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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2021-05-12 Planning & transportation commission Summary MinutesPage 1 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Planning & Transportation Commission 1 Action Agenda: May 12, 2021 2 Virtual Meeting 3 6:00 PM 4 5 Call to Order / Roll Call 6 6:02 pm 7 Mr. Vinh Nguyen, Admin Associate III: Chair Hechtman? 8 9 Chair Hechtman: Present. 10 11 Mr. Nguyen: Vice-Chair Roohparvar? 12 13 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Present. 14 15 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Alcheck? 16 17 Commissioner Alcheck: Present. 18 19 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Chang? 20 21 Commissioner Chang: Present. 22 23 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Lauing? 24 25 Commissioner Lauing: Present. 26 27 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Summa? 28 29 Commissioner Summa: Present. 30 31 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Templeton? 32 33 Commissioner Templeton: Present, 34 35 Mr. Nguyen: We have a quorum. Thank you. 36 37 Chair Hechtman: Thank you. We are now moving into oral communications. 38 Page 2 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Oral Communications 1 The public may speak to any item not on the agenda. Three (3) minutes per speaker.1,2 2 Chair Hechtman: This section is for the public to speak on items not on tonight’s agenda. Please 3 raise your hand if you wish to speak. On the Zoom App there is a raise hand button on the 4 bottom of your screen. If you are dialing in from a phone, please press *9. Are there any public 5 speakers for oral communication tonight? 6 7 Mr. Vinh Nguyen, Admin Associate III: Chair Hechtman, we do not have any raised hands for 8 oral communications. 9 10 Chair Hechtman: Well, then we will move to agenda changes, deletions and additions. 11 12 Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions 13 The Chair or Commission majority may modify the agenda order to improve meeting management. 14 Chair Hechtman: Fellow Commissioners, are there any that any of you would like to raise? 15 Alright, seeing no hands we will move to City official reports. 16 City Official Reports 17 1. Directors Report, Meeting Schedule and Assignments 18 Chair Hechtman: Ms. Tanner. 19 20 Ms. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director: Thank you, Chair, thank you. Good evening 21 Commissioners. It’s good to be with you all this evening. Just a few updates for you all. Today 22 the Planning and Development Service Department, as well as the Office of Transportation, 23 were considered at the Finance Committee meeting. And I believe, at least from what I 24 remember, the proposals put forward by those departments were accepted I believe by the 25 Finance Committee and recommended to the Council. They are… they met yesterday, they met 26 today, I believe they may have another meeting and so certainly, they’re going to go back. They 27 have a parking lot they’ve established to take a second look at things after they look at each 28 department. So, they go department by department and then have an opportunity to look back 29 once they’ve finished that. So, the budget process does continue to go on. 30 31 We also have our Housing Element has been underway and so thank you all for joining us on 32 Monday with the joint meeting with the City Council to really kick off… continue to kick off the 33 Housing Element. And so that continues this Saturday with a workshop for members of the 34 public which Commissioners, working group members, anyone is welcome to join. It’s from 35 10:00 am to noon this Saturday and if folks want to find out more they can go to 36 paloaltohousingelement.com. It’s paloaltohousingelement.com. It will be a virtual meeting that 37 will be held via Zoom so folks can join in from the comfort from where ever they have their 38 Page 3 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. internet connection or phone connection if they would like. So again, it’s 1 paloaltohousingelement.com, this Saturday from 10:00 to noon. 2 3 And next week, no May 18th, we do have a special City Council meeting that’s on a Tuesday and 4 it’s going to be all land use items. And so, we’re seeing if it might be a way to try to consolidate 5 some of the land use items onto one agenda experiment to see if that ends up being a good 6 way for the Council to tackle sometimes related items but certainly, topically all related land 7 use in Palo Alto. So, on May 18th, we have up for discussion 181 Addison which was a Parcel 8 Map with Exception and Variance that the PTC unanimously recommended to the City Council. 9 And then we also have an ordinance that the PTC also recommended which was updating the 10 state… our local ordinance with the State Density Bonus. So, you may remember that was 11 before us a few weeks ago. There will also be two pre-screenings that Council will hear and 12 Council will also discuss whether or not to direct Staff to appeal the Regional Housing Needs 13 Allocation as proposed by ABAG and approved by the Housing and Community Development 14 Department. 15 16 So, those are our upcoming items and then, of course, we have our upcoming PTC meeting on 17 the 26th where we’ll be focused on how to potential policies and strategies to promote 18 affordable ADU development as well as our Boards and Commission items which I think we may 19 finally be able to actually discuss since we only have one other item. So, I know we’ve advanced 20 that a couple of times. 21 22 So, that’s the report that I have for you today. I’m available for questions and of course, we 23 have Nate Baird as well from the Office of Transportation if there are any questions for that 24 office. 25 26 Mr. Nate Baird, Transportation Manager: I could also just give a real quick parking update too. 27 We are… enforcement has resumed, our 2-week grace period is coming to an end and we had a 28 flurry of permit requests so that’s all going well. 29 30 Our parking survey is still out there. We’re going to probably keep it up for another 2- to 3-31 weeks, the end of this month at the latest. So, we encourage folks to get more folks to take that 32 survey. You can look for it on our website at Palo Alto Action Plan is a good keyword to find that 33 survey and pass around the link. 34 35 Our Cal Ave item has been pushed to August but we’re going to give an informational update in 36 June to the Council about how we’re scheduling and thinking about all of our various parking 37 planning efforts including that effort. So, look for information about that presentation to 38 Council in June. I think it will be a good snapshot of all the pieces that we’ve got going on right 39 now. 40 Page 4 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Hechtman: Alright, thank you, Mr. Baird. Other information from Staff? Ms. Tanner, let 2 me ask a question. This land use meeting of the City Council on the 18th, which is a Tuesday, is 3 that right? 4 5 Ms. Tanner: That’s correct. 6 7 Chair Hechtman: Is PTC liaison expected to attend that? 8 9 Ms. Tanner: It would be great if the liaison is available recognizing it’s not a date that normally 10 the liaisons would have in their calendar. I do think that the good thing is that the two items 11 that they’re considering that I believe they were both unanimously recommended by the PTC. 12 So, that’s a pretty strong statement and the other items didn’t come to the PTC; the pre-13 screenings and then the RHNA discussion. So, if the liaisons are not available, I think it will be 14 ok. I wouldn’t want anyone to feel imposed upon if they’re not available. 15 16 Chair Hechtman: So, Commissioner Templeton, you’re the lead this month with Commissioner 17 Summa as your backup. So, hopefully off line the two of you can work out whether or not either 18 of you can attend and I do see Commissioner Templeton’s hand up. Commissioner Templeton. 19 20 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you, Chair. I would recommend that if any other 21 Commissioners want to join, it would be helpful. Just reminded that last or earlier this week we 22 had a unanimous recommendation get overturned by City Council. So, sometimes there is 23 power in numbers and the ability to have… to share our viewpoint from numerous different 24 perspectives could be helpful. So, you’re all welcome to attend, not just me, but I’ve just 25 marked it down on the calendar and will plan to be there. Thank you. 26 27 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Lauing. 28 29 Commissioner Lauing: Yes, that’s a good segue, Commissioner Templeton. That’s what my hand 30 up. Would you like to give us a few sentences on how it went that way? 31 32 Commissioner Templeton: Yes, so the Staff presented our recommendations and halfway 33 through Council deliberations, one of the Council Members asked for our input and I 34 reemphasized that we did come to a unanimous recommendation. And Council was split and it 35 came down to the Mayor and I believe, in his words, it came to a coin toss. He said he could go 36 either way but decided to go against our recommendation and [unintelligible]. 37 38 Commissioner Alcheck: Sorry, can anyone clarify (interrupted) 39 40 Page 5 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 figured that was a good time to have dinner that hour because we had 1 recommended unanimously. So, that’s the one part I missed so thanks. 2 3 Commissioner Templeton: You should have been there, Ed [note – Commissioner Lauing]. It 4 would have been great. 5 6 Commissioner Alcheck: What was their final motion then? 7 8 Commissioner Templeton: They went with Option One. 9 10 Ms. Tanner: [unintelligible – crosstalk] 11 12 Commissioner Templeton: That was the one that does not widen the landing strip between 13 Alma and the railroad track for addition and pedestrian staging. 14 15 Ms. Tanner: And this is the grant-funded project to try to increase the safety at the rail crossing. 16 17 Commissioner Alcheck: Right. 18 19 Commissioner Templeton: Right, so the good news is both of these options meet the 20 requirements for that grant so good. We had recommended a little bit extra additional safety 21 measures and those were not adopted. 22 23 Chair Hechtman: So, Commissioner Templeton is inviting those of us who can attend on the 18th 24 to lend our voices to the cause, so I encourage you all to do that. Alright, anything further on 25 official City reports? Seeing none, I will move us on with our agenda to Agenda Item Number 26 Two. 27 Study Session 28 Public Comment is Permitted. Five (5) minutes per speaker. 29 2. Study session to discuss possible implications of parking data analysis provided by 30 students at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona and to provide related 31 feedback to the Office of Transportation about City of Palo Alto parking planning 32 efforts. 33 Chair Hechtman: A study session to discuss possible implications of parking data analysis 34 provided by students at California State Polytechnical University, Pomona and to provide 35 related feedback to the Office of Transportation about City of Palo Alto parking planning 36 efforts. Staff report, please. 37 38 Page 6 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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. Nate Bate, Transportation Manager: Hi, this is Nate Baird, your Parking Manger. I’m going 1 to turn the mic over to the class but Professor Kim was my graduate advisory 10 some years ago 2 at Cal Poly Pomona. And I have a lot of confidence in his class and their ability to give a 3 visualization of our parking schemes and scenarios and related data in Palo Alto. So, we… at the 4 beginning of the quarter, Professor Kim and I touched base and we talked about what could be 5 possible? What could we look at? We shared some of the data that we’ve already previously 6 shared publicly about our parking occupancy data and I just thought it would be helpful for us 7 be able to visually see a lot of this data. And also, just learn from the students and their 8 processes about what they see and how it relates to our larger regional context as well. With 9 that, I’ll turn it over and they’ve got about a 30-minute presentation for us just on the mapping 10 and analysis they’ve done. 11 12 Chair Hechtman: Welcome students. 13 14 Mr. Do Kim: Let me start first. First of all, thank you for having us here and thank you for the 15 introduction and [unintelligible]. It is a great honor for us, for me and my students to be here. 16 My name is Do Kim, I’m a professor at Cal Poly Pomona and I’ve been teaching this for GS 17 application in planning studio with… in this semester with six students. I was… I managed this 18 class and we’re kind of a small class but what we did is not small. So, let me briefly introduce 19 the goal of this class and project that we’ve done in this class and I’ll pass the microphone to my 20 students. 21 22 So, let me share my screen first. So, the purpose of this class, is this is a studio class. The main… 23 the primary purpose of this class is that so we can have… give an opportunity to students to test 24 their real-world planning issues and problem. And especially, specifically, we try to handle and 25 solve the planning problem whether it's technology or GIS into mapping and spatial data 26 analysis technology. So, in this particular semester, I can [unintelligible] for the City of Palo Alto, 27 because of Nate’s approach to me and we developed this project together. And as Nate 28 introduced briefly the goal this semester was to focus on the GS database, to build a GS 29 database for the City’s parking facility. And so, we collected and analyzed what’s going on in 30 downtown and Evergreen Park [unintelligible] the City of Palo Alto in terms of the residents, the 31 business, and employee, and everything that is related to parking demand. And then my 32 students also analyzed there’s sort of a relationship within in parking occupancy rates and 33 those characteristics. So, let me pass the microphone to my students and my students will go 34 over the presentation. 