In terms of the bikeway project, I believe this is a Class Three bikeway and I don’t… 4
I’m not aware of plans at the moment to enhance that. We do have Rafael Rius and Shrupath 5
Patel on the line from the Office of Transportation. They may be aware of plans, but I don’t 6
think there’s anything imminent in terms of the bike improvements on San Antonio. 7
8
In regards to the curbing and whether it’s a white passenger pick up or a yellow zone, Mr. 9
O’Hanlon or Mr. Ah Sing do you know if that’s intended to be passenger loading or it’s just 10
limited-term parking at those curb spaces? 11
12
Mr. Ah Sing: I’m not sure we worked that out, but I don’t know if Shrupath or Rafael can chime 13
in on that issue. 14
15
Ms. Tanner: Perhaps that happens at a later time in the development path. I don’t know Rafael 16
if you can address that? 17
18
Mr. Rafael Rius, Traffic Engineering Lead: Hi, everyone. Rafael Rius, I’m Traffic Engineering Lead 19
with the City and I’m helping fill in while Sylvia Start Lack is out this week. I am not too familiar 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.
with the project plans for the roadway. We don’t have any emanate plans for bike facilities. 1
However, San Antonio Road is called out in our current Bike Plan for bike improvements on it. 2
There are several ideas floating around, but nothing’s really been vetted or approved for that, 3
and part of it is the special setback opportunities. We did try in the past to look at replacing the 4
class so it is currently a Class Three bike… shared bike facility, not a dedicated bike lane. We 5
looked into it several years back. I think the commercial businesses were reluctant to lose the 6
parking in front of their businesses and I’m not familiar with how far along discussions of on-7
street parking would this project, in particular, have gone. 8
9
As far as the loading on Leghorn, it would be good to know. There’s… it could be used as a TNC 10
pickup for any use, however, there are some legalities to this commercial loading. It’s not 11
technically supposed to be used and vice versa if it’s white loading… white striped passenger 12
loading space. Then it’s not supposed to be used for commercial loading and such. I think there 13
are options. You could do a no parking zone which might allow for both. 14
15
Ms. Tanner: Great, thank you, Rafael. 16
17
Commissioner Riggs: You know I have enough information. I think this is… we can flush this out 18
a little more in my suggestion. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Ms. Tanner: And then Mr. Rius, just typically would that type of striping be part of the project 1
plan and planning entitlement or at the Building Permit stage? 2
3
Mr. Rius: Its typically… there’s typically something discussed at this stage so that there’s an 4
understanding. It’s really approved when it comes to the Building Permit phase as part of the 5
off-site improvements, but generally, if we are going to have a parking restriction say… I mean I 6
know several years ago we would have tried to remove the parking along San Antonio as new 7
developments come in. I don’t know if that’s still the case and we would try to clarify that at 8
this point and I’m not sure if Shrupath or Sylvia might know. We might have to return with a 9
formal answer. We kind of have to plan for that. 10
11
Ms. Tanner: Ok, great, thank you. 12
13
Chair Templeton: Alright thank you all and Commissioner Riggs. So, next up is Commissioner 14
Summa. 15
16
Commissioner Summa: Thank you, everyone. I had a question about loading and delivery and 17
whether it was required to be on site for this building instead of on the street and maybe 18
somebody can answer that at some point. And then could I have a clarification about the BMR 19
and thank you very much for actually building the BMR instead of paying the in lieu. That’s 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.
good thing, but I want to ask a few questions about it and that was I think Sheldon Ah Sing 1
mentioned it, but I didn’t get it. What is the break down for AMI of the 16 units? 2
3
Ms. Tanner: Ask if Ms. Gerhardt can address the requirements for onsite deliveries and loading 4
zones. And then if Sheldon or Mr. O’Hanlon can talk about the AMI for the BMR units. Jodie? 5
6
Ms. Jodie Gerhardt, Planning Manager: I am looking at uploading as we speak. Multi-family 7
residential units do not have a loading requirement and so the commercial… there is a small 8
commercial component, but that would be under the 5,000-square feet and so no loading is 9
needed for that either. 10
11
Commissioner Summa: Ok, thank you. 12
13
Mr. Ah Sing: So, for the BMR break down, as I mentioned, it was at least 66 percent would be 14
affordable for households of 80 to 100 of the AMI and then up to 33 percent affordable to 15
households under 220 percent. 16
17
Commissioner Summa: I’m sorry, I still didn’t hear you. 33 is (interrupted) 18
19
Mr. Ah Sing: 33 percent affordable to 100 to 120 percent. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Summa: And how long is the deed restriction for? Sorry. 2
3
Ms. Tanner: No, it’s ok. Good question. 4
5
Mr. Yang: That’s something that’s dictated by our code. I believe it’s 99 years, but I will confirm 6
that. 7
8
Commissioner Summa: Ok and then I also was curious we do have I believe a requirement that 9
they be similar in quality etc. And I was just wondering what size units will the BMR units be 10
and will they be parked at the… will they have parking spots? What their parking situation will 11
be? 12
13
Mr. Yang: So, the precise floor map of which units are the BMR units is determined generally 14
later on in the process, but it’s… the Planning Staff, in particular the Housing Planners, job to 15
ensure that they are representative sample of the units in the building. And amenities like 16
parking need to be included if they are included for other units in the building. 17
18
Commissioner Summa: Ok. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: Any other questions Commissioner Summa? 1
2
Commissioner Summa: No, not right now. Thank you. 3
4
Chair Templeton: Great. Any other Commissioners? Last call. Alright, members of the public 5
please raise your hand if you’d like to speak on this item. 6
7
Ms. Tanner: And if folks need help finding their raise hand button, if they click their participants' 8
little icon in the middle of their screen, they should see a list of their names and they should 9
find at the bottom of that a raised hand function. If you are calling in you can press *9. I see 10
some folks on the phone, if you press *9 on your phone your hand will be raised and we’ll know 11
that you would like to speak. If folks can raise their hand who are planning to speak so we can 12
get a sense of time, we will know the total number of speakers and the amount of time that can 13
be allocated for the speakers. So, please raise your hand now if you would like to speak and the 14
Chair can determine if she would like to keep the speaker’s list open or close it at a certain 15
time. 16
17
Chair Templeton: Alright, I think we’re going to go ahead with 3-minutes and Mr. Nguyen if you 18
can handle… organize the speakers. 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. Vinhloc Nguyen, Admin Associate III: Yes, so it looks like our first speaker will be Steve 1
followed by a phone caller with the last four digits 3100 followed by Joe followed by another 2
phone caller with the last four digits 5968 then followed by Banes. If there’s anyone else who 3
wishes to speak, please raise your hand now. Otherwise, we will be closing up this section after 4
Kelsey Banes. Ok up first would be Steve. If you can please identify yourself and then you may 5
speak and then you also have to unmute yourself on your computer as well. Steve, if you’re 6
there please unmute yourself on your computer. 7
8
Mr. Steve Levy: Yes, can you hear me now? 9
10
Mr. Nguyen: Yes, we can hear you. Thank you. 11
12
Mr. Levy: I’m Steve Levy, I’ve been a resident for 50-years, I wrote the Chair and the 13
Commission a letter. I’m speaking in support of the Staff recommendation for both extending 14
the Housing Incentive Program to the border San Antonio area and in support of the project 15
that you just hear from Mr. O’Hanlon. 16
17
I see three positives from pursuing and adopting the Staff recommendation. The first is as the 18
Commissioners know Palo Alto under the new RHNA will have anywhere from 4,500 2 ½ times 19
to maybe 6,000 units which is a lot more than we have more and will be asked to identify 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.
whole lot of additional sites. So, extending the HIP program which has already been adopted in 1
several other areas will be a first step to expanding our menu of sites for the new Housing 2
Element. 3
4
Second, as you’ve already discussed, the project would add 100-units and the required 15 5
percent for BMR units. So, it would be probably I think the largest actual housing project that 6
has been approved in recent years. More than Wilton Court and it will make up a first step 7
toward meeting our housing shortage for low-income folks. 8
9
Finally, adopting the Staff recommendation by the Commission and then later by the Council 10
would be a strong signal to the regional and state agencies that will be looking at how we’re 11
pursuing the new Housing Element requirements. And [unintelligible – audio muffled] Palo Alto 12
intends to take our housing obligations seriously by starting off by expanding the number of 13
sites that are available and pursuing this project. 14
15
I support the Staff’s recommendation that you can issue a Statement of Writing Considerations. 16
I feel the same way for historic buildings in the North Ventura site. If there are plenty of ways as 17
the applicant has stated to acknowledge and memorializing the importance of these buildings 18
without allowing them to block the most needing needed housings. So, I urge you to adopt the 19
Staff recommendations. 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: Thank you, Steve. Our next speaker will be the phone caller with the last four 2
digits 3100. If you can please unmute yourself and then you may speak. 3
4
Ms. Pamela Harder: Can you… Hello, this is Pamela Harder, can you hear me? 5
6
Mr. Nguyen: Yes, we can hear you. Thank you. 7
8
Ms. Harder: Wonderful, thank you. We have 3-minutes so I’m going to go really fast. My name 9
is Pamela Harder, I’m a homeowner and taxpayer at 765 San Antonio Road. The Greenhouse II 10
project condominiums. My family owned this property for 40-years and I’m also on the Board. 11
12
I’m very concerned. I’ve come to the meetings in the past. I’m very concerned about this 13
project for many reasons. I’m not opposed to development and smart growth or affordable 14
housing. I am opposed to poorly considered development when traffic and parking are not 15
considered or the full impact of the development is not considered. 16
17
So, I’m going to start with parking because we have severe gridlock when we’re not in the 18
middle of a pandemic. And to get from 101 to my condominium which is a quarter-mile takes 19
20-minutes or more just to get to my condominium. It's so gridlocked that emergency vehicles 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.
would have a very hard time getting through and furthermore, people are actually diving into 1
our parking area to try to get ahead of five or six cars and going out the other exit. So, we 2
already have some really dangerous traitorous activities because the park or the traffic is so 3
gridlocked. So, my question for you all is I don’t understand how you can be piling on more and 4
more development along San Antonio Road. I have no idea if you have any long-term ideas 5
about how to make the traffic flow better like in San Francisco where you have one-way streets. 6
So, that’s a huge concern of mine. 7
8
Another concern that is really important is these condominiums were built 40-years ago with 9
the approval of Palo Alto and we’ve had street parking of 10 to 12 spaces on San Antonio. We 10
now have a different demographic. It’s no longer professionals, singles, and couples. It is now 11
many, many families living here. So, we’re really, really in need of the extra parking and what I 12
fear is as you keep building all of this development around us. You’re going to tell us you don’t 13
get to have your parking in front of your condominium any more. That’s highly concerning to 14
us. We do not have adequate parking and it was approved by the City of Palo Alto 40-years ago. 15
So, now we have an even greater problem. 16
17
I’m also really concerned about the Environmental Impact Report. I’ve heard and I heard this 18
only tonight because I haven’t been tracking this recently. That you are trying to use an 19
Environmental Impact Report for more than one property. 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
Also, I’m extremely concerned about the high-water table here. We have a need to protect our 2
water table. This is California, we need to protect our water. So, I’m very concerned about the 3
idea of doing a lot of development where you’re diverting underground water that can be as 4
high as 4-feet from the surface, the water table. 5
6
I’m also concerned that there’s seems to be no real concern about the residents here. We’ve 7
got two condominiums complexes, we have 86… 88 units here, we’ve got 100 something 8
maybe 140 in the condominium just next to us Greenhouse I. And we’ve had people that have 9
not have peace and quiet for a year and a half with the hotel. We have (interrupted) 10
11
Ms. Tanner: Ma’am your timing has elapsed. 12
13
Ms. Harder: Thank you very much for your time. May I submit this is a letter to you all? 14
15
Ms. Tanner: You may email it to the Planning Commission, yes. 16
17
Ms. Harder: Thank you very much. 18
19
Ms. Tanner: 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
Mr. Nguyen: Our next speaker will be Joe. Joe if you can please unmute yourself and then if you 2
can identify yourself you may speak. 3
4
Mr. Joe Spaulding: Hi, my name’s Joe Spaulding, and I’m going to say something that’s going to 5
make the previous super happy I live in Oakland in Fruitvale. I want to emphasize the fact that 6
the applicant here had been very, very clear, and forthright that this place is going to reduce 7
the need for automobiles because it’s going to be built within the area of the 10,000 jobs. And 8
it’s going to be very, very bicycle-friendly which is amazing. It’s something that Palo Alto could 9
wear as a badge of honor. 10
11
And the thing about the… what the first caller had said is absolutely correct. The RHNA numbers 12
are going to keep coming in. They’re going to keep coming in higher and either Palo Alto is 13
going to be in front of the game or they’re going to feel the squeeze from the state. And those 14
laws are not going to get any more laxed and they’re not going to get any less enforced. And 15
you absolutely better believe that car-lite has definitely got their attention in the area on the 16
peninsula, in the valley as well. 17
18
And the reality is you'll either get to… the City Council either gets to approve projects that bring 19
affordable housing like this one does and bring more housing like this one does or they get 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.
face the consequences. Not building anything isn’t an option and clutching pearls about parking 1
is in addition to not being a viable solution here is climate arson. The reality on the climate side 2
of things is after Coronavirus is long gone we’re still going to be facing down the gauntlet of a 3
burning inferno of climate change. And the reality there is we have to decrease our car 4
dependency and I think that the applicant should be super proud of what they’re bringing here 5
because of the amount that they decreased that car dependency. And if somebody is mad or 6
upset about gridlock, they should definitely be upset about the fact that Palo Alto is not 7
building enough. Now if they’re upset about something like the property value that they 8
possess, I understand why they’re saying coming here saying that they’re concerned about 9
parking because parking seems a little bit more reasonable. But the reality of the situation is 10
the people that complain about the lack of parking are saying similar things to what Donald 11
Trump is saying about how the suburbs are under threat. The suburbs are absolutely not under 12
threat. Right now, zoning is still the biggest maintainer of segregation in this country and we 13
need to blight single-family zoning with everything we can. And if we don’t everywhere we can 14
we’re going to start feeling the pinches because of those RHNA numbers. So, the writings on 15
the wall and I really hope that both the Planning Commissioner here and the City Council 16
moving forward do the right thing. 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.
And I do want to say thank you to the Planning Commissioners. You guys zone fantastic. I’ve 1
listened to a lot of different meetings here, Cupertino, other places around the Bay, and you'll 2
run a pretty professional ship and it was great listening to you. Thanks. 3
4
Mr. Nguyen: Thank you Joe for joining us tonight. Our next speaker will be the phone caller with 5
the last four digits 5960. If you can please unmute yourself, identify yourself, and then you may 6
speak. 7
8
Ms. Joan Larrabee: Good evening. My name’s Joan Larrabee, I live at the Palo Alto Greenhouse 9
and I have for since 1983. Can you hear me ok? 10
11
Mr. Nguyen: Yes, we can hear you. Thank you for joining us tonight. 12
13
Ms. Larrabee: I’ve been following the saga of this building since the beginning and I have a few 14
comments. The first you’re talking about easy access to Route 101. Well when you cross 15
Charleston from San Antonio which is only four lanes wide, San Antonio only becomes only one 16
lane. So, quite often even with the… so there’s not really easy access. San Antonio Road is only 17
four lanes wide. Several years ago, the county had to take the transit boxes off. We use to have 18
a bus stop in front of Greenhouse I. There was too much congestion to even have a bus. It’s too 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.
crowded and to narrow to have bike lanes. There are no bike lanes. Those of us who use to ride 1
our bike like over to Shore Line Park and other places have given up our bikes. 2
3
And to put… another thing is to use this EIR, it’s actually for 18 parcels, not just this one. I’d like 4
you all to think about that. It’s not just this one building. You’re approving an EIR for 18 5
different parcels; almost 1,000 dwelling units. Please think about that. 6
7
It’s… and you… the applicant is not creating parking on Leghorn or San Antonio. It’s already 8
bumper to bumper with all of the construction workers from the hotel. The curb lane on 9
Leghorn is going to have to be removed from parking so that it can make a right turn lane to go 10
from Leghorn to San Antonio Road. It needs a right turn only lane, but for people to get up and 11
say this is wonderful for bikes. We never see bikes on this street. Those of us who use to do it 12
rode on the sidewalks, but you cannot ride a bike on the street. And all of the construction 13
that’s going to go on means that people are going to make U-turns to get into these properties. 14
And when they do the U-turns like at Leghorn and at Charleston and at Middlefield Road they 15
block the traffic. The streets are too narrow for U-turns, but if you’re creating all this housing 16
and expecting people to ride bikes. They will not be able to do it. 17
18
Again, the bus was taken away. El Camino has (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.
Chair Templeton: Your time has expired. 1
2
Ms. Larrabee: I have one thing left to say. El Camino is six lanes wide and has bus service on it. 3
And San Antonio Road is too narrow for more than four lanes and it’s too narrow for the bus. 4
They had to take the buses off. 5
6
Chair Templeton: Thank you. 7
8
Ms. Larrabee: Thank you. 9
10
Mr. Nguyen: Thank you for your comments. Our next speaker will be Kelsey Banes. Kelsey if you 11
can please unmute yourself, you have 3-minutes to speak. 12
13
Ms. Kelsey Banes: Good evening Commissioners. My name is Kelsey Banes. I think you probably 14
know what I’m going to say. I support housing and Palo Alto hasn’t been building housing. We 15
desperately need more housing so I support this project. It’s not in my mind my dream project. 16
I wish it was taller and had more units and deeper levels of affordability, but what I think is 17
more important is that it’s feasible. And that it’s timely in that we actually get the housing 18
because oftentimes the Palo Alto process is that this just drags on and on and it’s been almost a 19
year since I’ve had an opportunity to advocate for this project. So, I just want to make sure 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.
moves along in a timely fashion. So that people can live here and benefit from living in close 1
proximity to jobs and in close proximity to lots of services. Things that you can walk to, tons of 2
jobs, close to Google. So, I think this is a great place to do dense housing. 3
4
I do think there is a valid concern here about bike safety, but I don’t put that all on this 5
individual project. I do think the City needs to think about how do we make San Antonio safer 6
for bikes. I live pretty close to here now and I’ve biked around there and it’s really quite scary. 7
There’s cracks in the road and if we’re going to say that we want to put all this housing on San 8
Antonio in our Housing Element. Then we actually have to have a reasonable plan to add that 9
housing and I think bikes are a great way to do it. We just need to invest in things like protected 10
bike lanes. I don’t think the problem is that the road is to narrow, I think the problem is that 11
we’re just giving away too much of the road to cars, and we really need to start to prioritize 12
bikes in our public right of way if we want to see different results. 13
14
I think the street parking issue could probably be fixed with some signs if we make it clear those 15
spots are reserved for Greenhouse residents. I would think that would solve that problem. 16
17
And I do think that the water table is a valid concern, but I’m hearing contradictory things of 18
people who want to go two floors down with parking and don’t want the mechanical lift and 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.
people who want to save the water table so that’s the tradeoff. To me, I would go with the 1
mechanical lift, but that’s your job I guess. 2
3
And then the final thing I would say is if the neighbors here don’t think it’s fair to put all the 4
density along San Antonio. I hope you’ll get engaged in the Housing Element process and push 5
for more housing in other neighborhoods as well because I agree that’s not fair that in our new 6
Housing Element we only added sites on San Antonio. We should be looking to downtown and 7
other places as well. Thank you very much. 8
9
Mr. Nguyen: Thank you for your comments. It looks like we have two new raised hands… two to 10
additional raised hands I should say; Angie Evans and Scott. 11
12
Chair Templeton: Mr. Nguyen, can we close after Scott? If anyone else plans to speak raise your 13
hand now. Anyone who has not raised their hand yet we’re going to plan to close after the next 14
two speakers. Last call. Alright, thank you. 15
16
Mr. Nguyen: Thank you, Chair Templeton. So, Angie Evans, if you can please unmute yourself, 17
you make speak. 18
19
Ms. Angie Evans: Hi, can you hear me? 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: Yes, we can hear you. Thank you for joining. 2
3
Ms. Evans: Perfect. So, I’m Angie Evans. I first want to thank all the Commissioners for all the 4
thoughtful questions about this proposal. I am calling in tonight really to urge you to adopt the 5
Staff recommendations. I live in the Crescent Park neighborhood, I’m a member of the Crescent 6
Park Neighborhood Association, I have two kids and a dog. And I mean there’s a lot that I love 7
about Palo Alto and about my neighborhood. I love the parks, the farmer's markets, and school 8
is starting soon. I really love my principle who will respond very quickly to me and I really love 9
that developers like this one actually know that even though the roads might be read yet 10
because I agree with Kelsey that our City really needs to look at protected bike lanes; especially 11
there. I love that they actually wanted to prioritize biking in this building because they know 12
that that’s what Palo Altans really want. 13
14
I don’t love that my neighborhood is almost entirely single-family homes and this proposal 15
while not in my neighborhood I would be happy to have in my neighborhood. Especially 16
because this is the first new RHNA determination… this is the first new housing proposal since 17
the RHNA determination. And it really sends a message that Palo Alto can and will make space 18
for new neighbors and I want to show people that we can. And that we’re willing to do that and 19
we’re happy to do make that space. 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 also would love to see either one of the 2-bedrooms become a BMR unit or a few 30 to 60 2
percent of AMI units in here. I’m not sure how much space there is left to negotiate around that 3
and that is it. 4
5
Mr. Nguyen: Thank you for joining us tonight. Our next and last speaker will be Scott. Scott if 6
you can please unmute yourself. 7
8
Mr. Scott: Can you hear me now? 9
10
Mr. Nguyen: Yes, we can hear you. Thank you. 11
12
Mr. Scott: Ok, great thank you. Hi, my name’s Scott, I live in the East Meadow Circle area and I 13
just wanted to respond to some of the concerns about bike commuting. I commuted from that 14
area to Mountain View and Sunnyvale for about 5-years. For about 2 or 3 of those years it was 15
rain or shine year-round and so the underpass that’s closer to my house to access the Bay Trail 16
was closed. And I would drive down or ride down through that area of Palo Alto around San 17
Antonio and take San Antonio over 101 to access the Bay Trail. And it’s not… I mean it’s not 18
great, it’s not super safe, but it’s over short distances. As a bike commuter, it’s very easy to 19
compensate for that. You’ll spend a little bit more time going very slow on sidewalks over very 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.
short distances. That kind of experience can be made safe because it’s over a short distance and 1
so I just want to say I support the project. I think that the concerns about bike safety are a little 2
bit overblown because the distance to the… to much safer areas is very, very short and that’s 3
sort of commuting is actually quite manageable so thank you. 4
5
Mr. Nguyen: Thank you for joining us tonight, Scott. Chair Templeton, that concluded public 6
comments for this item. 7
8
Chair Templeton: Great, thank you. Alright, so Commissioners I was thinking what if we go 9
around and everybody gets 5-minutes or so at first. And then we can go back for a second-10
round if there’s additional questioning needed. Has does that sound? Does that seem ok? Raise 11
your hand if you’re thumbs up. What do you think? Doria’s [note -Commissioner Summa] cool 12
with it. Alright, I see a few. Alright, let’s try that. It looks like Commissioner Lauing, did you have 13
something that you wanted to say? Oh, you’re on mute. 14
15
Commissioner Lauing: I was going to say it sounds short. 16
17
Chair Templeton: Short. First, pass. 18
19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Lauing: I mean we’ve got about eight substantive issues here. I don’t know how 1
we each can comment for 5-minutes and (interrupted) 2
3
Chair Templeton: You do make a good point. Do we want to break up the content per bullet 4
item or? I want to make this a productive discussion so how do we (interrupted) 5
6
Commissioner Lauing: Well maybe… if you’re asking me maybe eventually. I wouldn’t suggest it 7
for the first round, but relative to how we eventually make motions that probably makes some 8
sense. 9
10
Chair Templeton: Ok. Any other commentary here before we just go for it? 11
12
Commissioner Riggs: I can just start and I don’t want to break anything up. I just want to go for 13
it. I don’t really have comments on some of the stuff. 14
15
Chair Templeton: Ok hold on, Commissioner Alcheck had his hand raised for (interrupted) 16
17
Commissioner Riggs: Fine. Fine. 18
19
Chair Templeton: The first turn then you can go Commissioner Riggs. Alright so (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
Ms. Tanner: I have a question. This is Rachael. 2
3
Chair Templeton: Sure. 4
5
Ms. Tanner: Do you want us to keep time or do you want Commissioners to self-keep? Do you 6
want to keep the time? 7
8
Chair Templeton: I would say I’m happy to give a reminder at 5-minutes and I’ll just raise my 9
hand like this. I think self-regulating is fine and like Commissioner Lauing said there are a lot of 10
issues, but I want to be cognizant of giving everybody a chance for air time and not spending 11
40-minutes per person. So, I do want to have a little bit of circulation there so that’s my 12
request. 13
14
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Chair Templeton? Sorry, real quick a procedural issue. Do we want to 15
put up the Findings or recommendations just to kind of keep us all on track? 16
17
Chair Templeton: I think that would be helpful. The thing is there are two pages of them. 18
19
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Yeah, you’re 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
Chair Templeton: So, maybe we could ask Mr. Ah Sing to have those two slides ready and be 2
ready to flip through them because I suspect that Commissioners will want to speak to those. 3
Alright, Commissioner Alcheck, Commissioner Riggs, and then anybody else should raise their 4
hand if they want to go next. 5
6
Commissioner Alcheck: I… Chair respectfully I actually lowered my hand. I think maybe because 7
I sometimes tend to be long-winded, maybe I’ll let some of the other Commissioners do their 8
thing, and if they tackle comments I would have made then my whole spiel will be shorter. 9
10
Chair Templeton: Awe well that’s very thoughtful of you. 11
12
Commissioner Alcheck: I’m going to take a back seat and maybe you come back to me after a 13
few people have spoken. 14
15
Chair Templeton: Just to let you know, that wasn’t directed at you. I think we’re all going to 16
have a lot to say on this. Alright, Commissioner Riggs. 17
18
Commissioner Riggs: I don’t have a lot to say on the land use component. I think Commissioner 19
Waldfogel and I made very clear and we’ve actually thought about this a lot, even this corridor, 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 lot after. I think this is the right… I have no trouble with the Findings on the land use 1
component and seeing this is a new focus for housing development. Let alone the Retail Waiver 2
so I’m not going to focus at all on that. 3
4
I think the primary thing that bothers me and what I struggle with really has less to do with the 5
applicant and that goes back to I think what Ms. Banes and sorry, Angie Evans brought up. 6
Which I’m very concerned about the points of conflict along San Antonio. We brought this up 7
when the Middlefield or not Middlefield, the Charleston and San Antonio corridor was brought 8
up. We brought it up. We talked about pedestrian improvements there. I assumed this would 9
be linked to some type of at least intersection improvement. So, I’ll just put out there the 10
mandatory TDM components are not adequate in this component. The east-west service 11
connection and I believe the predominant desire line in particular the connection with Caltrain 12
from a transportation standpoint is not made. And for example, the enhanced VTA… the VTA 13
Card doesn’t… that’s not… it shouldn’t even have to provide that. It does these residents 14
basically no good. 15
16
I applaud the bike space. I think it’s really a progressive project, but there’s not the public 17
sector instructor gesture can match this. I will suggest one physical intervention and I’m 18
surprised that the ARB didn’t go there, but it’s because vague space. That is it PTC, is it ARB? I 19
actually think that two… that one of the TDM components could be a physical design. 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.