35 36 Mr. Michael Delgadillo: Hi, hello Council. My name is Michael Delgadillo and I will be going over 37 the current parking facilities within Palo Alto. Next slide, please. For our study area, we’re going 38 to be focusing on the areas of downtown and Evergreen Park and also the surrounding districts 39 Page 7 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 well including Southgate, College Terrace, Old Palo Alto and the Crescent Park area. Next 1 slide, please. 2 3 In the downtown and Crescent Park areas, the areas that are highlighted in dark green 4 represent the current Resident Preferential Parking District. Light green represents areas that 5 are eligible for the RPP but are not yet activated. The areas located in orange, closer to 6 University Avenue, are areas that do not have a residential RPP in the downtown area. Over on 7 the side where Crescent Park is in red, that actually represents no overnight parking. However, 8 residents are able to purchase a permit in order to park overnight and focusing back on the 9 downtown area. We also are inventorying the public surface lots and parking garages and then 10 for sake of comparison. We’ve elected to include private parking lots within surrounding areas. 11 As you can see, most of those facilities are localized and concentrated around University 12 Avenue. Next slide. 13 14 And next, the area… one of the other areas that we’re focusing on would be the area 15 surrounding Evergreen Park and the surrounding districts. Old Palo Alto, Southgate and College 16 Terrace. Again, in green, represents the areas that have the RPP activated and unique to this 17 area, specifically around California Avenue, we have areas where people can park for free for 18 up to 2-hours. And again, around California Avenue, we have the public surface lots and parking 19 garages and also, we’ve included private parking lots within the surrounding area for basis of 20 comparison on these maps. Next slide, thank you. 21 22 In terms of rates for residents in the RPPs, for downtown, Evergreen Park and Southgate. 23 They’re similar in that the first permit is free and every additional permit costs $50 with a 24 maximum of four. Residents also have the option of purchasing hand tags… sorry, hang tags 25 that are $50 with a maximum of two. There’s also daily permits that they can purchase for $5. 26 In Old Palo Alto and College Terrace, it’s slightly different where every permit residents can 27 purchase is $50 with a maximum of four except in College Terrace where the maximum is two 28 and also there’s a daily parking permit of $5. Also, to point out, there is a daily… there’s a 29 permit cap for daily permits in downtown, Evergreen Park and College Terrace. Downtown and 30 Evergreen Park have a permit… daily permit cap of $50 where as College Terrace has a slightly 31 increased cap at $80. Next slide. 32 33 And then focusing on the employee rates for the RPP, these employee permits are renewable 34 on a 6-months basis. For employees that qualify as low-income, these permits cost $50 in 35 downtown and Evergreen Park. Except in Southgate where those permits cost $25. For a 36 standard permit in downtown for employees, it’s $403, however in Southgate and Evergreen 37 Park that cost is $201.50. They also have the option of purchasing a $25 daily permit with the 38 maximum of 24 permits per district. There also employee caps, within the downtown area 39 there are roughly 10 subdistricts that have various limits but the totality of those permit caps is 40 Page 8 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. at 1,000. In Southgate, there’s a maximum of 30 employee permits and in Evergreen Park that 1 number is 290. Next slide. 2 3 And then to round off the parking facility demonstration, we have surface lots and garages in 4 the downtown area. As you can see on the map, light blue are the surface lots, dark blue are 5 the garages and their total number of spaces is displayed. The totality of these spaces are 6 3,085, total permit spaces is 1,658 with a permit capacity… total permit capacity of 1,898 and as 7 the data that was provided to us indicates there are a total of 3,227 permits issued for these 8 lots. Also, the annual rates for these permits in the parking garages… some parking garages is 9 $806 with also daily permit rates of $25. Next slide. 10 11 And then focusing on the surface lots and garages in the Evergreen Park District along California 12 Avenue. Again, light blue is the surface lots and dark blue are the parking garages. Here we 13 have a totality of 879 spaces with 735 permits issued and a permit capacity of 800… sorry, 980 14 and then next slide. And then we’ll be moving onto the resident, employee and business 15 analysis. 16 17 Mr. Aaron Hernandez: Hi everyone, I’m Aaron, so thank you Michael for presenting that part. 18 I’m going to go over some of the demographic characteristics we explored in part of the parking 19 analysis. Next slide, please. 20 21 First, we wanted to see the population density in the general areas of downtown Palo Alto and 22 Evergreen Park. In this study area the density… the average density is 13 people per acre which 23 is three times higher than the overall density of the City. In the map, you can see that the 24 higher population densities exist around the downtown core and the immediate area of 25 Evergreen Park. 26 27 On to the next slide we also looked into the housing tenure of renter-occupied households. The 28 map reflects the previous population density map where there’s a correlation of areas with 29 high renter occupation rates and high population density. 30 31 In the next slide, the information gathered on median income per the household shows that 32 there can be a discrepancy in the level of income and renter-occupied units. Areas with less 33 renter-occupied units are more likely to have higher median incomes. On the map, this is 34 reflected more in the Crescent Park areas. Next slide, please. 35 36 We also consider the characteristics of business location and employment. The map on the 37 bottom shows the level of employment by Census blocks and the map on the top right shows 38 the locations of individual businesses in the studied area. When relating information between 39 both maps, Evergreen Park has a Census block with high employment levels but with a small 40 Page 9 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. number of businesses. Represent that this area consists of large-scale businesses. The 1 downtown area has a significantly high employment level and a high number of businesses. So, 2 that implies that the downtown consists more of small, local businesses. Next slide, please. 3 4 We gather information on where workers from the downtown area commute from. The map 5 on the left shows the regional scale of commuters while the map on the right is a zoomed-in 6 map of commuters that are within a 10-mile radius maximum from the downtown Caltrain 7 Station. The transit routes on the map area routes with direct connections to the downtown 8 and are meant to show Census tracks that have a high level of commuters but with no 9 immediate access to transit. 10 11 On the next slide, the same analysis is applied but is specific to people commuting to Evergreen 12 Park. On the regional map, the Census tracks skew more down south into Santa Clara County 13 and finally in the last slide of this section. 14 15 We also took into consideration of the rate of commuters that drive alone in San Mateo, 16 Alameda and Santa Clara Counties. The data on commuters driving alone on this map is not 17 specific to Palo Alto commuters but we wanted to show… we wanted to use this information to 18 show any possible correlations of Census tracks that may have a high rate of Palo Alto 19 commuters and also have a high rate of commuters driving alone. 20 21 And with that, I’m now going to pass it on to [unintelligible – audio cut out] 22 23 Mr. Brian Delirey [note – phonetics]: Thank you, Aaron. My name is Brian Delirey [note – 24 phonetics]. I will start the discussion pertaining to downtown Palo Alto followed by my 25 teammate Edris Nyeazi. Next slide, please. 26 27 So, based on the characteristics that we noticed about Palo Alto, we analyzed a few 28 demographics compared to the parking occupancy in the downtown area. Those included hotel 29 density, distance around University drive, job density, business density, vehicle ownership, 30 population density, renter rates, transit hubs, street hierarchy and bus stops. Next slide. 31 32 When we considered our density, we took into account the business firm size in regards to the 33 employment ranges. We can see there’s a relation between disbursement of jobs and a 34 demand for parking very centroid to the University Drive and the blocks around it. Next slide, 35 please. 36 37 When considering the business density, we looked at the business location and disbursement 38 around the downtown area and again we see a relationship within the parking demand. 39 Page 10 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Whether it is 9:00 am or 6:00 pm, the demand stays constant with minor fluctuations. Next 1 slide, please. 2 3 Then we also looked at the distance from University Drive using three intervals of 500, 1,000 4 and 1,500-feet; equating to about 1-block to 3-blocks with the majority of demand around the 5 corridor which also lines up with the business and employment maps. Next slide, please. 6 7 We thought it was prudent to also include hotel density, While there are not a lot of hotel 8 locations within Palo Alto since Stanford is a magnet to a lot of outer towners in normal 9 conditions. Their presence is very important to downtown Palo Alto’s environment and their 10 economy. So, taking into account how the disbursement of the hotels in conjunctions to their 11 relationship to parking around them is prudent and in order to understand whether outer 12 towners do affect the supply and demand in that area. After this, I will pass it on to Edris who 13 will go over the rest of the demographics for downtown. 14 15 Mr. Edris Nyeazi: Thank you, Brian. Hello, my name is Edris and I’ll be covering the rest of this 16 analysis for downtown parking occupancy. So, this next graphic as you can for the four times of 17 data that we’ve been using for total number of vehicles by block group and we see that there is 18 some concentration around higher density of vehicles where parking demand is higher. This is 19 relatively intuitive but it’s good to see how the spread works out in relation to the amount of 20 sheer… the sheer amount of vehicles as we see right there indicated in the denser part of total 21 vehicle count. Next slide, please. 22 23 We move into population density of… in relation or correlation to the same parking 24 occupancies that we’ve been using and so this has a strong relationship with the density of 25 vehicle numbers as the more amount of people, the more amount of vehicles. And as we can 26 see, it’s a… we see a similar spread here and a similar relationship between the parking 27 occupancy, parking demand, and the density of residents. Next slide, please. 28 29 Now we have the next correlation test on the renter rate for occupied units around the Palo 30 Alto downtown area. As you can see, we can see a strong concentration of renters in that 31 downtown core and that’s going to provide higher density of… higher population density as well 32 as higher demand for parking as we can see right in that central core. The… these relationships 33 are all interconnected and they pick up some pretty interesting observations as we mentioned. 34 Next slide, please. 35 36 We picked out the center or this spread of the or reach of the Caltrans transit hub and to see if 37 there was some sort of relationship with parking demand there as well. And it seems that 38 despite that there may not be a cause and effect relationship here. It may have something to 39 Page 11 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. do especially with the amount of off-street parking in those parking lots and parking garages in 1 relationship to where this Caltrans… Caltrain transit hub is. Next slide, please. 2 3 Next where we examined some of the road hierarchy here. In particular, we see the major 4 arterials and collector roads in relationship to where on the right you see the parking demand. 5 Here, we want to pay specific attention to the on-street parking demand as the major… the 6 larger streets are going to have that increased capacity as well as that increased demand. And 7 the fact that it’s so closely… in such close approximation to the downtown core, we’re going to 8 see a large relationship there. 9 10 That concludes the downtown portion of… oh, just kidding, one more. Density, so we also 11 analyzed the density of bus stops and to see how parking demand is related to the use of local 12 transportation in some of these systems. And so, the darker shades areas in blue you’re going 13 to see that there is a lot of close proximity to that parking demand. Especially higher parking 14 demand right there in the downtown area, especially in that northwest area. This again is not… 15 none of these are suggesting a cause and effect relationship but in combination will have some 16 sort of lead into why there’s such a high parking demand in those areas and that concludes the 17 downtown area analysis. 18 19 Mr. Lucas Drumonde V.: Perfect, alright thank you, Edris. We will be going over the parking 20 occupancy for our other area, Evergreen Park. Next slide, please. So, as a brief overview, here 21 are the variables in which we analyzed. So, as you can see, some of the analysis factors are 22 similar to that of the downtown area, while others differ slightly. This is basically because these 23 two areas are not the exact same and different variables must be used to better understand the 24 difference between the two. 25 26 So, for Evergreen Park are variables include job density, total business density, food points of 27 interest which is basically restaurants of different kinds including bakeries, fast food, etc. Retail 28 business density, total workers younger and older than the age of 29, total workers earning less 29 than or more than $1,250 a month, population, vehicle ownership, and owner and renter-30 occupied housing units. Oh, and median income and also something that we found throughout 31 the analysis is that the overall demand for on-street parking was moderately to significantly 32 greater than that of off-street parking. So, that’s something to keep in mind so go ahead and go 33 to the next slide, please. 