type of protected infrastructure in the… at the intersection of Leghorn and San Antonio. I don’t 1
see… in the diagrams I’ve seen, there are no extended bulb-outs to reduced pedestrian and 2
cyclist crossings. I actually think a creative intersection design solution could have been too kind 3
of ala cart style, carry the flowers… I think it’s Chrysanthemum to carry them out into the 4
street. So, a lot of times if we do traffic calming features where you’ll have graphical pieces that 5
carry out into the intersection. What that does is it raises that driver’s awareness, it slows them 6
down at the same time that you’re trying to facilitate bicycle and pedestrian activity there. So, 7
and it creates kind of the [unintelligible] for a living room for space interactions between 8
bicycles and pedestrians and automotive users. 9
10
We also have thought about radical transit in this space and I think that we could think about 11
an enhanced supplement or an enhanced pickup and drop off credit instead of the traditional. 12
And I know it’s just a formula, but I don’t think the TDM Program formula works here. I just 13
want to emphasize that again and, in my mind, to make Finding 4 and to make Finding F there 14
has to be some kind of tweak of that component. That’s it. 15
16
Chair Templeton: Great. Any other Commissioners want to raise their hand. Commissioner 17
Roohparvar [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: Sure, I just have some brief comments on my thoughts on this. Thank 1
you for the presentations and the public comments. We’ve been wanting housing in Palo Alto 2
for so long. I think this is the first real housing project that we have seen since I’ve been on the 3
Commission and this is our opportunity. Who knows when we’re going to see another housing 4
project. I’m very pleased to see that it’s going to make a significant dent in terms of our RHNA 5
goal in the 300 units that we want to bring on each year. I think this I will bring on 100 or so. 6
7
Very pleased also to see that its offering BMR units instead of the fees. That’s very positive. 8
9
The traffic component doesn’t concern me as much. I think we have prioritized housing in this 10
City and any sort of housing is going to have… is going to result in traffic. That’s the reality of it. 11
12
I do think… I actually live nearby, not within conflict zone, but I actually do live fairly close and 13
I’d be happy to have it in… I think it’s a good site for housing. It makes sense. My only I guess 14
concerns would be the… not as detailed, I don’t know it as well as Commissioner Riggs, but the 15
points that he raised well I would also echo. That leaves me hesitant and pause. Other than 16
that, that’s it. 17
18
Chair Templeton: Alright, thank you Vice-Chair Roohparvar. 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: I just couldn’t resist. First off, I just want to thank the applicant for 1
bringing the project to us tonight and Staff for what I think is one of the most forward-thinking 2
recommendations. This is really putting… articulating what we’re trying to do. What we’ve been 3
saying we’ve been trying to do for a while so I’m proud to see so much creativity in how to 4
address all the inconsistencies with what is now quickly becoming an outdated… somewhat 5
outdated Comprehensive Plan if, for example, we may call these amendments. 6
7
I just want to quickly respond… I’m going to try to speak fast. I want to quickly respond to 8
something our first speaker, Steve Levy, raised for the individuals on this Commission are 9
listening who are not land use attorneys and don’t know this yet. There is some really 10
complicated nuance in what he mentioned which is that the Housing Element that we need to 11
begin working on soon won’t simply need to accommodate more housing units than it ever has 12
in the past, but it will also require that we no longer rely on parcels that we had previously 13
identified as potential housing sites if they’ve survived multiple Housing Elements without a 14
residential project coming to fruition. By way of example, Whole Foods in downtown has been 15
identified in Housing Elements of past as a site eligible… capable of a certain number of units. 16
We’ve probably even raised the zoning there or identified it additional units that could be 17
developed there. That site has survived without a project. The likelihood of a project occurring 18
there is essence is now diminished and the state has rules about whether or not you can 19
continue to rely on that site in future Housing Elements. What I’m trying to suggest is that this 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 Housing Element may not only add units, but many of the units that we have been relying 1
on in this town may not be… we may not be able to rely on them in the future. And I think Staff, 2
that might be a conversation we should probably have because I think will dramatically affect 3
the way the community interrupts a project. For example, if those in the community who don’t 4
find that the merit in a project like this one bringing additional housing for housing sake. I think 5
it's important to keep in mind that parcels like the one under consideration tonight are likely to 6
be relied upon for densities higher than the one proposed tonight in our next Housing Element. 7
So, if you can’t get behind the idea of housing, then maybe you can get behind the idea of less 8
housing is better than more housing later. I mean I… again I don’t know. 9
10
I’ll go quickly through some of these things. I think every single one of the amendments related 11
to the HIP should be supported by the Council. The increase in FAR, the Development Standards 12
changes, the rooftop garden, the reduction in parking for retail, the notion that we wouldn’t 13
count certain areas for under FAR like storage and laundry units. I mean look, I think we all 14
know that a project doesn’t need to house homeless people to make an important impact on 15
our housing crisis. You know the idea when you’re dying of thirst, every drop in the canteen 16
counts. Even at just 102-units, this project is offering a substantial number of housing units in a 17
City that desperately needs more housing in 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.
I think the Packet materials note… no, I know, I shouldn’t say I think. The Packet materials note 1
that some believe that this site is not a reasonable location for housing. When I say some, I’m 2
referring just leadership and I’d like to say in all due respect that the market completely 3
disagrees with that view. And to be even more frank, the market for the demand for housing 4
that is driving builders of housing to design and build projects like this one on sites just like this 5
one is not some complicated algorithm. The market is a clear indicator of actual interest in our 6
community for housing in this exact spot. The suggestion that this street in Palo Alto is not 7
suitable or this parcel is not suitable for housing are in direct conflict with the demonstrated 8
success of housing projects on this street in Palo Alto. And not just for young people, there is a 9
senior living center hundred… a few hundred feet away on this same street. 10
11
So, I think… you know there were suggestions in the Packet that the businesses on San Antonio 12
will be devastated by the project. I think these suggestions are totally without merit. I’m not 13
suggesting these are Staff’s suggestions, but there are statements in discussions, in minutes 14
that businesses on San Antonio would be devastated by this project. I think that’s totally 15
without merit. In reviewing this project, I made what I would argue is a modest effort to 16
uncover any evidence of such negative impacts from recent redevelopment projects on San 17
Antonio and I couldn’t find any. Instead, I learned from some local business owners that they 18
felt that the residential repopulation of the immediate areas had a very positive impact. This 19
experience by the way has informed my belief that too often misinformation is permeating our 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 hearing process and we should require claims of such devastation to be supported by 1
actual evidence. 2
3
I am hopeful and optimistic that the most recent evolution of the PC Zone that I asked Assistant 4
Director Tanner about tonight finally reflects a politically difficult truth in our community; which 5
is that the building of housing is actually a community benefit. I think that evolution of the PC 6
Zone is one that we should probably keep in our minds tonight as we review projects like this 7
one because our code or I should say our leadership formally recognizes that housing is a 8
benefit to the community. And our state legislature is getting closer every year to defining new 9
residential developments as a protected class. The goal being to restrict a local muni’s ability to 10
erect barriers to new housing. I think everyone on… involved tonight it familiar with what I’m 11
getting at and… which is that it is becoming less and less politically acceptable to find a housing 12
project offensive; or a request… or even a request for flexibility to develop the much-needed 13
housing is offensive. 14
15
From my perspective this is a good thing because the politics make us… make our effort as a 16
Commission to achieve our Comprehensive Plan’s housing goals very difficult. So, setting that 17
aside for a minute the flexibility that I’m referring to relates to the permissibility of housing in a 18
zone that allows uses that are… that maybe for far too long have been perceived as in conflict 19
with housing. A perception that other communities have demonstrated over and over 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.
outdated; most recently on this street a few hundred feet away in the City of Mountain View. 1
They are demonstrating that housing is quite suitable in this… on this street in this area. 2
3
I am also concerned and this goes to back to the HIP discussion that we had. I’m concerned by 4
voices that suggest that flexibility only be allowed for BMR housing. I think is a tactic which 5
capitalizes on that fact that building 100 percent BMR is not profitable and therefore unlikely to 6
occur. I mean if you are anti-housing, what a great suggestion. An equally concerning 7
alternative is that the notion… is the notion that for those who find the request for flexibility 8
offensive. Allowing housing in an area not suitably zoned for it, they don’t seem to mind the 9
conflict in uses if the housing is only for the poor or very poor. This is a real problem. We can’t 10
be like oh, it’s ok to live in a totally commercial area if it’s just BMR. That’s a… there’s an 11
inequity in that statement. So, in both ways that I interpret this notion of only BMR should get 12
flexibility is problematic from my standpoint. 13
14
I will conclude by saying I support the recommendations found on Pages 21 and 23 of tonight’s 15
Packet. I believe Council should interpret requests like the one before us for flexibility as 16
opportunities to make the development of more housing more likely. We need really strong 17
leadership here than can overcome the misconception that for-profit developers are just 18
waiting in line to flood our local streets with housing once we stop counting laundry rooms as… 19
and stairways in our FAR numbers. That’s a ridiculous concern. Our leaders have to get 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.
comfortable with the knowledge that they can always adjust the levers. If they feel that we’ve 1
turned the spigot to far, ok turn it back; but I think… and this is part of the HIP problem, right? I 2
think… I continue to believe that our record in adding new housing this past decade is the best 3
evidence that the baby step approach to addressing this crisis isn’t working. 4
5
So, I… there are plenty of feedback in the minutes, the City Council’s discussion in 2018 that are 6
promising, and there are some that are concerning. And I think Staff is really eloquently 7
addressed all the ways we could adjust our current code to accommodate this project. And I 8
won’t get in the weeds about… I will resist every effort tonight to get into the weeds about 9
any… I’m not not concerned about groundwater, but it’s a lower priority than housing. I am not 10
not concerned about traffic, but it is a lower priority than housing. I am not not concerned 11
about parking, it’s just a lower priority than housing. And it can’t be that every even modest 12
effort we make in this City to address housing is overwhelmed by all these other concerns we 13
have if this is our top priority. 14
15
So, I think Staff’s really eloquently done it tonight. I really do and I will remain quiet until the 16
motion. If not, I’ll put a motion up to support the recommendations on Pages 21 and 22 of this 17
Packet is put forward. 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: Thank you Commissioner Alcheck. Other Commissioners who wish to speak, 1
please raise your hand. Commissioner Hechtman. 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you Chair Templeton and thank you, Staff and applicant, for 4
the years of effort that went into putting this particular application and project together and 5
presenting it to us tonight. I was not on the PTC in… last September when this was first 6
presented, but I knew a lot about this project before. I got the Staff report because part of my 7
PTC application asked to identify a project that’s come before the PTC and tell us why you think 8
it’s interesting. And this was the project that I picked out because from a planner’s perspective 9
it’s a dream because it has everything. It has ever kind of issue and I think that Staff and the 10
applicant have really done a terrific job of integrating all the issues into the project that we 11
have before us. 12
13
So, overview, I am supportive of the four Staff recommended recommendations. I do have a 14
few questions and I have a [unintelligible] suggestions that are related to some of those 15
recommendations and so I’m just going to go through them in no particular order. 16
17
So, I want to start with the San Antonio special setback which is the subject of the Variance in 18
the current application. It’s clear here that Staff and the applicant have not shied away from 19
changing, modifying Citywide policies where it would benefit the… and allow the project. And 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
so, I’m wondering if Staff and the applicant talked about instead of utilizing a Variance from the 1
San Antonio special setback, whether there was a discussion about modifying the special 2
setback which as I understand is more than 60-years old and was conceived to address the 3
potential expansion of a roadway that we don’t believe it going to occur. So, that’s my first 4
question is whether that was considered as an alternative to the Variance? 5
6
Ms. Tanner: I’ll let Ms. Gerhardt and Mr. Ah Sing answer that question. 7
8
Ms. Gerhardt: I don’t… we didn’t take a look at removing the special setback. There are special 9
setbacks along San Antonio and many other streets in the City and I think we felt like that 10
would be opening another item that… you know this project is already large enough that we 11
weren’t… didn’t think we wanted to go there. 12
13
Commissioner Hechtman: Ok, understood, thank you. Let’s see the next question I have can you 14
pull up Packet Page 55? 15
16
Ms. Tanner: Just a moment. Just getting to the page. Of course, it’s very slow. Ok. 17
18
Ms. Gerhardt: I have mine up Rachael or maybe you’re already there. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Ms. Tanner: I just go there so let me see if I can share. 1
2
Commissioner Hechtman: Ok, yours looks a little different than mine, but this will work. So, in 3
the top paragraph Section 8, Final Math, fourth line… third line, accept as modified…. Oops. Just 4
moved. There we go. Sorry, in Section 8 the fourth line you have a reference to the Conditions 5
of Approval in Section 8, but this is Section 8. I think we mean here the Conditions of Approval 6
in Section 9 and the Conditions of Approval in Section 10. So, if you’re forwarding that to the 7
Council I’d like Staff to look at that and see if that is a correction that needs to be made. 8
9
Ms. Tanner: Great. 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: Next one, next question, so we do have two sections of Conditions of 12
Approval; Section 9 and Section 10. And let’s see, Section 9 is T. Map [note – Tentative Map] 13
and Section 10 is architectural review. I notice that there are seven Conditions of Approval that 14
are identical in Section 9 and Section 10 and I was wondering is that necessary and if so, why? 15
16
Ms. Gerhardt: Most of the time we’re doing these Conditions of Approval separately and so 17
those… we probably can clean out some of those repetitive conditions, but we’ll speak with the 18
attorneys as well. 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: Ok, just so you know what they are, in Section 9 they are 1 through 6 1
and 18. In Section 10 they are 7, 8, 11, 18, 92, 93, 94. Next question is on Packet Page 66, 2
please. Ok and then I’m going to have a question about Condition of Approval 40, Subdivision. 3
There is it. So, this reads to me as a pre-application condition because you’re supposed to 4
submit a Major Subdivision application to planning which I was imagining is what they did to get 5
to this point with the T Map [note – Tentative Map]. So, I just ask Staff to look at that provision 6
and see if it needs some modification. 7
8
Ms. Tanner: Ms. Gerhardt, do you want to address that now or is that something you want to 9
take a look at? 10
11
Ms. Gerhardt: This is a Public Works condition that we do try and spot check these as we can, 12
but there are two components to the Subdivision. There is the Tentative Map and then the 13
Final Map so I assume that’s part of what they’re trying to get too. I’d have to read it further. 14
15
Ms. Tanner: Great, we’ll take a look at that. Thank you. 16
17
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. Next, just a question in let’s see Section… in Section 9, 18
Condition 2 and Section 10, Condition of Approval 7, there’s a reference to the $5.4 million in 19
Development Impact Fees. In the Staff report, there is a… and we saw it in the presentation 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,
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2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
tonight there’s a reference to $4.4 million in Park Land In Lieu Fees. It’s not clear to me from 1
the documentation whether the $4.4 million in Park In Lieu Fees is part of the $5.4 or separate 2
from the $5.4 million. 3
4
Ms. Tanner: Great. Ms. Gerhardt or Sheldon can you can address the Impact Fees and the 5
Parking… and the Park In Lieu Fees, not parking and just how those are related. 6
7
Mr. Ah Sing: Right so the $5.3 million does include the $4.4 million. So, there are other various 8
Development Impact Fees are included in that. 9
10
Commissioner Hechtman: Ok, thank you. Next, if we can go to Packet Page 78. 11
12
Ms. Tanner: Hopefully nobody’s getting dizzy from my scrolling. Alright, here we go. 13
14
Commissioner Hechtman: Ok and actually at the bottom of that page, that Subpart D like dog, 15
there. So, the end of D… well D says the Council held a hearing that included potential zoning 16
Text Amendments to implement the project. While I think that technically may be true, really 17
when we’re looking at zoning Text Amendments they’re not to implement a project. They are I 18
think to implement projects, plural, of which the present project can be one because I think we 19
should be and I think Staff has here looked at the long term, at changes that would be good 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.
just for this project and so my preference would be to change this language from implement 1
the project to implement developments such as the project because I think that’s really the 2
intent behind what’s happening here. 3
4
Ms. Tanner: Great. Ms. Gerhardt or Mr. Yang do you have any comments on that change? 5
6
Ms. Gerhardt: That’s fine. It sounds good. 7
8
Commissioner Hechtman: Ok next is Page 89 of the Packet. Chair Templeton, if you’ve waved at 9
me I’m sorry, I’ve been looking at my notes, and I wouldn’t have noticed, but I’m almost done. 10
11
Chair Templeton: It’s fine and thank you. Good. 12
13
Commissioner Hechtman: Ok. On Page 89, so this is the change to our Comp Plan and it’s at the 14
bottom of the page there. The proposed new language which incidentally in Sheldon’s slide I 15
noticed the word selected rather than select, but really my focus is on that word because unless 16
we have… so what this says is we’re changing the language which currently would eliminate 17
these housing sites along San Antonio to retaining them, including them. And so, my question is 18
whether we really want to have this word select here unless we have a list of housing sites on 19
San Antonio that we are including; or a list that we are excluding which I don’t think we do. And 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
we don’t for example say that we’re talking about select sites for California Avenue. I think 1
unless there’s a reason to exclude housing sites along San Antonio, I think that this program 2
should just be to amend the Housing Element to increase housing sites along San Antonio. So, 3
my proposal is to remove the word select. 4
5
Ms. Tanner: I think Jodie had a response to that. 6
7
Ms. Gerhardt: Yes, so the wording could be changed or modified, but the intent behind the 8
wording is that when you look at the zoning change, we’re only talking about two blocks, and 9
we’re only talking about the CS Zone. And so that’s why we were… that’s where the word select 10
came from. 11
12
Commissioner Hechtman: Then my suggestion… thank you for that clarification. Then my 13
suggestion would be to get specific. If you’re talking about the CS property between Charleston 14
and Middlefield then let’s say that, rather than have people guess or have to contact the 15
planner to see if they can find out what select means. That would be my recommendation. 16
17
Ms. Tanner: And then Mr. Yang, is there anything you’d like to say? Does that seem ok to have 18
that specificity in the Comp Plan Amendment? 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.