34 35 Ok, so here we have a couple of maps outlining the job density and the business density. And as 36 you can… as can be seen the maps, the areas in the district that are most concentrated… 37 densely concentrated with jobs and businesses have the greatest overall parking demand near 38 by them. So, the majority of the jobs and businesses can be found along California Avenue with 39 other hot spots on El Camino Real. And as one might expect, where there are the most jobs, 40 Page 12 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. that’s where people need to park. Where businesses are, people need to park there and it’s 1 most convenient to park on the street directly in front of or directly nearby to these businesses. 2 So, I think that’s also why we see more demand for on-street parking. Go ahead and go to the 3 next slide. 4 5 Similar results can be found for restaurant and retail business density. The impact on parking 6 occupancy is highly correlated where the majority of businesses in the district can be found 7 which is along California Avenue. We wanted to point out these two types of businesses 8 because these seem to be the main types, at least as far as the “number of businesses”. We are 9 aware that there are a large number of offices in the area but one office could be home to say 10 100 employees while one restaurant could be home to say 15-20. Say it again, the majority of 11 the parking occupancy is located right onto California Avenue on-street parking which is where 12 the majority of the businesses are. Next slide, please. 13 14 So, we also wanted to examine the relationship between the types of jobs and the workers who 15 fill those positions and the parking demand created by that. So, typically workers who are 16 younger than 29 are more commonly working part-time “non-career” type positions. Seeing 17 more typically, of course, you do have people who are younger than 29 working in career-type 18 positions but it’s more common. So basically, what can been seen here is that majority of the 19 workers in the district are older than 29 which is suggesting that the district is home to office 20 type, more professional positions. And while the color scheme is… well, the color scheme is the 21 same but you can see in the legend that those who are younger than 29. That just the sheer 22 number of workers in that age group is significantly smaller and this does also have a high 23 correlation to the parking occupancy. Something that we found is that this did have more 24 impact on off-street parking. Suggesting that people who are coming into work, they need to 25 park off-street typically for longer times; 4- to 8-hours a day, etc. Next slide, please. 26 27 This is the total earnings less than and more than $1,250 a month and this relationship that I 28 outlined in the previous slide can also be seen in these maps because the vast majority of 29 workers within the district earn more than $1,250 a month. Basically, and just for some 30 background, that amount, $1,250 monthly, is about a minimum wage job and we are aware 31 that the earnings in Bay Area/Silicon Valley are higher but it’s still important to note. So, this 32 basically just furthers supports that the area is supportive of more “career-type” positions, full-33 time jobs, more professional-type positions. So, that ends it for my portion, I’ll go ahead and 34 pass it on to Daniel. Thank you. 35 36 Mr. Daniel Y. Kim: Alright, thank you. I’ll finish up our analysis by comparing parking occupancy 37 against demographic data by block groups. So, these two maps compare population per block 38 group again parking occupancy and on the right total vehicles compared to parking. These are 39 group uses, you can see the rates indicated by color intensity similar as one might anticipate 40 Page 13 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. since population and total vehicles owned is closely correlated as we also saw in the downtown 1 area. The results, although it’s already intuitive, show that high population in vehicles in 2 neighboring areas add to higher parking occupancy levels throughout the day. And so, an 3 observation to keep in mind is that the area has a smaller population living within the study 4 area compared to downtown which leads to unknown numbers of how many cars parked on 5 the streets are attributed to block groups not evaluated in these analyses. 6 7 In the next two maps, we also compared owner-occupied and renter-occupied residences with 8 parking which depicts a weak or at the very least an inconclusive relationship with parking. Not 9 much information can be gleaned off these maps, these two but add for a holistic approach. 10 11 And in the final map, at a glance, median household income depicts a weak correlation to 12 parking, but it’s also worth nothing that population of vehicle numbers have a negative 13 correlation with median household income, or least from the data we’ve collected. We cannot 14 assume higher median income correlating to more parking. 15 16 And on this one slide, as a quick aside, I’d like to mention that this parking analysis does not 17 contain specific analysis supporting parklets, but may be potentially useful to anticipate 18 productive parklet locations to recreate maybe a similar program such as the Summer Streets 19 Program. Analysis of parking occupancy by time can add data to determine which parking 20 spaces can be better utilized as parklets instead parking spaces and this concludes our analysis. 21 Thank you. 22 23 Chair Hechtman: Alright, thank you Professor and Cal Poly Pomona students. Excellent 24 presentation. I want to find out if there are clarifying questions from the Commissioners before 25 we go to public comment and then come back to Commission discussion so students don’t go 26 away. I see a hand… I see a couple hands. I’ll start with Commissioner Summa. 27 28 Commissioner Summa: Thank you so much. It seems from the presentation as if the Evergreen 29 Park Neighborhood, Mayfield Neighborhood and the California Avenue Business District were 30 regarded as one area. Can the… can that be clarified? 31 32 Mr. Baird: Hi, this is Nate. I think it’s probably just a little familiarity issue in terms of the 33 neighborhood names. When I supplied the parking district data that we have and so the names 34 that they provided correlate with the parking district data information that we provided. So, 35 yeah, we weren’t looking at parking data for all of Palo Alto because we don’t have that parking 36 occupancy data for those other neighborhoods. So, we were specifically looking at these are 37 our parking districts. 38 39 Page 14 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: Sure, but the demographic and parking-related information for the Cal 1 Ave Business District for instance was conflated with Evergreen Park and Mayfield. Is that 2 correct? 3 4 Mr. Baird: I believe the Census data and other sources of data they have probably are 5 geographic and not specific to those separations. But I’ll let Professor Kim respond to that or 6 one of the students. 7 8 Commissioner Summa: Thanks. 9 10 Mr. Kim: The data that we used is pretty much public data and in this social [unintelligible]data 11 is majority to social [unintelligible] data comes from Census and since the study that we worked 12 on was kind of a small latitude. It’s smaller so we tried to go with the smaller geological unit so 13 typically the Census block group and some of them in the Census a block [unintelligible] go a 14 little to the smaller than block group. Some of the data Census [unintelligible] which is larger 15 than block group. So, this… the definition of a geography boundary that we use is by the Census 16 definition. So, it would be slightly different from any of the restricted boundaries that you guys 17 are familiar with. 18 19 Commissioner Summa: Ok so I think I understand that you did conflate the Evergreen Park 20 Neighborhood, the Cal Ave Business District, and the Mayfield Neighborhood as one district for 21 the purpose of your studies. That’s (interrupted) 22 23 Mr. Kim: So (interrupted) 24 25 Mr. Baird: Is that (interrupted) 26 27 Commissioner Summa: That’s just what I’m trying to understand. I’m sorry. 28 29 Mr. Baird: The data actually comes… the Census block data is actually smaller than the parking 30 district data that we were studying. So, I wouldn’t say that they were conflated. I would say that 31 we applied the Census block data is smaller so you’re able to… we’re able to visualize the 32 Census block data sitting atop of our parking district. 33 34 Mr. Philip Kamhi, Chief Transportation Official: And apologies, this is Chief Transportation 35 Official Philip Kamhi and I’m tuning in a little bit late here but I also want to note that the 36 parking occupancy data that we collected. Just noting that that was all a snapshot in time per 37 pandemic and then we typically inner relate parking issues in the California Avenue Business 38 District with the neighboring Residential Preferential Parking Districts. Evergreen Park, Mayfield 39 and to a less extent Southgate as well because somebody that’s parking that works for say Visa 40 Page 15 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. in Evergreen Park could be parking in a garage in California Avenue District or they could be 1 parking in either Evergreen Park, Mayfield. 2 3 Commissioner Summa: Ok. I get that but there aren’t… well, I’ll just leave it at that. It seems like 4 an odd way to group, especially Evergreen Park, in with the Cal Ave Business District in terms of 5 jobs and other demographic data that was presented. So, I’ll just leave it there and could you 6 clarify and maybe I miss it, I’m sorry, the time period in which the study was done. 7 8 Mr. Kim: For the occupancy data you mean? The time period of the occupancy rates? 9 10 Commissioner Summa: Well, I guess the time period the whole study was (interrupted) 11 12 Mr. Kim: Ok, so the whole study (interrupted) 13 14 Commissioner Summa: [unintelligible] that one. I just did (interrupted) 15 16 Mr. Kim: Go ahead. 17 18 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Summa, is there more to your question? 19 20 Commissioner Summa: No, I didn’t catch the answer there but it may be a problem with the 21 phone. So, I’ll leave it at that Chair, thank you. 22 23 Chair Hechtman: Actually, I think Professor Kim was wanting to answer it but there was talking 24 over each other and so Professor Kim, I think Commissioner Summa is asking was this… is this 25 as a point of time that the study took place or is it over a period of months and if so, what 26 months are those? I think that was the question. 27 28 Mr. Kim: So, the data that we collected is not actually… it’s not a snapshot of a very specific 29 date or month. It’s sort of like a more yearly data, social economy data that we used as yearly 30 data. I know there’s a little bit of a time gap between the data so for example, social economy 31 data, the demographic data that we collected is a majority of is in like 2018-2019 data. And the 32 business data we collected was based on Cities [unintelligible] data. I think that’s 2016 data and 33 occupancy rate data I just received from Nate, I believe Philip mentioned earlier just snapshot 34 data that collected in 2016. Am I correct Nate? 35 36 Mr. Baird: Yes. 37 38 Mr. Kim: So, there’s like a… it’s not like a longitudinal analysis. It’s kind of a lot mixes with 39 annual data. 40 Page 16 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Summa: [unintelligible – choppy audio] thank you so much. So, the data was 2 gathered over a period from 2016 to 2019. Is that (interrupted) 3 4 Mr. Kim: Yeah. 5 6 Commissioner Summa: Would that be fair to say? 7 8 Mr. Kim: Yeah. 9 10 Commissioner Summa: Ok, thank you so much. 11 12 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Chang, questions? 13 14 Commissioner Chang: I just wanted to… I had the same question about the timing for the 15 different batches of data. So, I just wanted to clarify and ask Professor Kim or Nate. The 16 occupancy data was gathered when? 17 18 Mr. Baird: 2016 as part of the previous planning work that has been done in the City and, you 19 know, that occupancy data kind of shows what everybody is familiar with if they visited 20 downtown 2016 to 2019. That there’s a peak around noon to evening time in the downtown 21 and also in the Evergreen Park/Mayfield/California Avenue area as well. 22 23 Mr. Kamhi: And if (interrupted) 24 25 Commissioner Chang: And then (interrupted) 26 27 Mr. Kamhi: If I can just add to that, [unintelligible] I’m sorry, this is Philip Kamhi again. I’m sorry 28 to jump in but just wanted to note that previously when we collected this kind of parking data. 29 This was actually hiring a consultant to go walk down each of these streets and count how 30 many cars on each block face and that was kind of the practice and it was something that we 31 did. Typically, we did for the formation of parking districts, for the formation of RPPs to assess 32 them and then as a follow-up, to evaluate what the impacts of those established RPPs are. So, 33 just noting that moving forward in the future, we’re going to have a lot more dynamic data 34 collection occurring in these neighborhoods as we’ve got license plate recognition software 35 that will be implemented in these districts that will be collecting dynamic data for us. And that’s 36 one of the reasons why this effort of these students is really interesting because it will provide 37 us this snapshot in time to look at. 38 39 Page 17 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Chang: So, my follow-on question is I think I was having a hard time hearing. So, 1 for the demographic data, so for example the Census block, that’s not from 2010 Census. That’s 2 from this 2018 to 2019 timeframe, is that correct? 3 4 Mr. Kim: Yes, that’s correct. 5 6 Commissioner Chang: Ok, thank you and then finally, I was hoping to ask a… to go back to the 7 Palo Alto commuter charts. The one with the concentric circles and ask the students and thank 8 you all students and Professor Kim for your work. It’s very interesting to see it. You know a 9 picture says 1,000 words so it’s very interesting to see it in this format. I was wondering what 10 conclusions you guys thought might be able to be gathered from the two commuting origin 11 charts. 12 13 Mr. Kim: Aaron, why don’t you start? Yeah, why don’t you start? 14 15 Mr. Hernandez: Definitely, since I was in charge of this section. So, I think… well, generally just 16 by the visualization of the map it seems that most of the… most commuters that commute to 17 Palo… into the downtown at least here. They come from… most come from the immediate 3-18 mile to 5-mile area with some pouring in like for example, down to the southeast portion of the 19 map on the right in the 10-mile area. So, I think the mission in showing this map overall was to 20 identify which transit routes that have that immediate one-way connection to the downtown 21 Palo Alto Caltrain station; which basically relates that to the Census tracks that may not have 22 those routes going into the downtown area. And that’s kind of… basically we want to inform 23 you, the Commissioners, and the public in that visual representation of that. 24 25 Commissioner Chang: So, a clarifying question here, so the different shades of red. Is that 26 Census data or Palo Alto specific data? 27 28 Mr. Hernandez: That is actually Census data. Do 29 30 Mr. Kim: Go ahead (interrupted) 31 32 Mr. Hernandez: Oh ok, yeah, that is actually Census data that we [unintelligible -audio cut out]. 33 Basically, Census data that has the number of commuters that commute to Palo Alto and we 34 used this… it’s called LODS (interrupted) 35 36 Mr. Kim: [unintelligible] 37 38 Mr. Hernandez: Yes, Origin Destination Employment Statistics so that’s provided by the Census. 39 40 Page 18 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Chang: Ok so but it is specific to… it’s not just oh these are populations. These 1 are populations of people who commute to Palo Alto. 2 3 Mr. Kim: Right, this is (interrupted) 4 5 Commissioner Chang: Got it. 6 7 Mr. Kim: Right, this is the worker who had a job at downtown Palo Alto and showing where 8 they live. 9 10 Commissioner Chang: Fantastic, thank you. Can I… can you just page ahead to the other one 11 because I think you had a separate chart for Evergreen Park and there it actually looks kind of 12 different. 13 14 Mr. Kim: So, the… actually my intention that the way we created this kind of map is that I want 15 you guys to kind of think about is there any place that you may want to extend your public 16 transportation for example. Obviously, people who live in some area where they’re further 17 away than 10-mile from where they work and this area is like a concentration of where the 18 commuters live. In this area, they don’t have good public transportation to get to where they 19 work. So, if you guys compare… the reason why we overlay with the public transportation 20 network that if you contrast public transportation network and where they live. And then you 21 can see where’s the gap and you may want to consider some public transportation service for 22 that area. 23 24 Commissioner Chang: Final question, I don’t see a legend on this chart in terms what the 25 relative pink-red colors mean. Is it… do you have that at the ready or could you share it with us? 26 Maybe email it to Mr. Baird later on and he can share it with us. 27 28 Mr. Kim: Yeah, definitely we can share all that information. The grey area is just like a 29 background map to give you a little more compass. The grey does not have any particular data 30 or information. Grey coverage just background. 31 32 Commissioner Chang: Thank you. 33 34 Chair Hechtman: Alright, we are going to go to public comment on this study session item and 35 then we’ll bring it back for Commission discussion. So, I do want to now open the floor for 36 public comments. Please raise your hand if you wish to speak. On the Zoom App, there’s a raise 37 hand button on the bottom of your screen. If you are dialing in from a phone, please press *9. 38 Mr. Nguyen, are there any public speakers for this item? 39 40 Page 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Mr. Vinh Nguyen, Admin. Associate III: Chair Hechtman, we do not have any raised hands for 1 this item. Actually, I apologize, we just have one raised hand that just came up. So, if we can 2 please get the speaker timer. Our speaker is Saint Mark. 3 4 Ms. Carol Scott: Hello, it’s actually Carol Scott. Sometimes I disguise myself as Saint Mark 5 Episcopal Church but it’s really Carol Scott. So, I just wanted to ask and I think it’s a follow-up to 6 Doria Summa’s comment but when you’re looking at parking and the density of parking in the 7 various areas. I understand that you cannot tell whether that density is resident parking or 8 permit parking. Is that correct? 9 10 Chair Hechtman: So, question from the public don’t go directly to the speakers, the presenters, 11 but having stated the question, we’ll see if when it comes back to the PTC discussion, 12 Commissioner Summa for example wants to pick up on that concept and follow up. Please 13 continue your comments. 14 15 Ms. Scott: That’s it. Thank you. 16 17 Chair Hechtman: Thank you very much. 18 19 Mr. Nguyen: Chair Hechtman, that concludes public comment for this item. 20 21 Chair Hechtman: Alright, thank you and let’s bring it back to the PTC for discussion, additional 22 questions, or comments of Staff or our presenting team. Commissioner Summa followed by 23 Commissioner Templeton. 24 25 Commissioner Summa: Thank you, Chair Hechtman. I will… I found the boundaries and the 26 information presented about Cal Ave Business District and how it was described as being one 27 with Evergreen Park and Mayfield Neighborhoods confusing. So, I will go ahead per our Chair’s 28 prompt and ask for the member of the public, Carol Scott I think, who wanted to know if the 29 study determined… I think she was probably talking about on-street parking but maybe not 30 related to that. But to what extent the study could distinguish between residential parking and 31 other parking… other parkers? 32 33 Mr. Kim: Right so the answer to that question is that we didn’t differentiate the residential part 34 versus employee parking. So, that the data that we presented is altogether. Actually, the data 35 that Nate provided has that detailed classifications but we didn’t use that classified data. We 36 just used the overall sum. 37 38 Mr. Baird: That is an interesting point though and I do think there’s probably a future 39 opportunity for us to think a little bit more clearly about how our different users and different 40 Page 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. employees versus residents. And I think that is something that will be useful about the kind of 1 background work that the students have provided with us and the future data that we’ll be 2 collecting and we’ll be able to visualize. 3 4 Mr. Kim: I mean that’s absolutely correct. I think the intention that we analyzed in the parking 5 occupancy rate by time of days. That’s sort of our intention is see if there’s some different 6 relationship or different dimensions over the residential users versus employee users. 7 Obviously, noon occupancy rate or the parking facility will differ from 6:00 pm where everybody 8 comes… get back to their home. So, that was out intention but we didn’t really specify the 9 parking occupancy rate data as to the residential versus the employees. 10 11 Chair Hechtman: Alright thank you. Commissioner Templeton. 12 13 Commissioner Templeton: First I just want to thank the presenters. I… this is such an interesting 14 presentation and has a lot of data that we haven’t seen before and certainly not in this way. So, 15 congratulations on putting this together. It’s very interesting and I’m sure we will refer back to 16 it in coming months because there’s definitely a lot of talk about parking and how to solve the 17 commute, the traffic, the parking, and all these problems combined. So, I just want to say thank 18 you for bringing this to us and sharing your work product with us because it’s absolutely 19 fascinating. 20 21 I am also intrigued and maybe this is a riff off of what Commissioner Chang was talking about. 22 I’m very intrigued by how much parking is demanded by people who live nearby and that’s just 23 absolutely fascinating. Because one of the challenges we often discuss in Palo Alto is that the… 24 that we have… we believe we have a lot of external commutes from people who don’t 25 necessarily live in Palo Alto and comes to the City for numbers about how many more jobs we 26 than residences and things like that. And so, it’s really interesting to see that some of our 27 parking districts are so readily used by our residents and I was wondering if… I’m sorry I don’t 28 remember which presenter mentioned this, but that programs that we can have within the City 29 could significantly reduce demand for Palo Alto resident's need for parking at our destinations 30 like California Avenue and downtown. So, what kinds of programs are you thinking about, and 31 maybe this is a question for our Staff that could address that, to at least make the locals less 32 reliant on cars to go 1 or 2-miles down the road to reduce the local demand? 33 34 Mr. Kim: Nate, do you want to answer or I mean ok, so let me [unintelligible] to that question. 35 Actually, I mean to the answer we didn’t get into that kind of a finding answer too much. The 36 purpose of this project was kind of more getting together data and putting sort of good data set 37 rather than go into an equally policy recommendation letter. But obviously, one way that I can 38 answer to that is kind of the way as I response back to Commissioner Chang earlier. If we want 39 to reduce automobile dependence so that we preserve… not preserve, minimize using the 40 Page 21 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. parking facility. It’s that we have to develop our transportation mode like public transportation. 1 So, then we have to… basically, we have to understand the dynamics of this commuting 2 patterns and all those people who live there and who commute to there. So, public 3 transportation… promoting public transportation can be definitely one option. So, then the 4 workers and employees in the downtown will drive less. Then more parking space will be 5 available for the residential around the downtown area for sure. 6 7 And also, we didn’t do much of in-depth analysis but if we… as I mentioned briefly if we 8 understand the dynamics of that parking occupancy time of date. Then Nate and the City I 9 believe can come up with a really, really good program that can make a permanent balance 10 between the demands of the residents and employees by time of different date. Let’s say, 11 there’s a [unintelligible] amount of parking space in the morning time and in the early 12 afternoon, large space will be occupied by employee. And in the early morning and late evening 13 that place will be able to occupy by residents. So, that’s parting sharing… not sharing but kind of 14 my… you know sharing the parking space between the resident and employee. Together 15 another perfect resolution for the parking issues. Nate? 16 17 Mr. Baird: I’ll build off Professor Kim a little bit. I mean when I look at it, you know we have 18 these shared parking resources but we have a lot of demand for these shared resources. I think 19 that’s a big takeaway just looking at the socio-economic data and the residential data and the 20 business data. We have a success… we have successful areas and so there’s going to be high 21 demand for them but we also have good transit resources in those same locations. And we also 22 have a variety of different user groups who actually need the parking at different times of day, 23 right? So, workers need it 8:00 to 6:00 and many of our programs are set up to encourage 24 parking turnover but then we also know that employees need parking all day. So, then we want 25 to think about how to address these different levers in different ways. And so, one of the things 26 that’s exciting to me about the work that the students have done is that in the future we’ll be 27 able to monitor quite regularly the parking occupancy and demand for any particular block. And 28 furthermore, we’ll be able to know whether that block say in a residential district, is it more 29 used by employees 8:00 to 6:00 or is it visitors that are coming in at lunchtime who like to use 30 that particular block? You know we have the instruments and the programs that we’ve set up 31 previously that were done based on the previous studies that we’ve done. It’s very likely that 32 we’re in new territory now and there may be different demands than we want to tailor our 33 programs to meet and to parse out differently. 34 35 Commissioner Templeton: I think it’s really exciting that you’re going to be getting more data 36 and more specific and fine grain data. That’s definitely going to help but I also just wanted to 37 point out. One of the things that I see from these maps and I’m sorry, I’m looking at another 38 screen so I can zoom in here. But the public transportation does a great job going up and down 39 the El Camino corridor or parallel to it with the railroad, but we don’t have that from the east of 40 Page 22 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Alma down towards the business center. We don’t have a lot of transit there. You can see with 1 these maps that there’s certainly additional potential demand there and that may be outside of 2 the scope of parking. So, we don’t have to answer it tonight but I think there’s some potential 3 that if we did want to look at providing some options. That might be the intersection 4 perpendicular to the railroad and to El Camino might be a great way to start. (interrupted) 5 6 Mr. Kamhi: And so (interrupted) 7 8 Commissioner Templeton: If we made that easier people might walk or bike or whatever more 9 there. 