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Yang: So, that’s… I’ll echo what Ms. Gerhardt said about the reasoning and we’ve heard 1
Commissioner Hechtman suggestion. I think its… we’ll take back and consider. 2
3
Ms. Tanner: Great, thank you. 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: I appreciate that. Quick question on the affordable units. I heard… 6
I’m curious about how that is enforced whether the units are rental and then for sale or for sale 7
right up front. Is that all handled through a deed restriction and how is it monitored? 8
9
Mr. Yang: So, if will be… if there’s a property owner who intends to rent units before they’re 10
sold we’ll have a regulatory agreement which will govern the rental prices until they are sold. 11
And then once they are sold there will be a deed restriction recorded with that sale on each 12
individual unit. 13
14
Commissioner Hechtman: Alright, thank you, Mr. Yang. So, the final comment I have is I just 15
want to say what I really like the most about this project and it was displayed in the evolution 16
slide that Mr. O’Hanlon showed. So, we… this project started out with basically 48… potentially 17
as few as 48 households. I think it was 21 1-bedrooms and 27 2-bedrooms. So, that’s 75 18
bedrooms and maybe there are some shared living there, but it says potentially as few as 48 19
households. The project that came to us is 102 separate units, 100… I think it’s 106-bedrooms 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 by its natural that change makes this project, the units here, more affordable and in a way 1
that doesn’t really get measured in our affordability calcs beyond the 16-units that are 2
dedicated affordable. And I really applaud that thinking because I think that there’s a need… 3
there are people who have enough money for a studio but not for a 1-bedroom and now 4
they’ve got, with this development, 32 opportunities to grab one of those. So, I appreciate the 5
long effort to come here and I am supportive of the project. Thank you. 6
7
Chair Templeton: Thank you very much for your comments. Commissioner Lauing or 8
Commissioner Summa, are either of you ready to speak? Ok, Commissioner Lauing. 9
10
Commissioner Lauing: Yep, thank you. This is just a quick note on process. This is an odd change 11
from process that we usually get. 12
13
Chair Templeton: You may have as much time as you’d like Commissioner Lauing. 14
15
Commissioner Lauing: No, no, no, no, I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the process 16
of the agenda item because before we’d probably look at the Comp Plan and make that 17
decision and then look at the area and make that decision. And then look at the project and 18
then look at the EIR and the things we could mitigate and so on and we’re kind of all wrapping 19
it up here. So, Staff thanks for the annual agenda that you’ve presented to us tonight, it’s a full 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.
one. I’d first like to go there and say that I agree with my colleagues that this is just a superior 1
Staff report on a very complex subject. So, appreciate that clarity and that said of course I have 2
some comments. 3
4
The… but again… let me give an overall as well. Housing is a top priority in Palo Alto. Within 5
that, I think we, on this Commission, can agree that affordable housing is the top priority within 6
that. So, I don’t see any downside at all in asking is there anything more that can be done on 7
affordable housing to the applicant, but I think that the issue is that we have to prioritize 8
housing. There is, therefore, going to be lower priorities. We’ve been through this a lot. Our 9
City faces it every day. We’re landlocked. That means we can only go out a little bit and rebuild 10
or up or underground. These folks have chosen to go underground in the third iteration of this 11
with a couple of layers for parking in there. 12
13
So, the… when this was last Council, of course, it was a lot different because it was a 64-units 14
and all for sale, but even there, there was a concern. It was quite mixed in terms of their 15
comments back in 2019 because we’re losing some retail and we might not have enough 16
parking and there’s already congestion there, but we just have to stay the course and prioritize 17
the housing. The fact that we can get this number of units is good for a lot of reasons. I’m not 18
making a market comment on that in terms of what you can get for a studio. That’s up to you 19
guys in terms of how you build 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,
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2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
I think however that if we’re going to do this it’s not just one the developer to work on the 2
horrendous problem of transportation there. That has to be an assignment that the City takes 3
on. Starting in a big way with what Commissioner Riggs said in terms of looking at traffic flow in 4
those areas and what some of the speakers said. Lots of U-turns going on Leghorn, it’s not 5
going to work. I think that right now it’s not really a good bicycle area. I think it was Council 6
Member Filseth said in the last Council meeting about I don’t know half a dozen times that this 7
is a car-centric location. And if the aspirational goal is to turn it into a bike-centric location then 8
we’ve got some work to do because there are jobs around there, there are grocery stores close, 9
there’s a gym at the JCC, so there are some amenities there, but getting there is just to start 10
with just not safe. So, I think we have to address immediately a plan for getting at least bicycle 11
and other mobility options along those streets there. And we have to take that on in the 12
context of if Council decides to move forward with some version of this and we have to commit 13
to it at the same time and that means we have to fund it alternative to what else we’re doing. 14
It’s just flat out not safe. I mean parking a car there as I did to look at the site, I was kind of 15
worried to get back into my little car unless all the traffic had already passed so it’s a serious 16
problem. I presume that since it’s referenced in the Staff report that special setback there could 17
be used for something like that. That is enough space is being retained as I understood it in one 18
part of the Staff report to actually put in bike lanes and things like that. So that kind of thing has 19
to be looked at. Perhaps we could ask in the context of the developers TDM to actually provide 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.
maybe shuttles to the train at morning, at night for people that are there. So, they know they 1
don’t have to deal with bikes, weather, cars, or anything. So, I think there’s a level of detail that 2
would have to be worked out here that would be quite helpful to helping mitigate the obvious 3
problem with San Antonio which is why I believe is the core reason which it wasn’t on the list 4
before to be developed. 5
6
So, I think this is perfectly fine to make the amendment to the Comprehensive Plan and make 7
this one of the sites for housing; because we need to have a lot of sites for housing given what 8
the reality of what we’re facing and it has to be done with transportation. 9
10
I had a couple questions on the EIR that came up in public speakers and some of the comments. 11
The water table, the EIR being going across a lot of areas and a lot of current buildings. Can 12
Albert or someone tell us the legality of that? And I guess we’re also seeing this in the middle 13
because it’s only been out a month and it’s going to be out a couple months more. So, it seems 14
like we could potentially even wait on this part of the project, but if somebody could address at 15
least those two points in the EIR. 16
17
Ms. Tanner: I’ll ask Mr. Yang if you can talk a little bit about just procedurally where the EIR is 18
and where it’s going. And then perhaps the distinction of this EIR covering both the specific 19
housing project, but also the larger area around the site. 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,
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Mr. Yang: Yeah so just procedurally where the EIR was very recently released, it’s in the middle 2
of its public comment period, and so we’ll take comments that were made at this hearing, 3
comments at that the Commissioners are making. Things that come in by correspondence and 4
we’ll look at those and respond to those and make amendments to the EIR as part of the final 5
EIR that will be released sometime around the end of the year or in 2021 most likely. And that’s 6
something that will need to happen before the City Council can take action on any of this. 7
8
As to the structure of the EIR and the fact that it covers not just this parcel and this proposed 9
building, but also the larger area of these two blocks of San Antonio. That’s not an uncommon 10
format for an EIR. So, there’s both the project that’s being analyzed in this document as well as 11
we’re treating this as what we call programmatic EIR for the San Antonio rezone. And that 12
means much like the Comp Plan had an EIR, but it’s not something that gets down to the nitty-13
gritty level of every project that would be built consistent with the Comp Plan. That’s what we 14
have here. If we have a project that is proposed that’s going to use this rezoning, we would take 15
a look at that project and take a look at this EIR and say how many of the impacts that we 16
anticipate this project… did we already analyze? And how many of these impacts need more 17
analysis before we can act and so in all likelihood we have either an addition… some sort of 18
additional document that goes with any future project that gets proposed in this corridor. 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: Ok and then could you… on the same page as that could you address the 1
legalities of Council ultimately agreeing to take down a historically registered building. 2
3
Mr. Yang: Sure. 4
5
Commissioner Lauing: Is that just unmitigated and so we can decide to do it anyway. Is it that 6
simple? 7
8
Mr. Yang: So, if you have a… if you identify an impact in an EIR that is significant and 9
unavoidable. We can’t mitigate it while also building the project. The Council needs to adopt 10
what’s called a Statement of Overriding Considerations and that’s a resolution they’d adopt 11
where they say we understand that there is this environmental impact that would be created 12
by this project, but here are the benefits that we think or here are the reasons that we think it’s 13
worthwhile to proceed with this project anyway. 14
15
Commissioner Lauing: Ok. I think that at least for this round that’s fine. I’ve commented 16
enough, thank you. 17
18
Ms. Tanner: I just want to say Commissioner Lauing that the Transportation Office will be 19
working hopefully beginning later this year and into next year on updating the Bike Plan and 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.
some of that would address some of the area in this San Antonio area. And additionally, part of 1
what we… you are correct the Staff report kind of indicating that hopefully if there were some 2
bike improvements in the special setback, that this design of the project in the front would help 3
to facilitate that. You can see it was mostly a ramp that you even saw I think a bike going up in 4
order to take advantage of the at grade bike parking. And so there may be ways that if there is 5
feature bike improvements that they could be part of that and could be really meshed well with 6
it instead of being in conflict with future bike and mobility improvements. 7
8
Chair Templeton: Alright, Commissioner Summa. 9
10
Commissioner Summa: Thank you and at a high level thank you for bring… to the applicant for 11
bringing a housing project to this area and I did appreciate the comments of one member of the 12
public that was disappointed that the AMI level for the BMR units was as high as it was. And I 13
don’t really understand… I think that Commissioner Hechtman touched on and got kind of an 14
answer about how we can have BMR units and those would be restricted when we can’t… we 15
don’t require rental BMR units with a regulatory agreement. I get worried sometimes with 16
things like that. That they get kind of lost after in the enforcement stage. I think a project that 17
had the traditional 30 to 60 percent AMI for BMR units would be more compelling to me 18
personally. At 80 to 120 AMI, those units will have nearly identical value to the market rate 19
units so and we know that partially from our NVCAP studies so there’s 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
I also agree with Commissioner Hechtman that the word select, it’s slightly less confusing if it’s 2
selected, but I still think it’s confusing; but I think you’ve touched on that and you’re going to 3
look at it. 4
5
So, I’m surprised no one has mentioned this but I found it really hard to not… I really wish that 6
the project had come to us under the whatever it’s called now. The Planned Community for 7
Housing project and that we had more time to consider how we want to address making this 9 8
½-acre area into a new multi-family housing… neighborhood basically; and how we would do 9
that successfully for the people that live there now and for the people that are going to live 10
there. So, for me, it’s very muddy to consider both things at once and it makes it harder for me 11
to feel that we’re doing the right thing and giving a fair shake to either one of those processes. 12
13
So, I am all in favor of expanding the HIP to other neighborhoods. I don’t see why it shouldn’t 14
be. Nice tail on the cat. I don’t see why it should be restricted but I do have a problem with… I 15
think it’s more appropriate at the 1.5 FAR. I don’t have any issues with the density and size of 16
the units. I think that’s up to the… as long as we’re comfortable with that, I think it’s mostly up 17
to the applicant. 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, I do worry for instance at the top Packet Page 43, there’s a mention that there could be 1
other historic modifications or demos in the larger 9.5 program area, but there’s… I didn’t see 2
any list or evaluation of those. So, that’s a big unknown and correct me if I’m wrong about that 3
but. 4
5
And then I also think… this is a project for this 1-acre site and what we’re basically doing is also 6
allowing this exact project to be repeated 8 1/2 -acres more times. And I don’t see how that 7
would be very workable for this area, especially in terms of traffic. I think the concerns about 8
the people that live in this area already… there were two residents from the Greenhouse II I 9
think it was. I think they have pretty big concerns about traffic and parking issues. I think the 10
parking one as Commissioner Roohparvar [note -Vice-Chair Roohparvar] mentioned. I think it 11
was Commissioner Roohparvar [note – Vice-Chair Roohparvar], maybe could be addressed… 12
maybe it was a member of the public… by signage, but I do think the traffic in this area is very 13
bad at especially commute times. And I’m really concerned about the impacts of not this one 14
project, but 8.5-acres more of this size project. 15
16
So, I don’t have a problem with the height. I don’t have a problem with extending the HIP. I do 17
have some problems with the detail of the HIP. I think that 1.5 FAR is more appropriate in 18
general for maybe this one project. If it had come to us as a PC, it’s asking for so many 19
variations and deviations from the law that it’s… that would have been a perfect zone for it 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.
apply for. So, that’s kind of… I don’t want to tie all of the other acres and parcels to the exact 1
conditions we’re giving this one is what I’m saying. I’m not sure that’s going to resolve in a 2
really nice new multi-family neighborhood that works for the people that are going to live there 3
and the people that already live there. 4
5
I am concerned about the 24-foot setback, but only in that, it may prohibit future 6
improvements to the road. Especially bicycle improvements, but I think there is a condition on 7
Page 41 from the Office of Transportation that they could rescind that if it was necessary for 8
the City to use that area. And I guess I’m asking if that’s actually legal once it’s built and/or if it’s 9
practical as it is the only accessible entrance to the building? So that’s two specific questions 10
maybe Staff could answer? 11
12
Ms. Tanner: I’m going to ask if Mr. Ah Sing and maybe Mr. Yang can address the issue with the 13
setback and how that condition is structured and how we see that perhaps meshing with future 14
transportation improvements. Particularly mobility bike and pedestrian improvements. 15
16
Mr. Yang: Yeah so just a quick point about the special setback. It’s something that was in place 17
to… with the idea that one day we might want that space for public right of way, but it’s not 18
land that the City owns, or has an easement over or is able to right now use to expand the 19
roadway; or for any sort of public improvements. So, before we would be able to do any 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.