10 11 Mr. Kamhi: Apologies, Commissioner Templeton. I wanted to jump in but there was so much 12 great information being shared on the screen but I just wanted to mention it. This is really… I 13 think this is the perfect opportunity to talk about when we talk about providing mobility 14 options for people within Palo Alto. So, that they don’t have to drive and I just wanted to plug 15 and I’m trying to remember who all I’ve told. But we’re going to be getting awarded a $2 million 16 grant to develop an on-demand transit system within Palo Alto and we expect to be getting that 17 grant award very soon. So, we’re going to have an on-demand transit service go live here in 18 Palo Alto in the very near future and I think maybe that better addresses some of the concerns 19 that you are stressing. 20 21 Commissioner Templeton: That’s wonderful. I know you and I have long talked about what we 22 can do for the public transit options for the locals and that would be really exciting. So, with 23 that, I’ll let it go. Just thank you to everybody who’s presented and discussed this. Thank you. 24 25 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Chang. You’re muted. 26 27 Commissioner Chang: Thank you. Sorry about that, wouldn’t be Zoom without that. So, this 28 presentation reminded me about the differences in parking pricing that we have for 29 commuters. So, the garage pricing is $800 and the on-street RPP pricing either $400ish or 30 $200ish. And the students made the same… you know the data shows exactly what the 31 students observed which is the on-street parking particularly, I can’t remember who it was who 32 was doing the Evergreen Park presentation. The on-street parking… right, Lucas I think, said the 33 on-street parking is much more heavily utilized than the garage parking. Well, it’s no surprise 34 would be my observation given our [unintelligible – audio cut out]. So, I wanted to ask Nate 35 what the thoughts are about specifically the garage pricing relative to the RPP pricing? Because 36 basically, we are… we are currently incentivizing people to get a $400 every 6-month discount 37 by purchasing… no sorry, even more than that, $600 a month discount. And given that when we 38 look at the chart of people making under $1,250 a month, that’s a significant savings that 39 Page 23 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. they’d be getting. So, I just wanted to ask what our thoughts are regarding specifically that 1 difference between RPP and garage parking? 2 3 Mr. Baird: So, that is actually something that we’ll be looking to suggest a correction to in the 4 future. We really do want to incentivize folks who are parking not for a short trip but for if 5 you’re spending the whole day. You know we want them to be using the garages and lots and 6 the garages probably more likely. So, that is something that we’ll be looking at. 7 8 I think the other piece of it too is that we do have… we’re trying to accommodate as much 9 visitor parking as possible you know across the RPP and the commercial zones. And so, you’ve 10 got typically your on-street commercial is the highest demanded space. Those are the spaces 11 when people are new, they’re looking to get as close as possible so those are usually much 12 higher demand. So, I think that’s probably why historically those on-street spaces were made a 13 little bit more affordable but I do think that all these levers do influence each other and we 14 want them to be influencing each other in a way that’s incentivizing the parking behavior that 15 we want to see. And also encouraging folks to just other modes or to use the micro transit. So, 16 we’ll be looking at ways to use pricing in the future to have these work together a little bit 17 better than they currently do. 18 19 Chair Hechtman: Other Commission questions or comments? Commissioner Lauing. 20 21 Commissioner Lauing: Just a quick sort of objectives and process question may be directed to 22 Mr. Baird. So, is this sort of overall, what’s the use of this data? How does it overlap with what 23 you’ve done before, or were you looking here for an incremental methodology to come at it in 24 a different way? I’m trying to look at the integration, not literally, but how this conceptually 25 integrates with what you’re doing already. And then if the get the methodology is just the 26 question of funneling in the new data for 2021 and we’re good to go? So, just kind of how that 27 all works together. 28 29 Mr. Baird: So, for me, I’m a visual-spatial thinker and I’m just… we have a lot of information. We 30 have eight different programs so the first part of the presentation was really great for me just 31 to be able to visualize where our districts are, how they map to each other. We have maps now 32 that we’d previously made when we were a different department and so I’ve got these 33 individual maps. But it’s really fantastic for me to see all these maps overlaid over each other. 34 Yes, we have the six different residential districts and then we have the two different 35 commercial districts but they’re not… they’re all right next to each other. You know the 36 downtown is surrounded by some Evergreen Park and Mayfield neighborhoods are surrounded 37 or have the Cal Ave right in the middle and then you’ve got Old Palo Alto. To me just being able 38 to visualize it is fantastic and it is quite a huge lift and labor-intensive to just visualize the 39 information that we already have. 40 Page 24 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 And then in terms of moving forward, having… just being able to visualize the information I 2 think will help us think about what is the best attachment area for the micro-transit service 3 later? What are ways that we can use our TDM Ordinance that we’ll be developing to help our 4 TDM efforts and our parking pricing efforts work together really well. And being able to 5 visualize in the future taking in the occupancy data that we’ll be getting from the LPR efforts 6 and being able to regularly overlay onto the base geographic databases that the students 7 provided for us will be really invaluable. 8 9 And then I think their analysis work that they’ve done in terms of just thinking about there’s 10 different user groups that we can think about who want to use the parking. And, you know, it 11 takes some thinking to design a program, to think about a program so that it’s encouraging. It's 12 not working against ourselves in terms of our larger City goals in terms of sustainability and 13 getting people to walk and bike and take transit. But also providing parking availability and 14 parking services that are very customer-centric. And for me, that all starts with just having a 15 good understanding of what’s going on and again just visualization on a map is really helpful for 16 me. 17 18 Commissioner Lauing: So, you see this in short as pretty high ROI with the I being transportation 19 time on this investigation? 20 21 Mr. Baird: Yeah, I see this work continuing to help us think about how we move forward. 22 23 Commissioner Lauing: Ok, thank you. 24 25 Chair Hechtman: Other Commission (interrupted) 26 27 Commissioner Alcheck: I can jump in if that’s alright? 28 29 Chair Hechtman: Sure, Commissioner Alcheck. 30 31 Commissioner Alcheck: Well, first I just want to say thank you for the work and the 32 presentation. It’s really a first. I think this was the first time we’ve had a group of graduate 33 students or undergraduate students work together on something and then presented to our 34 Planning Commission. So, that’s exciting and I’m glad that you all took that upon yourselves. 35 36 I guess I’d like to hear from the presenters, you know maybe one by one or those that have a 37 perspective on this. What surprised you the most in your work? Was there something that you 38 didn’t expect that you found? 39 40 Page 25 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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. Drumonde: I’ll go ahead and jump in. So, I was primarily focused on the 1 Evergreen/California Avenue area and I was already expecting there to be a higher occupancy 2 rate for on-street parking. But seeing the disparity between the rates of on-street parking 3 versus off-street parking and that was really surprising. I think it definitely has to do with the 4 cost but given that, I think there are also opportunities to better utilize or best utilize these 5 parking spaces that are in really high demand. Now, what those opportunities, I mean it 6 depends on what the City wants. What… yeah, basically… I mean yeah, it depends on what the 7 City wants but seeing… just being able to visualize and see the difference between those was 8 really surprising, really interesting. 9 10 Chair Hechtman: Other students want to chime in? 11 12 Commissioner Alcheck: Anybody else have a thought about anything that surprised them? 13 14 Mr. Hernandez: Definitely or do you want to go ahead, Eddie? 15 16 Mr. Nyeazi: Sure, thank you. Yeah, kind of how I believe it was Ms. Templeton was mentioning 17 how we are, or at least when we first started our study we were examining the rates that we 18 had… that the City of Palo Alto had established for different areas of parking and parking 19 modes. I mean we found or the one thing that did stick out to me was that the pricing didn’t 20 seem to incentive the parking structures. Even though I have personally… my experience is that 21 I would prefer parking in a structure even in California having hot weather a lot of the time of 22 the year. The shade and the coolness provided by these structures, the amount of space, and 23 the space between cars offer some sort of safety. I know a lot of people care about the 24 cosmetics of their vehicles if it gets dinged by someone’s door nearby. Of course, if you’re 25 trying to pack in as much parking on the street, you’re not really protecting that. 26 27 And through pricing, I’m… I’ve always been an advocate for pricing incentivization and how 28 powerful a tool that can be. But it seems that the City has already recognized that and I’m 29 excited to see those changes be made soon. 30 31 Commissioner Alcheck: You know I think that’s a really interesting point you just made and it 32 makes me wonder if Palo Altans are really aware of our parking garages. You know are they… 33 maybe are they too well hidden. It’s kind of makes you wonder if a big sign that was like hey, 34 really awesome parking garage where your car won’t get nicked right over there, would work 35 better than just the blue piece sign that we have. I know in a City like Redwood City, for 36 example, they installed these monitors that… these video… basically TVs that were extra-large 37 that demonstrated how many spots were open in a parking garage. So, you literally couldn’t 38 drive by without being like I can’t believe I’m going around the block again. Look how many 39 spots that are in there. 40 Page 26 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 There was… I didn’t want to cut off Aaron if you wanted to jump in and say something. 2 3 Mr. Kamhi: Sorry Commissioner, can I just jump in really quickly? And apologies, I’m out on the 4 road with my family right now. But Commissioner Alcheck, I just wanted to mention that we 5 have recently installed in the new California Avenue garage that was called automated parking 6 guidance system which provides how many spaces are available. And we also have plans to 7 install in the downtown garages in the next fiscal year. 8 9 Commissioner Alcheck: It might be time for a fun design competition for tongue-in-cheek 10 directional signs pointing people to… anyway, sorry. Go ahead, Aaron. 11 12 Mr. Hernandez: Thank you. I think there’s a lot that I think we’ve experienced along the way 13 doing this project and well since I was presented more on the demographics side. At least from 14 what I learned… well, what I thought was really interesting is just really just seeing how much of 15 an influence Palo Alto is in terms of its… the data on commuters of origin destination commuter 16 data. As what I think Commissioner Templeton was saying is that there is… there’s a lot of 17 commuters that don’t live too far from downtown for example. They live less than 5-miles away 18 and then when you expand to that the regional level. Well, you see… you can see how different 19 areas of the Bay Area get commuters… has people going to Palo Alto but then there’s actually 20 other things behind the scenes. I mean we didn’t present it because it wasn’t relevant but at 21 least in terms of what data can provide. We actually… there was actually commuters coming 22 from all over the state. A few coming from the south California area and I think we actually had 23 some coming from the east coast like in Ohio and all that. So, I think it just… it’s really 24 fascinating to see how data collection and the significance in data can really tell a story. 25 26 Commissioner Alcheck: Alright well, thank you all for that. I really appreciate it and I hope you 27 guys stay in state once you finish your studies and help us with these challenges. And I wish all 28 of you good luck. I really appreciate your presentation. 29 30 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Summa. 31 32 Commissioner Summa: Thank you and I apologize. I’m having internet connectivity problems 33 this evening so hopefully, that hasn’t been a trouble for anyone. With regards to license plate 34 readers, LPR, I think we’re only talking about deploying that in residential neighborhoods. 35 Maybe Nathan or Philip could clarify that. 36 37 Mr. Baird: Yeah, so we haven’t announced this very much but the LPR will be used for 38 enforcement in the RPPs but we’ve also discussed and coordinated with both PD and our 39 enforcement contractors. That what we’re going to do is we’re going to send the… our 40 Page 27 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. enforcement contractors into the commercial areas to get occupancy counts semi-regularly as 1 well. So, we will be able to use that technology to just get the occupancy counts. It won’t be 2 used for enforcement in the commercial areas, but we’ll at least be able to collect data with 3 those tools and thank you for the question. 4 5 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Summa, more? She might be having more internet problems. 6 7 Commissioner Summa: I am, I’m sorry. I don’t know if you can say anything more about the 8 grant to develop an on-demand transit service and if you can, it would be interesting to hear 9 more about that. Like who you would be developing it with. 10 11 Mr. Baird: So, I don’t know that we have a partner yet. I know that when the… when Sylvia’s 12 team was writing the grant, they were in conversation with a few different providers just to see 13 what the scope and possibilities were. So, I think as we move… once we get an agreement with 14 the funder and then we’ll do a solicitation and then process. But I do think there’s a lot of 15 potential for the parking program and this micro-transit rollout for us to take advantage of that 16 to decrease parking demand hopefully by helping to incentives the micro-transit service over it. 17 18 Commissioner Summa: Ok, thank you so much, everyone. 19 20 Chair Hechtman: Other Commission comments? Well, I would like to commend Professor Kim 21 and his students for the presentation and for their responses to fielding questions. On this 22 Commission, we see a lot of presentations from a lot of consultants and I want to tell you I 23 thought this one was professional grade so job well done. 24 25 Commissioner Lauing asked the question I was going to ask of Mr. Baird, what will you do with 26 this information, and Commissioner Alcheck asked the question I was going to ask of the 27 students, what were the surprises. So, I think I just want to close to amplify something that 28 Commissioner Alcheck said and that is I hope that you students through this experience, and 29 particularly through Mr. Baird’s answer to what he’s going to do with your information, excited 30 you and maybe made you recognize the importance of smart planning and analytics in smart 31 planning and that maybe some, if not all of you, are envisioning the possibility of a career doing 32 the kind of work with Cities that Mr. Baird and Mr. Kamhi are doing. Because I think you all 33 would be great at it so I want to thank you again. Sorry about the dog. So, Cody was echoing my 34 comments there. 35 36 Mr. Kim: Let me quickly respond back to the comments. I mean first of all, once again, thank 37 you for the opportunity for my students. That being the best experience for my students from 38 my perspective for the entire project is I believe this moment. Not doing the process and 39 project is also a great experience but as you’re… except Danny, all of the other students will 40 Page 28 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. graduate by next week and they’re going to go to professional work in the field as a 1 professional planner. So, sitting in this kind of meeting and presenting in front of the 2 Commissioners and Committees and the response back to your questions. I think that’s a great 3 way education and experience. So, I mean once again, thank you so much for the opportunity. I 4 believe my students learned a lot from the entire semester as well as from this meeting. 5 6 Chair Hechtman: Alright, thank you, Professor Kim. So, with that, we are going to conclude this 7 agenda item and move to Agenda Item Number Three. 8 9 Action Items 10 Public Comment is Permitted. Applicants/Appellant Teams: Fifteen (15) minutes, plus three (3) minutes rebuttal. 11 All others: Five (5) minutes per speaker.1,3 12 13 3. Review and Recommendation to Finance Committee and the City Council on 14 Proposed 2022-2026 Capital Improvement Plan and Comprehensive Plan Compliance 15 Chair Hechtman: It's an action item to review… for review and recommendation to the Finance 16 Committee and to the City Council on proposed 2022 to 2026 Capital Improvement Plan or CIP 17 and Comprehensive Plan compliance. Staff report, please. 18 19 Ms. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director: We have Chitra Moitra here who will be doing the 20 presentation on behalf of the City and I will also note that we have a number of departments 21 represented who represent the departments who have the new seventh… seven new Capital 22 Improvement Projects. So, if Commissioners have questions, we do have those resources here 23 as well, so I’ll hand it over to Chitra. 24 25 Ms. Chitra Moitra, Planner: Good evening, Commissioners. Just give me a second to share my 26 screen. Can you guys see my screen? Hello. 27 28 Chair Hechtman: Yes. 29 30 [note – many people started talking at once] 31 32 Ms. Tanner: Yes, we can see it but you want to go to the top and you want to go your display 33 settings at the very top left. And click the arrow down and you should say to swap that. There 34 you go. Great. 35 36 Ms. Moitra: Ok. Good evening, Commissioners. I am Chitra Moitra, planner with the Long-37 Range Planning Section. Tonight, we have in front of the Commission the 2022-2026 new CIPs 38 which are included in the Capital Improvement Budget Book. And as Rachael said, apart from 39 planning Staff we have with us Staff from different departments like Public Works, Utilities, 40 Page 29 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Police, OES, Community Services, etc. So, and at the end of my presentation, you can ask 1 questions to them. 2 3 So, as other previous years, this year also, different City departments have identified new CIP 4 programs to be included in the Capital Budget. These CIPs are basically based on… the selection 5 of these CIPs are based on funding sources, different level of funding sources, City Council 6 preferences and priorities and suggestions from the City’s Infrastructure Blue Ribbon 7 Commission’s reports, etc. So, these CIPs this year, seven of the CIPs have been identified. So, 8 this Capital Budget is reviewed by the Finance Committee as well as the City Council. I think it’s 9 going on right now and the City Council… and as a part of the PTC review. PTC would also be 10 reviewing this same new CIPs but for a different purpose which is for the purpose of finding 11 compliance with the Comprehensive Plan. 12 13 Then this slide says that the Section 19.04.040 of the Palo Alto Municipal Code, this section 14 defines the role of PTC and as I said before it’s for reviewing for Comp Plan consistency. PTC can 15 also review and comment on individual projects and they can suggest improvements to the 16 projects to increase the efficiency of the process. And thirdly, PTC can also identify projects 17 which seem to be missing from this year’s CIP list so that they can be added to the next year’s 18 list. And through a letter, PTC conveys these findings to the Finance Committee and the City 19 Council. 20 21 So, for Staff, what is the role? For Staff’s role is to find the individual CIPs in compliance with 22 the Comprehensive Plan. So, how do they do that? They just link it with the Comprehensive 23 Plan Element, individual goals, policies, or programs which are appropriate and then the Staff 24 generally also adds information on the types of Boards and Commission review required for the 25 CIPS as well as any environmental review as required for the project. 26 27 This slide is a snapshot of the proposed Capital Budget Book and the total number of CIPs they 28 have. So, this year we have 171 Capital Budget projects included in the Capital Budget Book and 29 of that, only 4 percent are new CIPs. And the remaining 164 CIPs you have already reviewed 30 that previous years so we won’t be going into them anymore. 31 32 So, this year, this is the list of the seven new CIPs which have been put forward by the different 33 departments and each of these CIPs are the… I… in my Staff report, I have given an explanation 34 of how… the justification of each of these CIPs. Why they are needed and what needs to be 35 done. And I have also identified funding… the funding sources for these projects as well as the 36 Comp Plan program and policies which aligns with these projects. 37 38 Based on the analysis, we found that this year of the seven new programs, four of them have 39 been aligned with the Natural Environment Element, two with the Safety Element, and one 40 Page 30 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Land Use and Community Design Element. And for the Natural Environment Element, 1 the goals which we have referred to are Air Quality Goal N-5, Water Resources and Quality… 2 Water Quality Storm Management which is Goal N-4 and Climate and Climate Adaptation which 3 is Goal N-8. For safety, we have referred to the Community Safety Sections and the Natural 4 Hazard Sections. And lastly, for the Land Use and Community Design Element, the CIP was 5 related to Palo Alto Airport modular building office building improvements so that’s Goal L-10 6 of the Land Use Element which we were referring to. 7 8 And this slides shows the total number of CIPs presented in this year’s CIP book and it says that 9 about 48 percent of these CIPs comply with the Natural Environment Element, and 29 percent 10 with the Community Services Element, and 8 percent for both Transportation Element, and 11 Land Use Element each and 5 percent for Safety Element. 12 13 The next steps would be these CIPs would be reviewed by the Finance Committee and the City 14 Council. As I said they are reviewing it right now through the month of May and June and City 15 would June 21 adopt the final budget and the CIPs would be adopted. So, the next would be 16 Staff recommendation, so tonight Staff is requesting PTC to find the proposed new 2022-2026 17 Capital Improvement Plans, which are listed in Attachment B, to find them in consistency with 18 the City’s Comprehensive Plan. So, that’s the Staff recommendation so, with this, I am… I will 19 end my presentation and we have a lot of Staff here. All City Staffs here to answer your 20 questions if you have any questions on the new CIPs. Thank you. 21 22 Chair Hechtman: Great, thank you, Ms. Moitra. We’ll start with Commission clarifying questions 23 of Staff before going to public comment. Vice-Chair Roohparvar. 24 25 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Thank you for the presentation. I had just a general process question. 26 How does prioritization for these CIPs work? Not these seven but all of them and you might… 27 just maybe I don’t remember and you’ve addressed this in the past. And then do you guys… 28 does Staff change prioritization if there are major events? For example, when COVID happened, 29 did the CIP prioritization change? How does that work in terms of what you decide, you know, 30 which ones you decide to do and which one you spend money on because you’re not doing the 31 160 per year? You’re not doing all of them. 32 33 Ms. Tanner: I’m going to turn it over to Paul Harper who is from the Office of the Management 34 and Budget and he can help to explain overall the budget process and how the 5-year CIP 35 differs from the actual annual appropriation by City Council to the projects. And of course, the 36 last year we did some moving around of money from our CIPs to other projects and so Paul, 37 perhaps you can share a bit about that. 38 39 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Thank you. 40 Page 31 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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. Paul Harper, Principle Management Analyst: Sure. Again, Paul Harper with the Office of 2 Management and Budget. I will direct you, if you go into the Capital Budget itself, on Page 15 3 we have a section called the Budget Process and Document. If you’re going on the online 4 version, the numberings going to be a little bit off. You need to add about 30 pages to that so 5 it’s actually PDF Page 43. But in there we talk about the budget document itself, the process 6 that we use to develop projects and in there, there is actually a section about prioritization and 7 things that we consider when planning for the current or the upcoming year and the 5-year 8 plan. Things that we consider are mainly health and safety issues, Council priorities. One of the 9 big Council priorities that we’ve been keeping in mind over the last few years are the 10 Infrastructure Plan projects which was a set of nine projects. One got added so now there are 11 10 but that was approved back in 2014 as kind of the most important projects to be finished 12 within the General Fund Capital Fund before starting other new projects. 13 14 It’s kind of depends on the fund in terms of how we decide which projects are going forward 15 because one of the main components is whether there’s funding available. And I guess one 16 thing that I will just point out is that when Council adopts the budget, they are only adopting 17 the first year of the 5-year plan. The rest of the 4-years are really just for planning purposes and 18 those can change once we get through the first year. And like you said, COVID or something 19 changes to cause us to need to restructure funding and the projects that are being done in any 20 given year. 21 22 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Got it. That was really helpful. Thank you. 23 24 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Chang. 25 26 Commissioner Chang: This is a follow-on, general, education question for me about… to follow 27 on what Commissioner Roohparvar [note – Vice-Chair Roohparvar] asked. So, how fungible are 28 the funds between the different various capital funds? Right because there’s the Technology 29 Fund and the Wastewater Fund. How fungible are the funds and also, how fungible is the 30 Capital Budget… the CIP Funds versus the other stuff that has been in the news lately? 