work we would need to acquire the right to use that land. And so that’s really the major hurdle, 1
but if we did get to that point I think what the Staff report is saying is wouldn’t be able to… the 2
fact that there is some sort of improvement in there for this structure wouldn’t be really much 3
more of an impediment than already having to acquire an easement or some other right to use 4
that land. 5
6
Commissioner Summa: Ok well that’s kind of confusing to me because we have special setbacks 7
on most of the main roadways, although not as much as 24. I mean in the Research Park it’s to 8
maintain… the special setback is to maintain the park-like-feel. So, there are different reasons, 9
but that I mean I think that could be addressed by maybe the 1.5 FAR issue also. And I realize 10
some of my colleagues won’t agree with that, but I think it could result in a better project for 11
everyone. 12
13
And the other thing we might consider doing since some of the buildings have already violated 14
the special setback. I think the biggest one was 19-feet. We might want to change it and look at 15
that and evaluate how we could have a better class of bike path here… path… I mean bike lane 16
and how much actual… how many feet it would take. I just… I found… I feel like we’re rushing 17
the bigger program area in an effort to approve this specific project and I think that’s a shame. 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, I already ask… so I think there’s… might be a redundancy in… there’s already a waiver 1
process for waiving the retail, ground floor retail retention. So, I don’t see why we would need 2
to specifically reduce it across the board here. Once again it may be appropriate at this location, 3
but not the other 8 ½-acres and there’s already a waiver process cooked into the ground floor 4
retail. So, I wouldn’t want to make that across the board either. 5
6
So, I also think we haven’t really had a discussion about what it means to lose the commercial… 7
the loss of the traditional commercial uses for CS Zones. We’re losing more and more of that, 8
not to housing. We’ve lost it more to general office and I’m not saying we shouldn’t do it here, 9
but there is a point in which we’re not going to have any place left for car repair places and 10
things like that. So, I do kind of worry about that. 11
12
So, for me, it’s going to be hard to approve… I really wish this project had come as a PC so we 13
could have look at it separately from the issues that I think we’re really rushing about the 14
program area in general. 15
16
And I think that might be it for now. Oh, and if… the affordability issue, I think one of the 17
reasons… I know people feel passionate about housing for all, but one of the reasons certain 18
people have focused on affordable housing, Below Market Rate, traditionally 30 to 60 AMI, is 19
because we’re really doing ok on Market Rate. It’s the Below Market Rate where we really fail. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
So, I don’t think it’s a tacitly that… it’s that people are tacitly ignoring the problem with housing 1
here which is that the housing is so restrictively expensive for so many people. And I don’t think 2
the affordability per square foot for this new housing will be… I don’t think it will be really 3
affordable per square foot. And I think you’ll get what you’re already getting in Palo Alto is 4
families of four living in studio apartments if that’s all they can find. 5
6
I also had some problems with assumptions in the Traffic Study. I just think… well with regards 7
to traffic I just… I know that VMT is required for CEQA and that we still… and we can’t look at 8
LOS, but I just feel like VMT doesn’t explain itself well. It seems like a magic calculation that I 9
have no faith in. The average Vehicle Miles Traveled for a building just seems like an unreliable 10
data point. And they also make assumptions that… in the Traffic Study they make assumption 11
that most… because of the jobs-housing imbalance, that this project will reduce VMT because 12
people live closer to their jobs. I also find that to be a very unreliable data point because 13
nobody… people… particularly for condos, I understand now it’s going to be rentals, but for 14
purchased housing people move their jobs a lot more in the Bay Area than they do their houses. 15
And so, I found a lot of the thinking in the Traffic Study to be not… based on assumptions that 16
were not really sound. 17
18
I also have said this before many times, I’d hate to be a broken record, but the TDM measures 19
are not enforceable and they haven’t… they just haven’t resulted in real results where anybody 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.
can point to how they’re working. I mean the TDM measure for Edgewood Plaza is a little eight 1
by eleven notification on an exterior wall at one of the buildings there telling people what bus 2
routes are available and that they should consider carpooling. So, I think it’s really hard to rely 3
on those and maybe there’s better way we can handle those by requiring some rigorous 4
reporting as a condition. 5
6
So, those are my main concerns. That we’re mixing up a legislative issue here and rushing it and 7
that we’ve mixed up a project that has a lot of merit into that which is problematic for me. 8
9
Chair Templeton: Thank you, Commissioner Summa. I see you Commissioner Alcheck. If you 10
don’t mind I’ll probably give my comments first, if that’s alright? Alright, so I want to say that I 11
hear all those folks that are talking about biking over that Highway 101 overpass. It is a little 12
intimidating. I have biked it many times to work in the last 10-years, but I do agree with… I can’t 13
remember with Commissioner said it. I may have been Commissioner Lauing, I do agree that 14
that improvement to San Antonio Road and its bike-friendliness is probably a separate project. 15
That this project we’re discussing today would certainly make more interesting and more 16
urgent, but I’m kind of mentally separating those two. 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.
I too am very excited about the inclusionary units, the 16 inclusionary units, and just so grateful 1
that Staff and the applicant have found ways to create housing and proposed these 2
amendments and changes that we’re considering tonight as a way to make that happen. 3
4
I do think there is a rush. I do think we should be looking at ways to approve housing as it is an 5
urgent issue in our community. I’m really excited about the opportunity here tonight. 6
7
I agree with Commissioner Hechtman about the evolution of the project is also very heartening 8
to see that the feedback that our community provides has been taken to heart and the 9
proposals have been revised based on that community input. It’s absolutely wonderful to see. 10
11
And I’m also excited to hear that the applicant has taken the time to maximize the affordable 12
housing offering in this property. That they consider doing as much as they possibly can and this 13
is where they… where it penciled out for them. 14
15
So, the next steps for our Commission I think would be to look at the two sets of Findings; the 16
reserve Findings and the affirmative Findings. Who is presenting? Mr. Ah Sing, would you be 17
able to put up those slides up? Let’s start with one and do another round with the 18
Commissioners to discuss those Findings because I think it’s going to be hard for us to discuss 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.
the Staff recommendation until we know where we stand on these Findings. Does that… we do 1
have to make these Findings, right, the Reverse Findings and the Affirmative Findings? 2
3
Ms. Tanner: Mr. Ah Sing do you want to address that and perhaps Albert as well if you need to, 4
but just both where the Findings… the making of the Findings. And also, I believe the Findings 5
are included I think in the Record of Land Use Action or maybe they are in one of the other 6
documents that would be approved. 7
8
Chair Templeton: If anyone has a Packet Page for these two… I was flipping through, but it’s 9
hard to do and listen to at the same time. But then people who are have the Packet in front of 10
them can locate it as well. 11
12
Mr. Ah Sing: Right so the Variance Findings are on Packet Page 51. 13
14
Chair Templeton: Ok. 15
16
Mr. Ah Sing: And the Map Findings are on Page 48. 17
18
Chair Templeton: Ok. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Ah Sing: And that’s all contained within one Record of Land Use Action. 1
2
Chair Templeton: Great. That’s 3B? Ok, alright. 3
4
Mr. Yang: And to clarify the… it’s not just the Findings that you have to make, but also Staff’s 5
recommendation on how those Findings can be made based on the facts before you. 6
7
Chair Templeton: Ok so does any… please raise your hand. I see Commissioner Alcheck. Does 8
anyone have comments on the Subdivision Findings that are shown on the screen right now? 9
Ok and let’s look at the other Findings. 10
11
Commissioner Riggs: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait I just… I just I can’t operate this and I’m in the 12
dark. 13
14
Chair Templeton: Oh, that’s alright. 15
16
Commissioner Riggs: So, I might… I would like to tweak the… some of the recommendations 17
particularly need to be tweaked for me to make the Finding…both Findings. 18
19
Chair Templeton: Alright. 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 Riggs: Finding F here is problematic and Finding 4 in the next Finding. Not… we 2
need to tweak the mitigations particularly. This project will do… I keep on thinking we have to 3
do traffic calming through pedestrians by throwing pedestrians out in traffic at UC Berkeley 4
Campus. We don’t want to do that here. We would like to have… create a safe environment for 5
cyclists and I do believe this is going to be a super sustainable commuting site. I would like to 6
suggest that we… that Staff consider swapping out one of the… some of the standard TDM 7
mitigation for increased intersection improvements to Leghorn and particularly at Leghorn and 8
San Antonio. I think that’s a critical intersection that is not mitigated and there could definitely 9
be some interesting design improvements that actually could improve the safety in that 10
intersection and they could be linked to the project. 11
12
Chair Templeton: Thank you, Commissioner Riggs. Any other comments on this and Staff did 13
you want to respond to that comment from Commissioner Riggs? 14
15
Ms. Tanner: I was unclear if he was speaking to the Subdivision Findings in relation to the TDM 16
and traffic calming? 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 Riggs: Well the TDM are general… it’s a standard… I’m sorry, the word is… I’m 1
losing… I have eaten so I’m losing focus. So, it’s a standard… what’s it called? Standard 2
(interrupted) 3
4
Ms. Tanner: Condition? 5
6
Commissioner Riggs: Condition right and I’m assuming it’s a condition that’s levy irrespective to 7
Subdivision Finding or the… the conditions would apply to either action. 8
9
Ms. Tanner: I guess I’m just not clear if you’re saying that you find that you cannot… you find F 10
and G to be true for the site and therefore we need to make… I guess I’m just unclear what 11
you’re (interrupted) 12
13
Commissioner Riggs: It’s a Reverse Finding, I can’t make the Finding without some type of 14
additional TDM mitigation. 15
16
Ms. Tanner: Ok you can’t make Finding F or G. 17
18
Commissioner Riggs: The TDM… the… I think I’ve already said this in my comments. The TDM… 19
this is throwing cyclists out in dangerous situations if there’s no mitigation on San Antonio and 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
so if we could change some of the standard conditions we could make both… I could make 1
Finding F and Finding 4, but we have to tweak the… the Standard Conditions are… do not 2
resonate for this site. There’s… giving someone a VTA Card is not… does not really apply when 3
the primary route is this north-south route on Charleston or on Middlefield that has lost 4
frequency during COVID. So, I don’t… I think that maybe the standard TDM playbook doesn’t 5
work here. 6
7
Ms. Tanner: Ok. I think that in general the TDM plan for this project would need to be upgraded 8
definitely on its way to Council and we certainly hear the comments tonight from the 9
Commissioners which I think echo your comments regarding that. Jodie, are you… what are you 10
seeing as the way forward or how… what is the order of operations for enhancing the TDM 11
program here? 12
13
Ms. Gerhardt: We can certainly… so the TDM plan is not needed because they’re asking for a 14
parking reduction. It is needed because it is a larger project and we have Comp Plan policies 15
required TDM for larger projects. So, it’s part of the Comp Plan policy. One of the things that we 16
could explore as part of an updated TDM is these bike improvements that we’re talking about 17
and having the project potentially pay their fair share towards some sort of larger 18
improvement, but I think part of the problem that we’re running into is that transportation is 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.
still in the early planning stages for this area. And so, we don’t know exactly what that money 1
would be going towards. 2
3
Commissioner Riggs: TDM, the…whatever… the City has a very narrow definition in the 4
Standard Conditions of what Transportation Demand Management is. It can include physical 5
interventions and I would suggest that an elegant solution at Leghorn and San Antonio could be 6
a way to supplement some of the standard TDM; or TDM measures in a way that solves some 7
of the safety issues in advance of deploying a project there because otherwise, we don’t know 8
when transportation Staff and the City are going to prioritize any type of safety improvements 9
along this corridor. 10
11
Ms. Tanner: Does the Office of Transportation want to address what the plan is to get the TDM 12
updated? I know there are plans to update the ordinance; but also, how they plan to work with 13
the applicant as they are refining the TDM and Commissioner Riggs’s suggestions for a bulb out 14
and other mitigation measures. Rafael or Shrupath, if you’d like to address this. 15
16
Mr. Rius: Hi. As far as the intersection improvements, I mean I think we’d be open to the idea if 17
there’s a nexus for that. I’m not as familiar with the other TDM requirements and measures 18
that have been developed over the last year or so. I’d have to research that a little bit more 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.
with the rest of the Staff that couldn’t make it tonight and get back to you or before it goes to 1
Council. 2
3
Chair Templeton: So, I believe that Commissioner Riggs is looking for a way to make this Finding 4
based on what tools are available to us this evening. So, would it be sufficient Commissioner 5
Riggs for us to include this in our motion, whatever motion we do make, to have that 6
recommended as a mitigation or would that not be sufficient? 7
8
Commissioner Riggs: We need some kind of recommendation… yeah, that would be great if we 9
could get a recommendation of some type of and I think the simplest way to do it is some type 10
of enhanced intersection… a physical designed intersection. This also could be something that 11
could be… and I’ll just put this out there. It could be something that ARC [note -ARB] could take 12
on as well because it’s a vague area between planning and design. 13
14
Chair Templeton: Alright, I appreciate it so, and then can we go to the other slides so he… I 15
think Commissioner Riggs had an additional comment. 16
17
Commissioner Riggs: Well it just relates… that same characteristic about does a project create 18
a… basically create a detrimental or injurious environment and I think that the short answer is 19
the project in itself, but the travelers coming from the project you really do create a conflict… 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.
potential conflict zone if you have a high traffic situation and you’re throwing a lot of cyclists 1
out in that situation. So, I’m not going to get into a debate over whether or not we prioritize 2
housing over transportation because we don’t… that’s a… it’s impossible to tease that out. It’s 3
not either-or, but you don’t want to create an unsafe environment and I do think we want to do 4
everything we can to mitigate collisions that may result of our decision tonight. 5
6
Chair Templeton: Absolutely. Alright, thank you. I see Commissioner Alcheck’s hand up followed 7
by Commissioner Summa and Commissioner Hechtman. 8
9
Commissioner Alcheck: So, look I can make the Findings. I will refer to Negative Findings and 10
Findings as Findings that can be made. And I will just add that I don’t necessarily share the same 11
concern that the project will be injurious to the health of the population traveling to and from it 12
that Commissioner Riggs does. However, that said, I’m perfectly comfortable recommending 13
that Staff… that we’ll… I’m comfortable saying that I can make the Finding contingent on Staff 14
addressing or making more robust some of the TDM concerns that Commissioner Riggs’s raised 15
as so eloquently. 16
17
So, if we can’t get specific tonight because we don’t have the tools and I’m very comfortable 18
making the Finding on a vague recommendation because again, this really isn’t… we are not 19
codifying the project at this level. We are recommending that Staff make the Finding. We’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.
essentially saying based on our review we recommend that… excuse me, based on our review 1
we recommend that Council take this project under consideration and move forward. And so, 2
as a necessary step in the process of this application life, I’m comfortable with not necessarily 3
having the specific tool identified in addressing this concern about individuals traveling from 4
the project on bikes into the traffic… into the roadway. If we don’t have a specific tool then 5
maybe we could… maybe Commissioner Riggs can identify a version of a motion that with 6
respect to this issue that he could be comfortable with so that we could get broader support. 7
8
Commissioner Riggs: I’m comfortable. Mike [note -Commissioner Alcheck], you don’t have to… 9
I’m super comfortable with having… with that approach to be quite candid. And I’ll just… I mean 10
I’m comfortable with that approach and I think it’s the… my concern has been registered. 11
12
Commissioner Alcheck: Ok. Well, look, at the end of the day we have to make the Finding and 13
so I think because you so strongly suggested that you couldn’t. I think we can’t simply rely on 14
the comment registered. I think we should allude to it in our motion in order to set the record 15
on this cleanly. 16
17
I… and I want to say also really in an effort to build consensus here because I want to suggest 18
one more thing because I feel like I brought up PC. And I wanted to address Commissioner 19
Summa’s comment because I think this is really an opportunity for us to come together as 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.
Commission and possibly support an important project that the City has been involved in now 1
for a couple years and I’d love to see us do it unanimously. And so, I wanted to address one 2
element of the… what sounded like maybe one of the biggest concerns that you had 3
Commissioner Summa which is that maybe the project could come to us under the PC Zone. 4
And I just want to say look, until literally 2 1/2 -months ago the PC Zone was dead. It was killed 5
by a thousand cuts by all… by the community at large. And you… if you read the minutes, I’m 6
sure you have, this project was before Council in a slightly different form in 2018. So, for 99.9 7
percent of this project’s life, the PC Zone wasn’t even an option. So, look, I’m suggesting that 8
maybe don’t let that approach that it didn’t come under a zone which is only very recently been 9
resuscitated from absolute death and untested frankly be the reason by we can’t maybe come 10
together there. I think the new PC Zone, the new PHC Zone also contemplates commercial. The 11
idea is that if you have… that the project has to have more housing than it does… it has to had… 12
has to not increase trips based on office that it doesn’t adequately address through housing. I 13
mean I think that’s not this project. So, I think… I am hopeful, I really… I don’t want us to miss 14
an opportunity here to show the Council that what we’ve been talking about for… what I’ve 15
been participating… the discussion that I’ve been participating in for almost a decade. That this 16
is the opportunity and in the wake of what is likely to be a RHNA disruption that I don’t think 17
any of us really appreciate is coming. 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, I… one other thing I’d like to suggest which is I don’t… I’ve studied this a lot and I don’t think 1
the AMI here is essentially the market AMI. I think that that is a misconception. I think that the 2
project that’s down the road on San Antonio at that shopping center, you will find that 2-3
bedroom apartments or where renting pre-COVID for $15… $7,800 a month. I don’t believe that 4
there’s a population of people who are making 80 percent of the Average Median Income in 5
Santa Clara County who can afford that. No, actually I know they can’t, so I just want to put it 6
out there. I would be happy to go through the exercise of doing that analysis sidebar with you 7
or any Commissioner to really… to deal with that because this goes to the heart of what I was 8
saying at the beginning of my words… my first comment; which is we need to investigate every 9
assertion that suggests that a developer’s honest effort to bring housing is somehow not 10
sufficient enough. And we need to really task ourselves with that goal of saying wait, wait, wait, 11
let's just make sure that we are… that our critic is… here’s what I’m trying to say. It’s like we 12
need to double-check our critics because we have come up short too many times. It's like we 13
can’t…. we have to say wait a minute maybe we’re being too harsh. 14
15
So anyways I’ll… I will be… I just want to say that I think that the Staff report really does a good 16
job of laying out Chair and I don’t know that we need to go item by item, but if… I don’t think 17
it’s difficult to make the Findings based off this excellent Staff report. 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: Thank you. I noticed that Assistant Director Tanner had her hand up. I didn’t 1
mean to cut you off Commissioner Alcheck. I just wanted to her a chance to make her 2
comment. 3
4
Ms. Tanner: I know that there are two other Commissioners who do have comments. Thank 5
you, Chair Templeton. One thing that we could if whoever ends up making a motion, the 6
motion could be to move the Staff recommendation with additional recommendation for a 7
condition of physical intersection improvements at the corner of Leghorn and San Antonio and 8
development of a more robust TDM Plan for the project. That’s just a suggestion for the 9
Commission to consider. 10
11
Chair Templeton: Thank you for providing the wording, that’s very helpful. Alright, 12
Commissioner Alcheck was that the extent of your comments? 13
14
Commissioner Alcheck: Yeah look I… the extent of… the bulk here is I want to build consensus 15
around this and (interrupted) 16
17
Chair Templeton: I appreciate that. 18
19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Alcheck: So, to the extent that I am willing to work on any one of the Findings, 1
any one of the elements of this because this deserves our support I think. I really do and so if 2
there’s an element here that we can tweak, you want a different Development Standard? You 3
want to count laundry rooms? I’m willing to put it on the table if it means that, that if that’s so 4
important I’m willing to consider it, and maybe what we can do is if there is some little issue. 5
Maybe we can set those up as sub-concerns and just see. Maybe the Commission as a whole we 6
support this project, but six out of eight… seven of us want to see laundry rooms counted as 7
FAR or whatnot. 8
9
Chair Templeton: Alright, I got it, I got it. 10
11
Commissioner Alcheck: I’m just saying I’d love to see [unintelligible](interrupted) 12
13
Chair Templeton: Let’s stay optimistic and hear if there are other concerns, but I think your 14
point is well taken that there is an opportunity for us to all find a way onboard so thank you 15
Commissioner Alcheck. 16
17
Commissioner Riggs: And Chair Templeton, I’m happy. I know there are a couple people. I’m 18
happy to make the motion that Chair… Chair… Assistant Director Tanner recommended when 19
we are ready. 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: Excellent. I will come to you after Commissioner Summa and Commissioner 2
Hechtman. Thank you. 3
4
Commissioner Summa: Thank you and I actually would like to move this project forward too. 5
That’s why I’m disappointed that it’s muddy by blending it with the area thing… the program 6
area. I have a question about Findings C and D and I agree with Commissioner Riggs about… I 7
think it’s F about safety; but also Packet Page 48 at the bottom. So, Statements of Overwriting 8
Consideration are proposed for significant and unavoidable impacts to cultural resources and 9
greenhouse gas emissions so, I think that’s also a problem with making Finding 6. 10
11
And with regards to C and D which are residential densities. No. Site is not physically suitable 12
for the type of development is C and site is not physically suitable for the proposed density of 13
development. So, my question is are the specific Development Standards such as 2.0 FAR 14
instead of 1.5, which is the HIP is generally, and things like the rooftop. I don’t… the density I 15
don’t mind, but are those Development Standards… and waving the… allowing 60 percent of 16
the open space required on the parcel to be on the rooftop. Are those kinds of specific things 17
that are specific to the project baked into this Tentative Map? 18
19
Ms. Tanner: The Tentative Map for the project? 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Summa: Yes, because I have no problem with the sub… with the Subdivision Act 2
need to come to us for the Tentative Map. I don’t have any problem with the two parcels being 3
made into one for a building. What I have questions about are some of the various specific 4
things. So are… and I don’t see where those things, the specific things that make this project 5
work for the applicant, are baked into the Tentative Map or even the four recommendations at 6
the very beginning of Staff’s recommendations. I mean (interrupted) 7
8
Ms. Tanner: Go ahead. I was going to say maybe perhaps what Sheldon can do and then Albert 9
jump in and Jodie as well because you guys know this project much more intimately than. I 10
think there were a couple slides that kind of broke out where the differences lie and what part 11
of the four-part recommendation is addressing that. So, in particular, what I heard were the 12
FAR, the open space or where the open space is [unintelligible](interrupted) 13
14
Commissioner Summa: Waiving parking for the… I thought they were waiving… I thought they 15
were wanting to waive parking for the retail. 16
17
Ms. Tanner: For the 1,500… first 1,500-square feet of retail. 18
19
Commissioner Summa: 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
Ms. Tanner: So, there would still be some parking for the retail, but the first 1,500-square feet 2
would be waived. So, there’s that and then was there one other thing that you mentioned? 3
4
Commissioner Summa: It’s not… the 2.0 versus 1.5 FAR is a big one for me and the rooftop, but 5
the… my basic question is that the totality of what the applicant envisions as this application 6
process for this project is not for me contained in the four recommendations Staff recommends 7
that we make and it’s not really contained in the Tentative Map. Is that (interrupted) 8
9
Ms. Gerhardt: So, I may? On Packet Page 91 we do a comparison of how… what the setbacks 10
are for this project compared to the CS Zone and compared to the HIP. So, that might help 11
focus our questions. 12
13
Ms. Tanner: So, I’m going to just… maybe I’ll share my screen Sheldon and that might help to 14
look at that slide together. 15
16
Ms. Gerhardt: And then the zoning changes start on Packet Page 78 would be another place to 17
look as well. 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: Ok so maybe Jodie you can just walk us through where these… where the 1
difference are and then maybe if you can know where… how the approval tonight of the four 2
recommendations, where those are nested? I think that’s part of what Commissioner Summa’s 3
question is. So, I think that what of the four recommendations the right now column here is 4
what is being approved tonight. 5
6
Ms. Gerhardt: Yeah maybe if you can do… make is a little bit wider page. 7
8
Ms. Tanner: This or go closer? 9
10
Ms. Gerhardt: The other way, yeah. 11
12
Ms. Tanner: I was like wow, you’ve got really good eyes. 13
14
Ms. Gerhardt: So, we have tried to bold some of these items here and so you can see on the 15
street side yard we do have that pedestrian ramp is only at 10-feet. And so… and that’s actually 16
I guess if you look one more line down in the special setback. The special setback is 24-feet and 17
so you can see where that Variance is needed. 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.
If you go down to maximum site coverage, you’ll see that the standard commercial zoning only 1
allows 50 percent whereas in the HIP the Director can waive site coverage and the project is 2
proposing 68 percent. 3
4
Ms. Tanner: And then the open space I think is the next one where they’re still providing the… 5
even more than what would… on the left-most column, but a certain portion on the roof. Is that 6
correct Jodie? 7
8
Commissioner Summa: [unintelligible] 9
10
Ms. Gerhardt: Correct. Overall, they’re providing… they’re meeting the Commercial Standards, 11
but it is maybe in a different location. 12
13
Commissioner Summa: On the roof, correct? 14
15
Ms. Gerhardt: Correct. 16
17
Commissioner Summa: 60 percent is on the roof. Yeah, so that… I have a problem mostly with 18
the FAR and the 60 percent on the roof. And I don’t ever think we should waive… I didn’t agree 19
with waiving the 1,500-square feet from Parking Requirements of retail. So, I wouldn’t want 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.
promote that part of the HIP to other places but…. And the reason I feel strongly about this is 1
because the people that benefit from this 60 percent… the open space… required open space 2
on the parcel are not just the people that live in, but it’s the whole neighborhood that’s going 3
to experience it. And I think it’s very important and I think the 1… so for me, those two issues 4
are the biggest ones. The 1.5 FAR versus 2 and the open space requirement being part of the 5
pedestrian experience of the neighborhood. 6
7
Ms. Gerhardt: So, I think there are a little bit different regulations on… if we were in the Multi-8
Family Zone there’s actually a landscape requirement and really, it’s landscaping that you might 9
see on the street; but the open space requirements are more for… those are balconies and 10
patios and things of that nature that could be located on the interior of the site. They’re not 11
always visible (interrupted) 12
13
Commissioner Summa: I know. 14
15
Ms. Gerhardt: From the public right of way. 16
17
Commissioner Summa: I know, but often they are and they contribute to the experience of 18
what we’re going to hope is a new multi-family neighborhood in Palo Alto. So, I think it’s 19
important to get it 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
Ms. Gerhardt: And I think that’s partly what we have our setbacks for as well because the 2
setbacks by their very nature will end up being landscaped. 3
4
Commissioner Summa: Correct, but I’m just… I mean I agree that setbacks are landscaped 5
usually so but those are my problems. And the increase in greenhouse gas emission is also I 6
think a health… falls under 6. It makes it hard to find that one. 7
8
Chair Templeton: Alright thank you, Commissioner Summa. It looks like we’ve got two more 9
folks chiming in. Commissioner Hechtman followed by Commissioner Lauing. 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. So, I’ve got an issue that I want to figure out how to 12
navigate through and I know we can do it to move this on to Council. The issue and I think it 13
was first raised by one of our public speakers and later by Commissioner Summa. And that is 14
the proposed affordable mix of up to 66 percent or at least 66 percent and 33 percent. In the… 15
and I’m sorry if I missed it in the EIR, but in the Staff report, it was kind just presented to us as a 16
fact of the project. This is what we’re doing and there wasn’t an analysis or an explanation that 17
at least that I saw of how we arrived at that number. Why is it that we’re looking at the 80 to 18
100 for 66 percent? Why isn’t there a component that is smaller than that? And I’m not… I 19
don’t want us to do that tonight because I don’t think we have the… again, if I missed it tell me, 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 don’t think we have the information in front of us. But what I want to do and what I’m 1
hoping to do is in our recommendation to Council tell them that we’re concerned about this 2
and we think that they should look at it and when it gets to Council Staff can brief the issue for 3
them. Explain how this particular break down was arrived at and whether there was room for 4
movement. So that we might get more affordable… so that of the 16-units we might have more 5
affordable units. 6
7
Chair Templeton: It looks like Mr. Yang would like to chime in. 8
9
Mr. Yang: So, there is a quick answer to that question and it’s that our Municipal Code… the 10
part of the code that requires BMR units at all in Market Rate Development actually sets forth 11
here’s what the break down shall be. And that break down is 2/3’s affordable to 120 and 1/3 12
affordable to 100. 13
14
Commissioner Hechtman: Ok alright and I’m sorry if I missed that in the (interrupted) 15
16
Mr. Yang: I think it might be something that the Staff just assumes is common knowledge, but 17
obviously it’s not, and so we should be explaining that more clearly. 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 and then how does that… what I did see in the Staff report and in 1
part of the Finding and this all relates incidentally to Finding B for the Subdivision which is 2
consistency with the General Plan. And in the Staff report one of the consistent programs is 3
Program H3.1.2, implement the BMR Ordinance to reflect City policy of requiring A) 15 percent 4
of all housing units in project, which we have; B) provided at below-market rate to very low, 5
low, and moderate-income households. So, Mr. Yang is it then we’d layer on the Zoning 6
Ordinance that defines how that break down occurs in particularity? 7
8
Mr. Yang: So, this is how the BMR Ordinance itself is worded as well. It says the purpose of this 9
ordinance is to provide low, very low, and moderate-income housing. And then when you get 10
down to it, what it actually requires is the housing at 66 percent affordable at 120 and 33 11
percent affordable at 100. 12
13
Commissioner Hechtman: Alright, so this is (interrupted) 14
15
Ms. Tanner: I would say Commissioner Hechtman one of the reasons that many Cities do have 16
structures like that with the inclusionary housing being at higher rates is that a lot of times the 17
100 percent affordable housing units will provide the very low and extremely low-income 18
housing. And it’s often-additional supports that those units provide to help support those 19
families and those households. 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, alright, well that explains that the proposal is compliant with our 2
code. Basically, the applicant has done what our code tells them they need to do then I don’t 3
have any further issue with that and I’m ready to support a motion to move this forward. 4
5
Chair Templeton: Great thank you and I apologize to the Commission and to everyone on the 6
call that we have not taken the break that we had planned to take. We do have one more 7
Commissioner ready to speak and a motion is imminent. Do we want to keep moving forward 8
or do we want to take a 5-minute break and come back and come back? I see a couple that 9
want to keep going. Ok, I apologize for that. We’re going to add it to the agenda for next time. 10
It was just something we discussed this week and it wasn’t there and I just blew right through 11
it. I apologize. If you do need to take a break, of course just feel free to turn your camera and 12
sound off and then come back. You don’t need our permission, it’s your house. Alright next up 13
is Commissioner Lauing. 14
15
Commissioner Lauing: Thank you. I want to hit three different items. One is that as I said in my 16
original comments I think it’s absolutely fundamental that we have to make some sort of 17
adjustments now and plan for more later. And when I say now meaning consequent with when 18
that project gets complete in the transportation for all the reason we all discussed. So, I think 19
that has to be an integral part of the motion if I’m going to support 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
Secondly, I just want to go back to the affordable for a minute. One of the things that I think we 2
should always ask is with the developer of any of these projects. Ok, by law they have to give us 3
15 percent, what would it take to do 20, and that’s going to have to be on a single individual 4
basis. So, all I’m saying is that we don’t have to stop at 15 percent. We could just have a 5
conversation and I don’t know where it’s going to be. It could vary by area, by developer, some 6
want more height, some want more money, some say forget about it, but it’s so crucial because 7
that’s where we’re hurting the most in everything. Including making RHNA goals there, but that 8
just has to get high focus. 9
10
So, the third thing I would go back on is to say it is very confusing to have the project when 11
we’re also creating legislation eventually for this entire area and changing the CS Zone. So, one 12
option is to say that… I’m just putting out here structurally for us to consider. Is we could go 13
back to what Commissioner Summa’s talking about is we don’t want to do more than 1,500 14
deduction from the normal retail and we don’t want to do less than 2.0, but the Director can 15
make his own decision if that’s what it takes to get it done. So, that’s the way we could 16
structure it so that each project would be looked at differently in context because they’re all 17
different. In some cases, it might be you can only spare 1,500. In this case, it could be what 18
they’re asking for is perfectly fine. So, structurally that’s another way to get over this hump if 19
we’re going to try to get some consensus. That’s it. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: Alright, thank you Commissioner Lauing, and going back to Commissioner 2
Alcheck I believe is who wanted to make the motion. 3
4
Commissioner Riggs: It was me. 5
6
Chair Templeton: Oh, it’s Commissioner Riggs. Please do so, thank you. 7
8
MOTION 9
10
Commissioner Riggs: Well, Commissioner Lauing I’m just going to make the motion I was going 11
to make. I know there was some stuff in yours that I can’t do that. Assistant Director Tanner can 12
you help me with my motion? I’m low blood sugar. You’re muted. 13
14
Ms. Tanner: Ok I think a motion you had contemplated was to move the Staff 15
recommendation… I’ve got to find where I’ve written it down… with an additional 16
recommendation to have physical intersection improvements at Leghorn and San Antonio and a 17
robust TDM program for the project. 18
19
Commissioner Riggs: Yeah that nailed it so I appreciate that, so that will be my motion. 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
SECOND 2
3
Commissioner Alcheck: Second. 4
5
Chair Templeton: And that is Commissioner Alcheck I believe? 6
7
Ms. Tanner: Yes, I think that was. 8
9
Chair Templeton: Commissioner Lauing, did you still have your hand up from previous, or is this 10
new? 11
12
FRIENDLY AMENDMENT #1 13
14
Commissioner Lauing: No, I put it up relative to the motion. I would just like to suggest a 15
friendly amendment to Commissioner Riggs that in addition to what he said, language that says 16
and the City will also undertake a study of how to improve mobility in the lanes on San Antonio. 17
So, obviously what we’re looking for there is (interrupted) 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: Why would we tie that to this project? Why would we tie the City’s 1
hands (interrupted) 2
3
Commissioner Lauing: We’re trying everything [unintelligible – audio cut out] (interrupted) 4
5
Commissioner Alcheck: To this applicant. 6
7
Commissioner Riggs: It’s directed to me Commissioner Alcheck. 8
9
Commissioner Alcheck: But it applies to both of us. (interrupted) 10
11
Commissioner Lauing: [unintelligible – audio cut out] for this project. 12
13
Commissioner Alcheck: It doesn’t matter who he directed it too, it applies to both of us. I 14
wouldn’t second that because I don’t understand why we would tie this applicant’s application 15
with the (interrupted) 16
17
Commissioner Riggs: Chair? 18
19
Chair Templeton: Can we (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 Alcheck: Another City’s goal of (interrupted) 2
3
Chair Templeton: Please let Commissioner Riggs respond. 4
5
Commissioner Alcheck: Approaching this. Yeah, I know, it’s fine, but you’d have to find a new 6
seconder. 7
8
Commissioner Riggs: So, I… can I finesses that a little bit Commissioner Lauing? Is it a… I would 9
say since… we just have to make it a recommendation. We can’t direct Staff right so I would say 10
that we would… it was like a… Rachael, you have it written down and I’m sorry I didn’t write it 11
down again what you said because I have no paper around me. 12
13
Ms. Tanner: I think to your point though Commissioner Riggs that it could be recommendation 14
to Council from the PTC that Council would direct Staff to undertake a study of how to enhance 15
the mobility; bike and ped specifically. 16
17
Commissioner Riggs: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I would actually just want to see if… explore 18
Commissioner Lauing if we could just make it a little slightly bigger and we say that Council 19
would look at a strategic land use and transportation plan for this corridor. Like almost 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.
corridor plan because I don’t think… again I don’t think we can decouple land use from 1
transportation and I heard that from Commissioner Summa, Commissioner Hechtman, and if 2
from you that there’s a lot of stuff happening here. And so, I think it’s just a suggestion about a 3
whole corridor plan that really needs to comprehensively about this district. 4
5
Commissioner Lauing: [unintelligible – bad audio] acceptable. 6
7
Commissioner Riggs: So, can we… are you ok with me (interrupted) 8
9
Commissioner Lauing: [unintelligible] accept. 10
11
Commissioner Riggs: Reframing it like that? 12
13
Commissioner Lauing: [unintelligible -crosstalk] 14
15
Commissioner Alcheck: Can you explain… can you provide a little clarity on how it relates to the 16
application? 17
18
Commissioner Riggs: It doesn’t. It’s a recommendation Commissioner Alcheck. It’s just a 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
Commissioner Alcheck: Like a second motion? 2
3
Commissioner Riggs: It’s a… we would approve the motion with a recommendation that Council 4
consider a strategic… a specific plan for this corridor considering land use and… thinking about 5
issues of land use and transportation as… since it’s become a new housing focus area. 6
7
Commissioner Alcheck: Ok so just so we’re clear. Not recommending that they approve this 8
plan if… contingent on doing a mobility study. Separating this and saying we recommend 9
approval of the recommendations here and also considering a specific plan… there are sort of 10
two different things. 11
12
Commissioner Riggs: They are. 13
14
Commissioner Alcheck: I’m fine with the [unintelligible](interrupted) 15
16
Commissioner Riggs: It’s a (interrupted) 17
18
Commissioner Alcheck: I’m fine the language you used. I just wanted to (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 Riggs: Yeah, it’s just getting (interrupted) 1
2
Commissioner Alcheck: Clarify that there wasn’t some mobility study that needed to occur if we 3
were really to be considered as supporting the project and the changes. 4
5
Commissioner Riggs: It’s a complicated… I appreciate Commissioner Lauing’s thoughtfulness 6
here because it’s a complicated plan. We shoved in a General Plan Amendment with a project 7
approval. So, I think it’s fine to put a recommendation about a general plan or a… really, it’s not 8
a general plan. It can be a specific plan within the… about the corridor within this 9
recommendation and really, it’s not actionable unless Council wants it to be actionable. And it’s 10
not tied… it would not be tied to the project. Council would have to make another specific 11
requirement and so I think that would be… that’s my understanding. 12
13
Commissioner Lauing: Correct, but it applies to all the CS zoning where other housing could go 14
up so it’s quite appropriate. 15
16
Commissioner Riggs: So, Commission… Assistant Director Tanner is that… does that sound ok to 17
make that recommendation? 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: It does to me and how I hear it. I’ll just ask my attorney Albert if there’s anything 1
that’s challenging because I think part of what the General Plan Amendment quite frankly does 2
is from this Commission suggesting to Council that we want to go in a direction of having 3
housing in this area. We think it is a good area for housing and so then additional, when we 4
have the funds and resources putting into it how to connect the land use and the 5
transportation in a comprehensive way would seem like an appropriate next step. In addition to 6
this particular project going up, we’ll have to think about how we want to make sure it’s a good 7
area for all the other projects that we hope comes. So, that’s what I hear and Albert, is there 8
anything challenging about that being in the recommendation? 9
10
Mr. Yang: No, I think as long as we have a clear record about… I think this is the issue that 11
Commissioner Alcheck is trying to get some clarity on about the recommendation for this 12
additional study and work would not be something that needs to be completed if the Council 13
adopted this. It wouldn’t need to be something that would need to be completed before the 14
project (interrupted) 15
16
Commissioner Riggs: I’ll put on the record for them to read and watch that this is a… we could 17
decouple this and do it afterward, but let’s be efficient and just make a nice motion that has 18
both of them… has both recommendations added to the Staff report in 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.
Chair Templeton: Ok, I also saw Ms. Gerhardt’s hand up. Did you want to add to this discussion? 1
2
Ms. Gerhardt: I just wanted to be clear about are we asking for a study about the road itself or 3
everything around it which would involve land uses and a much larger project; or is it just the 4
road itself I think that we’re focusing on? 5
6
Commissioner Riggs: Well, I’ll answer to start and then I’ll ask Commissioner Lauing to chime in, 7
but I believe it started off as a transportation mobility study, and what I suggested is that 8
particular for this location it’s really important to think about housing and transportation 9
synergistically. And so, I actually… I would… I guess I modified the recommendation that was 10
made to say let’s make it a comprehensive specific plan and really think about housing and 11
transportation in this corridor together. So, Commissioner Lauing is that a good way to package 12
it? That I kind of expanded what you were saying. 13
14
Commissioner Lauing: I think that’s a fair way to compromise it. I mean look, there’s nothing 15
that’s exactly to startling about this. We’re saying that there’s a massive problem with 16
transportation on San Antonio and that’s where all this change is going to happen. So, we ought 17
to see what we can do to fix that so we don’t create more problems for our citizens. 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 Riggs: And Jodie and Rachael, you can go and reference the notes from 1
Commissioner Waldfogel and I both put this on the record in our last hearing on this. That this 2
was an opportunity site for a really interesting strategic corridor from a transportation and 3
housing space. 4
5
Ms. Tanner: Yeah, definitely. I think that building on that, I think… again I think Staff agrees 6
that’s why we’re bringing this housing project forward. And so, I think we definitely understand 7
the sentiment of the Commission, if this ends of being the sentiment of the Commission, and 8
can certainly convey it to the Council in the Staff report and of course we have the minutes 9
here. 10
11
SECOND WITHDRAWN 12
13
Commissioner Alcheck: Ok so I just… for clarity sake I did not interpret the Staff report as 14
suggesting we have a massive problem with respect to traffic on this corridor. I’m not 15
suggesting that it’s perfect, but it is not… I just I’m a little uncomfortable… here’s what I’d like 16
to do. I’m just going to… I will support this motion. Let me step out, let Commissioner Lauing 17
take the second here because I’m just a little… I don’t know that I’m… I think that would be 18
better. That would be a better plan. Just I don’t know that I share the view that this corridor is 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.
such a cataclysmic nightmare that any effort to increase housing there needs to be first 1
mitigated considering the Findings that the Draft EIR made. So (interrupted) 2
3
Ms. Tanner: I don’t think there’s any suggestion that there’s mitigation. I think what is being 4
proposed is to move the recommendation with the additional recommendation of the robust 5
TDM and the physical improvements at the Leghorn and San Antonio. That’s like for this specific 6
set of things before us and in addition, the PTC is recommending that City Council provide 7
direction to Staff to create a corridor plan for this section of the San Antonio corridor that looks 8
at the land use and housing. That would be a separate project, a separate effort from this 9
particular project and effort if that makes sense. 10
11
Commissioner Alcheck: Does that seem like something that’s likely to take place before for 12
example we get involved in our Housing Element program? I mean I just… I’m happy… I just 13
don’t… I don’t want to be a part of (interrupted) 14
15
Commissioner Riggs: Oh, don’t be such a curmudgeon dude. 16
17
Commissioner Alcheck: No, it’s not, it’s not, it’s one more layer of bureaucracy. It’s one more 18
thing (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 Riggs: Look (interrupted) 1
2
Commissioner Alcheck: Adding to the list. We need more time, we need this. It’s how many 3
things can we add before we just say (interrupted) 4
5
Chair Templeton: Hold on. 6
7
Commissioner Alcheck: You know what? We’ll deal with it because we need the housing. So 8
(interrupted) 9
10
[note – several people started talking at once] 11
12
Chair Templeton: Is there any… Ms. Tanner? 13
14
Ms. Tanner: The Office of Transportation is doing the bike planning for this area. That is 15
underway and so that will be… especially for bike and pedestrian mobility… an opportunity to 16
think about that in context with the housing so. 17
18
Chair Templeton: Can you clarify Commissioner Riggs if there’s any time dependency because 19
everything I’ve heard so far sounds like these are two independent tracts. 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 Riggs: Making this up from the dais. Hey, these are suggestions to Council 2
(interrupted) 3
4
Chair Templeton: Ok. 5
6
Commissioner Riggs: And Council controls the purse strings as well as the projects and 7
Commission… Director Lait works with the City Manager to prioritize work. These are 8
suggestions and we can’t control the timing of this kind of stuff, but we have talked about it for 9
a long time. I actually think it’s a huge opportunity for the City to think about this corridor in a 10
comprehensive way that thinks about radically thinking about transportation along San Antonio 11
in a different way. And that’s actually thinking about new forms of transportation that could 12
run down that corridor as well as thinking about other opportunity sites in a way that they 13
connect to that transportation. So, I just think what I heard from Chair Lauing [note – 14
Commissioner Lauing] wasn’t anything negative about this being a cataclysmic transportation 15
event. It was a hey, lets look at this in a thorough way and I’m receptive to that. 16
17
Chair Templeton: Ok so we have a maker. 18
19
SECOND 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Lauing: I’m happy to be the second. 2
3
Chair Templeton: And Commissioner Lauing is happy to second. Alright and we also have a hand 4
raised from Commissioner Summa. Is this another amendment to this motion? 5
6
Commissioner Summa: It’s an… where’s my thing? Oh, it’s unmuted. It’s an amendment and a 7
question. So, Section 1 on the previous… Packet Page 48, Section 1, the background, A, March 8
5th, 2019 Ted O’Hanlon applied for a Tentative Map for the development of one parcel 9
condominium subdivision project with 102-residential blah blah blah. First of all, it’s not a 10
condominium subdivision. Is there any distinction that should be… should that say rental since 11
that’s their intention now? 12
13
And then on the next page, Number 4, or letter D of the Findings, does this narrative under the 14
Findings go with the document, and by that, I mean the sentence underneath 4 or D? The 15
project proposed a Zoning Text Amendments to allow the project to be implemented and 16
therefore etc. etc.? Because those two (interrupted) 17
18
Chair Templeton: Ok. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: That… D and 4… D or 4 and A are not really… don’t really say the same 1
thing. 2
3
Chair Templeton: So, we do have a motion, but it looks like Ms. Gerhardt wants to answer those 4
questions. 5
6
Ms. Tanner: Yeah, I think Ms. Gerhardt (interrupted) 7
8
Commissioner Summa: It makes [unintelligible] about whether or not I would ask for an 9
amendment. 10
11
Chair Templeton: Ok so Ms. Gerhardt. 12
13
Ms. Gerhardt: I can asker the first part about the subdivision. The applicant has stated that they 14
do want to go forward with the condominium subdivision. They may rent them in the early 15
years, but they want the ultimate ability to have condos in the later years and so they are doing 16
a condo subdivision. 17
18
Commissioner Summa: And legally they’re allowed to do a condo subdivision, but rent till the 19
time they want to do condos? Is that 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
Ms. Gerhardt: Yes. 2
3
Commissioner Summa: Ok and then does the narrative under letter D or (interrupted) 4
5
Ms. Gerhardt: Do you have a Packet Page number? 6
7
Commissioner Summa: The next page, Packet Page 50 at the bottom and it’ the Findings. 8
9
Ms. Gerhardt: Ok so Page 50 is the Findings, yes. 10
11
Commissioner Summa: 4 at the bottom. Does that narrative, the project… underneath the 12
Finding itself go into this document? 13
14
Ms. Gerhardt: That is part of the Record of Land Use that Council will make a decision on. 15
16
FRIENDLY AMENDMENT #2 17
Commissioner Summa: So, I’d like to propose an amendment to in both the background and 18
under A and in the Findings under 4 to say up to 102-dwelling units and remove the Floor Area 19
Ratio and the following language. And the reason is because I think we need more flexibility 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 using a 1.5 FAR instead of the 2.0 and the density… that’s why I would say up to. So that 1
would be my amendment is to change Section A to say up to 102-units and Finding 4 to say up 2
to 102-dwelling units and strike the rest so that we’re not tying it to the FAR etc. in the 3
application. 4
5
Ms. Gerhardt: So, I think there’s… we would need to… we’d probably want to find the zoning… 6
the rezoning portion because that’s… may better address your concern and I think I had that on 7
Page 70 something. 8
9
Commissioner Riggs: You know I don’t want to noodle with... I want to go with Staff 10
recommendation Doria [note – Commissioner Summa]. I don’t want to noodle with this, at least 11
with this motion. So, I’m happy to entertain something if it goes forward, but I don’t want to 12
noodle with the FAR. 13
14
FRIENDLY AMENDMENT #2 FAILED DUE TO NO SUPPORT FROM THE MOTION MAKER 15
16
Commissioner Summa: Ok. 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.
Chair Templeton: Alright, do I see your hand up Commissioner Lauing? No. Alright, oh my gosh 1
there’s a bunch of hands up. Ok. Commissioner Roohparvar [note – Vice-Chair Roohparvar] and 2
Commissioner Hechtman. 3
4
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Yeah, I’ll just make my comments super short but I do want to… I guess I 5
will end up supporting the motion, but I do echo Commissioner Alcheck’s sentiments. I do think 6
these should… there are two separate issues and shouldn’t be conflated. That’s it. 7
8
Chair Templeton: Thank you Commissioner Roohparvar [note – Vice-Chair Roohparvar]. 9
Commissioner Hechtman. 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: In my general remarks I had a series of very small changes to the 12
draft ordinances and resolutions that I had asked Staff to look at and change or not change in 13
their discretion. And I’m wondering if the maker and the seconder of the motion would 14
consider that because as the motions currently presented it would ignore those. 15
16
Chair Templeton: Do we need to make a motion that includes those changes for them to be 17
included? 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: I would ask Mr. Yang if what we would do is we could redline some of those 1
changes to note that those were brought up and discussed at the PTC because they are I think 2
important; but some of them we do need to take some times to look at to make sure that if 3
we’re taking it out or in, it’s appropriate. So, if that might be a way to advance those and the 4
Council can see that they were made as a result of the PTC, but we could have some flexibility 5
in that regard. 6
7
Chair Templeton: Would that satisfy you, Commissioner Hechtman? 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: It would, that was my total intent is that you have time to look and 10
make whatever decision you feel is appropriate before you take it to Council. 11
12
Commissioner Riggs: I wanted to just say that there’s a… I did some checks on the calcs in terms 13
of transportation distances to Caltrain and I got pretty different results so I’d check those as 14
well. For example, you said .9-miles and Google Maps says a bike cycling distance is 7.7 or not… 15
sorry, .7-miles. So, 2/10th of a mile is pretty significant at this scale so I would just dot your i’s 16
and cross your t’s. 17
18
Ms. Tanner: Great, 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.
Chair Templeton: Alright. 1
2
Ms. Tanner: Sorry, just [unintelligible – audio cut out] Mr. Yang, we don’t need a motion for 3
that do we? For that note. 4
5
Mr. Yang: No, we… it’s fine if it is in the motion, but if it’s… even if it’s not it’s… those are all 6
things that we’re going to take another look at. 7
8
Ms. Tanner: Great. Sorry Chair. 9
10
Chair Templeton: No problem. I think we’re ready Mr. Nguyen. Do we need to repeat the 11
motion before people vote? 12
13
Commissioner Riggs: Please no. 14
15
Chair Templeton: Not you. 16
17
Commissioner Riggs: I just actually (interrupted) 18
19
Chair Templeton: I think someone’s written it down. 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 Riggs: Just talked about minutes as if they were miles. So, it was actually 7-2
minutes and 9-minutes. So, I’m just like oh (interrupted) 3
4
Chair Templeton: I know we’re all tired. Thanks for hanging in there everybody. 5
6
MOTION RESTATED 7
8
Ms. Tanner: What I do have I will read. The motion is to move the Staff recommendations to 9
recommend physical intersection improvements at Leghorn and San Antonio. To recommend 10
that the City Council undertake a specific plan for this corridor that connects land use and 11
transportation along the San Antonio corridor and that the project have a robust TDM program. 12
13
Chair Templeton: Alright, are we ready… is that correct as reflected? 14
15
Commissioner Riggs: Why don’t I just reiterate for the record that just to give Commissioner 16
Roohparvar [note – Vice-Chair Roohparvar] and for the record that we could have… I believe we 17
could have severed these two… this one… this recommendation that Commissioner Lauing 18
made as a separate motion. And I want for the record to say that they could have been severed, 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.
but for an efficiency standpoint, I’m suggesting we put them together. So, I just want to speak 1
to the… speak to my motion creating with my seconder before we vote on that aspect so. 2
3
VOTE 4
5
Chair Templeton: Alright, thank you. I haven’t said anything to it, but I echo Vice-Chair 6
Roohparvar’s comments and I really appreciate the care that we’ve taken to show Council that 7
these are bundled together for efficiency, but not necessarily dependent on each other in any 8
other way. Alright, let’s take our vote, Mr. Nguyen. 9
10
Mr. Nguyen: Ok, I’ll take a roll call vote. Commissioner Alcheck? 11
12
Commissioner Alcheck: I support it. 13
14
Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Hechtman? 15
16
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 17
18
Mr. Nguyen: 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: Yes. 1
2
Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Riggs? 3
4
Commissioner Riggs: Yes. 5
6
Mr. Nguyen: Vice-Chair Roohparvar? 7
8
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Yes. 9
10
Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Summa? 11
12
Commissioner Summa: No. 13
14
Mr. Nguyen: Chair Templeton? 15
16
Chair Templeton: Yes. 17
18
Mr. Nguyen: Ok the motion carries 6-1. 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.
MOTION PASSED 6 (Alcheck, Lauing, Hechtman, Riggs, Roohparvar, Templeton) -1 (Summa) 1
2
Chair Templeton: Awe that’s very exciting. Thank you all and thanks for a great discussion too. I 3
think we brought up a lot of nuances for Council to consider. Looks like Commissioner Summa 4
would like to speak to her no vote. 5
6
Commissioner Summa: Thank you very much. It’s… I knew it would be probably a symbolic vote 7
and I had no desire to hold this specific project up. It’s just that the way it came to us allowed 8
for so little refining of the specific project and discussion about that and/or separation from the 9
general program area. So, I’m glad to see that the project is moving forward for what it’s worth. 10
11
Chair Templeton: I appreciate that. Alright, so back to our agenda so we can close this out. Let’s 12
see if I can find it. Approval of minutes. 13
14
Commission Action: Motion by Riggs, Seconded by Lauing. 6-1 vote (Summa against) 15
Approval of Minutes 16
Public Comment is Permitted. Five (5) minutes per speaker.1,3 17
4. June 24, 2020 Draft PTC Meeting Minutes 18
5. July 8, 2020 Draft PTC Meeting Minutes 19
Chair Templeton: Did anyone send in corrections to the minutes? Commissioner Hechtman. Are 20
they reflected in the minutes that everyone is reviewing? 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
Commissioner Hechtman: Mr. Nguyen sent out to the… all Commissioners my revised minutes 2
perhaps 3-days ago. Monday, on Monday. 3
4
Chair Templeton: Great so that would be the version… the latest version of what we’re 5
approving. Would anyone like to make a motion to approve the meeting minutes for the 24th… 6
do we have to do these separately? No, alright. We’re going to… unless anyone objects we’re 7
going to approve these minutes together. June 24th and July 8th based on the latest revisions 8
that were sent out containing Commissioner Hechtman’s edits. Would anyone like to make a 9
motion? Commissioner Hechtman. 10
11
MOTION 12
13
Commissioner Hechtman: Well, I’ll move approval of the minutes as revised. 14
15
SECOND 16
17
Commissioner Riggs: Second. 18
19
Chair Templeton: Excellent. Anyone (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 Riggs: I second it. 2
3
Chair Templeton: Ok, thank you. Alright, Mr. Nguyen. 4
5
Mr. Vinhloc Nguyen, Admin Associate III: Ok, I’ll take a voice vote for this. Commissioner 6
Alcheck? 7
8
Commissioner Alcheck: I support it. 9
10
Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Hechtman? 11
12
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 13
14
Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Lauing? 15
16
Commissioner Lauing: Yes. 17
18
Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Riggs? 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 Riggs: Yes. 1
2
Mr. Nguyen: Vice-Chair Roohparvar? 3
4
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Yes. 5
6
Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Summa? 7
8
Commissioner Summa: Yes. 9
10
Mr. Nguyen: Chair Templeton? 11
12
Chair Templeton: Yes. 13
14
Mr. Nguyen: The motion carries 7-0. Thank you. 15
16
MOTION PASSED 7(Alcheck, Lauing, Hechtman, Riggs, Roohparvar, Summa, Templeton) -0 17
18
Chair Templeton: Excellent. 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.
Commission Action: Both sets of minutes approved in 1 motion. Moved by Hechtman, 1
Seconded by Commissioner Riggs. 7-0 vote 2
Committee Items 3
Commissioner Questions, Comments or Announcements 4
Chair Templeton: Any Commissioner questions, comments, announcements, or future agenda 5
items? We’ll start with Ms. Tanner. What’s on the agenda for next week? 6
7
Ms. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director: Next week is Castilleja, so if you forgot you will soon will 8
be reminded. I believe we did provide hard copies of the EIR for folks or if you didn’t get one 9
and you want one, please let us know if you prefer to flip through; or you need a booster seat 10
or something to sit on. We can [unintelligible] may uses for the EIR. Please let us know and 11
(interrupted) 12
13
Chair Templeton: And that’s on 8/26? 14
15
Ms. Tanner: It is, the 26th, and then we do have next Tuesday… two Tuesday in a row, the 18th 16
and the 25th, NVCAP meeting. We’ve been working away moving toward refining the draft 17
alternatives. Commissioner Summa can obviously update with comments regarding the past 18
things we’ve had, but it’s chugging along and we keep on having a good conversation and 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.
those, of course, are on Zoom. If you’re a member of the public you can find information on the 1
website to join those meetings via Zoom. 2
3
Chair Templeton: Alright, no hands are raised. Any other updates, last call? Oh, Commissioner 4
Lauing. You are on mute, sir. 5
6
Commissioner Lauing: It was just a question I thought we were… on the agenda going forward 7
did the ARB Objective Standards get permanently canceled? 8
9
Chair Templeton: Ms. Tanner? 10
11
Ms. Tanner: It’s not permanently canceled, but I know they wanted to meet and talk about it as 12
a group first. And I think they may be a little concerned about how much progress they are 13
going to make. So, I’m hoping we can reschedule that for September or October, but I believe 14
they’re discussing that this month. And if they can have a successful meeting amongst 15
themselves then we’ll meet with them. So, let’s have that meeting and Jodie manages that 16
group so once they have their meeting we’ll regroup and get a date for that joint meeting. 17
18
Commissioner Hechtman: That was going to be on August 20th? 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Ms. Tanner: It was going to be and they are still meeting, but we will not be joining them. 1
2
Chair Templeton: Alright. 3
4
Commissioner Lauing: The other one I asked about last time was the Commercial In Lieu Fees 5
downtown. 6
7
Ms. Tanner: Yes, and I did speak with Jonathan Lait about that. He had carried that item himself 8
and needs to transition that to a Staff person. So, I’m hoping that we can bring that forward in 9
September or October as well because we did have a short time frame to get that resolved; but 10
that’s again one of the things that with our new Long Range Planning Manager she’ll be taking 11
that on. So, we want to get that into her queue so she can bring that back here to PTC, but 12
again I’m hopeful for this fall and getting that resolved. 13
14
Commissioner Lauing: Ok thanks. 15
16
Chair Templeton: Thank you. Anyone else? Alright, thank you all for hanging in there for a long, 17
but productive evening and this meeting is adjourned. Bye. 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.
Adjournment 1
10:02 pm 2