31 32 Mr. Harper: Sure, I’ll take a crack at that and then if somebody wants to jump in. Essentially, the 33 funds within the funds themselves, they are not very fungible. For example, a lot of the funds 34 are Enterprise Funds that are related to rate payers paying for electric costs for gas cost and 35 things like that. And so, we really want to make sure that they are paying their rates for things 36 that will benefit those capital programs. 37 38 The fund I guess that is maybe a little bit more fungible in terms of what it can be spent on is 39 that Capital Improvement Fund because it's mainly funded by the General Fund. And it’s not a 40 Page 32 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. large portion but it a portion of the funds that fund it. You know is a direct transfer from the 1 General Fund. We have some TOT, sorry Transient Occupancy Tax, related funding that Council 2 approved a few years ago to go directly towards infrastructure. 3 4 But in terms of fungibility, we can’t really move a project from one fund to another unless 5 there’s a really direct link for why that should be funded by a specific fund and we really try to 6 designate that before we set up where the capital project is going to go. 7 8 To your other question about the portion of capital versus other things. Within most funds, 9 capital is I guess a piece of that funds so again, going back to electric or gas. When you’re 10 looking at the Operating Budget, the Operating Budget actually includes the capital portion and 11 so capital is a piece of the overall electric funding for that year. The only one that’s really 12 separate, well two that are separate, the Capital Improvement Fund like I mentioned and then 13 there’s a Cubberley Property Infrastructure Improvement Fund that was set up a few years ago 14 to specifically fund the repair and maintenance of items out of the Cubberley property. 15 16 Commissioner Chang: Thank you, that’s very helpful and so for example, the vehicle and 17 equipment per the Vehicle Fund. That’s not something that can be moved else ware then? 18 19 Mr. Harper: The Vehicle Fund and the Technology Fund, those are Internal Service Funds. So, 20 essentially the other funds and departments within the City pay their share of their portion of 21 vehicles, their portion of technology upgrades and so that is allocated out each year. So, 22 everything that goes into those funds, it kind of pays for itself and so money collected for 23 example from the Stormwater Management Fund would pay for stormwater management 24 vehicles. And then within each capital project that are set up each year, the fleet management 25 goes through and determines which vehicles are in line with the replacement schedule. And 26 then they determine which vehicles have enough funding that has been collected and are up 27 for replacement and can be part of that budget year’s capital program. 28 29 Commissioner Chang: Thanks. Super helpful, really appreciate it. 30 31 Chair Hechtman: Alright, Commissioner Alcheck, clarifying questions of Staff? 32 33 Commissioner Alcheck: Yeah, it might be helpful also before public comment. I think maybe Ms. 34 Moitra and Ms. French might be the only two people here that have been here longer than I 35 have. My question is, can you recall in the history of the Commission CIP process any instance 36 when a Commission did not find proposed Capital Improvement Project consistent with the 37 Comprehensive Plan? 38 39 Page 33 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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. Moitra: I have been doing this for the last 10-years and I haven’t found this incidence of not 1 finding compliance. 2 3 Commissioner Alcheck: Ok, that was my only question. 4 5 Chair Hechtman: Alright, then let's now open the floor for public comments. Please raise your 6 hand if you wish to speak. On the Zoom App, there is a raise hand button on the bottom of your 7 screen. If you are dialing in from a phone, please press *9. Mr. Nguyen, are there public 8 speakers for this item? 9 10 Mr. Vinh Nguyen, Admin Associate III: Chair Hechtman, we do not have any raised hands for 11 this item. 12 13 Chair Hechtman: [unintelligible – no audio] few seconds to see if any hands pop up and I’m not 14 seeing any. So, we will now end the public comment session, bring it back to the Commissioners 15 for further questions, discussions and a motion. Commissioners? Commissioner Lauing, thank 16 you. 17 18 Commissioner Lauing: Two things, one just commenting on the process. I see Daren Anderson is 19 on tonight from Community Services Department and I was able to get into immense detail 20 with Mr. Anderson when I was on the Parks Commission and worked CIP from the bottoms up. 21 While as Mr. Harper said, you’re working from the strategy and objectives down, somewhere 22 that has to meet and there’s a lot of negotiating done between the level of a Parks 23 Commissioner and Mr. Anderson and his boss and back and forth. I feel confident assuring you 24 that by the time it gets to us at this stage, per Mr. Alcheck’s [note – Commissioner Alcheck] 25 comment, it fits the Comprehensive Plan and they’ve done the best possible job of prioritizing 26 the right CIPs for our City for the year. So, that’s just kind of a broad comment. 27 28 I was also just wanted to make I guess a question comment on Item Number Six. The items has 29 referenced here, you have 24 vehicles. That’s just for 2022, year 2022 and then there’s more 30 vehicles after that, is that correct? 31 32 Mr. Harper: Yes, that’s correct. So, each year a certain number of vehicles come up for 33 replacement so yeah, that would be the number of vehicles scheduled for replacement in that 34 particular year. 35 36 Commissioner Lauing: Right and I realized that these vehicles are not just cars. They can be 37 trucks and all that kind of stuff but to kind of state the obvious but to underscore it because it’s 38 so important to us. You commented in this section in the Staff report, Staff will first consider 39 electric vehicles and then other alternative fuel. I mean obviously, we’d like to have as many 40 Page 34 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 as fast as we can get to electric vehicles which would make it even more consistent with 1 the Comprehensive Plan with respect to climate change. So, I don’t know if awarding is 2 necessary. I would just like to awarding change is necessary. I would just like to carry that forth 3 as we do the replacement so that’s just my one specific comment. 4 5 Chair Hechtman: [unintelligible] Sorry, I got muted. Commissioner Chang followed by 6 Commissioner Alcheck. 7 8 Commissioner Chang: Mines really quick. It’s actually, I wanted to clarify my understanding on 9 something with Mr. Harper. Commissioner Lauing had asked regarding the vehicle and 10 equipment replacement item, Number Six, whether that amount was specifically for 2022? And 11 because I’m a nerd, I went back and actually looked at the CIP and it looks like this item VR-12 26,000 is actually for 2026. There’s a separate item already on the CIP that would be the one 13 for this year and it’s of a different amount but am I understanding that correctly Mr. Harper? 14 15 Mr. Harper: Yes, that’s correct. I’m sorry, I didn’t hear him say Fiscal Year 2022 but yes, these 16 are usually looked at 5-years ahead of time. So, the Fiscal Year 2022 project would have been 17 reviewed probably back in 2017 when it first appeared and so the number of vehicles can 18 change depending on if things happen within the Vehicle Fund within the fleet itself. But we 19 really just tried to put it out there as far as possible to say you know, we’re planning ahead and 20 these are the vehicles that we anticipate needing to be replaced in 2026. 21 22 Commissioner Chang: Perfect, thanks. I just wanted to make sure there wasn’t that piece of 23 misinformation out there and then finally, I just wanted to echo Commissioner Lauing’s 24 comment about yes, electric vehicles would be a wonderful thing to do assuming it can be done 25 within budget. Thanks. 26 27 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Alcheck. 28 29 MOTION 30 31 Commissioner Alcheck: Either by virtue of just well-articulated Capital Improvement Projects or 32 we have a very… such a broad Comprehensive Plan that consistency is easily found. I’d like to 33 move that the proposed Capital Improvement Projects listed in Attachment Boulevard are 34 consistent with the Comprehensive Plan 2030 policies and programs. 35 36 SECOND 37 38 Commissioner Chang: I’ll second that. This is Bryna. 39 40 Page 35 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Hechtman: Commissioner Chang has seconded the motion. 1 2 Commissioner Alcheck: Alright, I’ll quickly speak to the motion. I to have been reviewing these 3 things for almost 10-years and I don’t know that… I agree with Ms. Moitra’s characterization 4 that we have never once found something inconsistent with the Comprehensive Plan. I think 5 that’s actually a very hard ask to find something inconsistent with the Comprehensive Plan the 6 way the Staff articulates the Capital Improvement Projects. And I would also add that while I’m 7 prepared to make the recommendation that the projects are consistent with the 8 Comprehensive Plan. I don’t… I can’t say that I have any insight into whether they’re… they 9 should be the top priorities of our Cities spending with respect to Capital Improvement. I think 10 that task is left to other Commissions. So, when someone wants to discuss these in more depth 11 as to… you know I hope that they know where to go to have that discussion because I don’t 12 think it's here. I don’t know where it is actually but I don’t think… I mean maybe it’s at the 13 Council level or maybe it’s at some of these smaller budget meetings. But I guess it may be 14 helpful for Staff to just let people know that if they wanted to dive into these things, where 15 they would go. That might be helpful if anybody who’s watching if there is anybody. 16 17 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Chang, you wish to speak to your second? 18 19 Commissioner Chang: I have nothing to add. I wholeheartedly agree with everything that 20 Commissioner Alcheck said. 21 22 Chair Hechtman: Alright, any other Commissioners wish to speak on this item before we vote? 23 Seeing Commissioner Summa. 24 25 Commissioner Summa: Again, sorry for my problems… technical problems this evening. In the 26 past, I think we have had a more comprehensive Staff report on this and I think that was… I sort 27 of miss the richness of comparing these to all the other programs in a written material we 28 received but it’s a different year this year. So, with that being said, I wholeheartedly agree with 29 the maker of the motion and the seconder. But in the future, I do think it would be nice to have 30 more… a little bit richer information and maybe the public would enjoy that also. And most 31 particularly, maybe in the Attachment B which is the chart, and it mentions that five of the 32 seven will go to different… for different public review and public hearings. I think if that was 33 stated which public hearings it would go to if there were persons in the public interested. That 34 might be information they would have liked. So, just a little additional boost maybe. 35 36 VOTE 37 38 Page 36 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Hechtman: Thank you, Commissioner Summa. I’m not seeing any other Commission 1 hands so we have a motion and a second. Mr. Nguyen, please conduct a roll call vote for the 2 motion on the floor. 3 4 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Alcheck? 5 6 Commissioner Alcheck: Yes. 7 8 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Chang? 9 10 Commissioner Chang: Yes. 11 12 Mr. Nguyen: Chair Hechtman? 13 14 Chair Hechtman: Yes. 15 16 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Lauing? 17 18 Commissioner Lauing: Yes. 19 20 Mr. Nguyen: Vice-Chair Roohparvar? 21 22 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Yes. 23 24 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Summa? 25 26 Commissioner Summa: Yes. 27 28 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Templeton? 29 30 Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 31 32 Mr. Nguyen: The motion carries 7-0. 33 34 MOTION PASSED 7(Alcheck, Chang, Hechtman, Lauing, Roohparvar, Summa, Templeton) -0 35 36 Chair Hechtman: Alright, thank you and thank you with Staff for the presentation and the 37 answers to the questions. It is now 7:57. We’re going to take a break until 8:05 and come back 38 for our next agenda item, 855 El Camino. Thank you. 39 40 Page 37 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Commission to a short break] 1 2 Commission Action: Motion by Alcheck, seconded by Chang. Pass 7-0 3 4. 855 El Camino Real (20PLN-00252): Recommendation on an Applicant Request and 4 Council Direction to Consider Establishing a Retail Health Definition and to Allow for 5 Limited Ground Floor Retail Health Uses at Town & Country Village. 6 Environmental Assessment: Exempt From CEQA in Accordance With Guideline 7 Section 15301 (Existing Facilities). Zoning District: CC (Community Commercial). For 8 More Information Contact the Project Planner, Claire Raybould at 9 Claire.Raybould@cityofpaloalto.org 10 Chair Hechtman: So, we will move now to Action Item Agenda Item Number Four. 855 El 11 Camino Real, its file 20PLN-00252, recommendation on an applicant request and Council 12 direction to consider establishing a Retail Health definition and to allow for limited ground floor 13 retail health uses at Town & Country Village. May we have a Staff report please? Ms. Tanner, 14 you’re muted. 15 16 Ms. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director: Has to happen at least once. So, we have Sam Gutierrez 17 who has taken over this project from Claire Raybould and he’ll be presenting. We also do have 18 the applicant, Dean Rubinson and Jim Ellis who will also have time for a brief presentation I 19 believe as well and then we’ll turn it over to the Commission. So, Sam, take it away. 20 21 Mr. Sam Gutierrez, Planner: Thank you for the introduction. As our Assistant Director Rachael 22 Tanner pointed out, I am newly assigned, well somewhat newly assigned to this project. Sam 23 Gutierrez taking over for Claire Raybould and if you give me one moment I will share my screen. 24 Can everyone see the screen now? No, let me (interrupted) 25 26 Ms. Tanner: Yes, we can see it. Oh, now we can’t. We could though. 27 28 Mr. Gutierrez: Oh, I clicked the wrong button. 29 30 Ms. Tanner: Alright. 31 32 Mr. Gutierrez: Let me do that again. Ok. 33 34 Ms. Tanner: We got it. 35 36 Mr. Gutierrez: Ok, everyone can see the presentation, perfect. So, let’s start over, sorry for that. 37 Again, this is the project, Town & Country Village for a Zoning Code Text Amendment. This is 38 the second PTC hearing for this item. 39 Page 38 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Here you can just see for reference the location of 855 El Camino which is where Town & 2 Country is located just for those in the public who may not be familiar and just to remind 3 everyone for this hearing. And then again, we’re here to discuss an amendment to the Palo Alto 4 Municipal Code Chapter 18.6 [note – Chapter 18.16?] to allow limited ground floor retail/ retail-5 like uses within the Town & Country Village to be replaced with medical office like uses. 6 7 To provide some background here, the PTC previously reviewed the applicant’s request to 8 amend the Municipal Code on February 10th, 2021 and made a recommendation to the City 9 Council. The City Council then reviewed the PTC’s recommendation on March 22nd of 2021, this 10 year, and provided direction on the proposed ordinance language. 11 12 Specifically, the City Council directed during that hearing that the proposed ordinance be 13 amended to include a Retail Health definition and a 2-year period during which leases may be 14 executed. The Council also required the ordinance to be brought back to the City Council prior 15 to the Council’s summer break. So, we are on a little bit of a tight timeline. 16 17 To get into the specifics of the Council’s recommendation, we just wanted to highlight that the 18 5,000-square foot limit on the size of any individual medical tenant space is maintained. The 19 Council wanted more clarity in terms of what retail health would be defined as so what is that 20 use and limiting the retail health use to Town & Country. Again, with in the Municipal Code 21 Chapter 18.16 and then the Council directed Staff to include a 2-year limited time period to 22 execute any leases for this retail health type use. 23 24 And here, just in brief, this is just for reference for the PTC. This is the revised ordinance per the 25 Council in terms of the Retail Health definition. Where we wanted to tidy this up a bit more per 26 the Council discussion to be more specific and to see this, you could refer to Packet Page 30 of 27 the Staff report. 28 29 And then continuing on, this is where the Municipal Code Chapter 18.16.050(a), which is where 30 we introduce the retail health uses parameters in that Municipal Code chapter. Again, for 31 reference purposes and you could find this language in Packet Page 30 to 31 of the Staff report. 32 33 Some key considerations of the PTC is that per the Council direction is to review the proposed 34 Retail Health definition and impose a 2-year limit for execution of the retail health leases. 35 Something to note about, that the applicant’s original request did not include that and the 36 applicant does not feel it’s necessary for the 2-year leasing requirement based on all the other 37 parameters from 18.16 and the revised or clarified Retail Health definition. And then, of course, 38 the… to provide the Council with the recommendation on the revised ordinance and here’s the 39 recommended motion from Staff. 40 Page 39 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 recommend approval of the proposed ordinance for inclusion of the Retail Health definition 2 and the 2-year limited lease or 2-year limit to execute a leases for said uses as directed by the 3 Council, and recommend that the Council adopt the revised ordinance allowing for limited 4 ground floor Retail Heath uses at Town & Country Village. And that concludes Staff’s 5 presentation. 6 7 Ms. Tanner: Thank you, Sam. Through the Chair, we would like to ask the applicant to have a 8 few minutes and then to come back to the Commission. 9 10 Chair Hechtman: Yes, please. I think in these situations and good evening, I think we typically 11 give the applicant up to 15-minutes to make a presentation. I don’t know that you’ll take that 12 much time but welcome. 13 14 Mr. Dean Rubinson: Thank you very much. My name is Dean Rubinson. I’m the Director of 15 Development with Ellis Partners and that you for your time tonight. We’re excited to be back 16 here. As you know we’ve started this process in the fall and have met with you in February and 17 been to Council and hopefully, this will work to move us forward. 18 19 And I want to share my screen if I can to pull up a few slides. Can you see this presentation? 20 21 Ms. Tanner: Yes, we can. 22 23 Mr. Rubinson: Ok, you can see it? Yes? 24 25 Ms. Tanner: Now we can. 26 27 Mr. Rubinson: Alright, you see a beautiful sunny day at Town & Country? 28 29 Ms. Tanner: We do. 30 31 Mr. Rubinson: Alright, very good, thank you. So, as we’ve discussed in the past, Town & Country 32 is struggling. It’s an incredible place for all of us to enjoy but at the moment our retail vacancy is 33 at unheard-of levels and we are over 20 percent vacant in the retail. And as we’ve discussed, it 34 is in our view a result of a gradual decline in sales and an increase in vacancy that was… begun 35 several years back and exacerbated mightily by the COVID epidemic. 36 37 We understand that there has been some commentary in some of the letters that were 38 submitted that Ellis Partners was somehow contributing to this vacancy situation. I can assure 39 you that our… that we are not in this situation because of lack of flexibility or empathy with our 40 Page 40 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. tenants. If that was in fact the case, the vacancy would probably double what it is now. We 1 have agreed to rent concessions and adjustments with over half of our tenants. Several of 2 whom are here to speak this evening about their experience with us. 3 4 We also understand there is some concern that approving this application will have a negative 5 impact on Town & Country and its wonderful vibe. We believe this concern is unfounded. We 6 have put 16-years of hard work into Town & Country and we believe we’ve made it into a 7 community treasure. And we’ve carefully curated the merchandising mix since 2005. We’ve 8 gone through the great recession and back. We’ve gone through now COVID and hopefully back 9 and I want you to trust me that we are more focused than anyone on avoiding any leasing 10 decisions that would upset the careful balance that we’ve curated here. 11 12 As you know, we’ve been requesting some flexibility, recognizing that there have been some 13 trends in retail health that is increasing at shopping centers around the country. And we’ve 14 been back to the Council which recommended that PTC explore giving some flexibility to 15 medical retail use with some constraints and limitations. And we hope that you can grant us 16 your recommendation and some flexibility in this important issue tonight. 17 18 We assume that many of you visit T&C periodically and hopefully enjoy it, but I want to clarify 19 that our team lives and breathes T&C every day. We are chasing dozens of potential leases at all 20 times, we are talking constantly to our tenants about how their sales are going, what trends are 21 impacting them and where things are headed. The bottom line is, e-commerce is killing 22 traditional retail. Town & Country is not immune to this trend. Apparel, books, home good 23 retailers at Town & Country are getting beaten every day by Amazon, Zappos, and Target.com 24 and many others and unfortunately, are closing their doors in Palo Alto. COVID will come and 25 go hopefully, but these online retail trends will not go away. And unless all of us agree not to 26 buy anything from our phones or computers and promise to walk or bike or drive to Town & 27 Country instead. This trend will continue. 28 29 Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that the residents of Palo Alto are going to make that commitment, 30 so we ask you to seriously consider this request for a modest amount of leasing flexibility and 31 trust us to manage the retail mix that we have managed since 2005. We believe this will fill up 32 some of the critical vacancies that we have with appropriate health and wellness users. And it 33 will not only prevent a downward spiral at Town & Country but will actually boost sales at all 34 the remaining retailers that are desperate for more foot traffic so they can survive. 35 36 Town & Country, when we bought it, was 50 percent vacant. We have put our heart and soles 37 into everything there and we ask you tonight for our trust… for your trust and understanding. 38 So, our tenants can avoid further closures and bankruptcies. 39 40 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. A couple of slides here just to highlight the facts. Town & Country retail sales began to decline 1 in 2017. It increased year over year in 2018 to a 6 percent decline and obviously last year was 2 dramatic. Even after COVID passes, we believe that the decline that began in 2017 will continue 3 with or without these changes. So, we are asking you to help us make these changes to mitigate 4 the decline. 5 6 Mirroring the decline in sales is the increase of vacancy. They can see started rising in 2016, 7 went up further in 2017-2018, and hit 6.4 percent before COVID and is not over 20 percent. 8 These trends, as I mentioned, are national in nature, in fact, global in nature. According to ICSC, 9 the International Council for Shopping Center, retail sales including online and traditional are 10 virtually flat between 2018 and 2020. While the share of retail sales owned by the online 11 retailers has increased dramatically. In 2018 to 2019 it was a 15 percent increase, from ’19 to 12 ’20 a 32 percent increase. So, essentially, the share of the pie is moving away from traditional 13 retail and unless traditional retail is allowed to evolve with trends and given some flexibility to 14 do so. It will continue to spiral. 15 16 The good news here is that there is a growing sector within the retail market. It is called health 17 retail and the traditional medical office building and pediatrician or dermatologist office that 18 we all went to has been evolving as well to more pedestrian retail, customer-oriented 19 conditions. And these are some of the names of the tenants that we are considering if we are 20 granted the flexibility for some health retail at Town & Country. These users create wonderful 21 attractive spaces that are consistent with the retail environment. They create an open entry 22 space with retail displays and reception areas and their open store fronts are transparent and 23 inviting. 24 25 In fact, health retail nationally has changed such that 70 percent of US adults visited a 26 healthcare provider at a shopping center in 2020. Most visits were primary care physicians and 27 dentists and diagnostic and urgent care facilities. 41 percent who visited health care providers 28 at their shopping centers, now go to those shopping centers more often than they use to and 29 74 percent shopped at other retail tenants during that visit. 30 31 The Zoning Change that we originally requested would allow us 20 percent of our ground floor 32 for [audio cut out]. PTC and the Council and Staff in full agreement and understanding that 10 33 percent is a reasonable and acceptable amount. In fact, it’s almost accessory to the remaining 34 retail uses there and de minimis in nature. We believe that 10 percent would make a significant 35 difference for us and for our tenants. 36 37 Furthermore, over the past few months, additional restrictions have been recommended by 38 Council and Staff. The vast majority we believe are understandable and entirely acceptable. 39 Obviously, limiting the retail… limiting the uses to a subset of the medical office use that is 40 Page 42 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. more specific and appropriate for retail settings. Furthermore, not permitting retail health on 1 the primary retail primary frontages, limiting it to 5,000-square feet per tenant, and creating a 2 requirement for an entry and reception area of minimum of 15 percent of the space. And 3 adding a requirement for store front transparency to make sure that there is no void or 4 opaqueness for the pedestrian. 5 6 The last one I want to mention, we believe and when the Council suggested it we believe it is 7 unjustified and feel that it is unnecessary and unacceptable is the requirement to limit it to 2-8 years of leases that would be signed within the first 2-years. Firstly, as we believe we’ve 9 demonstrated, this trend is a long-term trend. It's not a 2-year trend. The trend began in ’17, it 10 will likely continue well beyond COVID and we feel that the limitations that have been added by 11 Council and after Council had added them. Provides more than enough controls such that the 12 amount of retail health use that would be allowed and the type of retail health use that would 13 allow provides a situation that should be of no concern to anyone if it is allowed on a long-term 14 basis. Furthermore, for us to try to run to fill in a percent of our space over the next 2-years 15 would be virtually unachievable and defeat much of the purpose of what we’d be doing. So, we 16 do request you to consider this application and perhaps if you feel willing, to make a 17 recommendation to Council without the 2-year limitation. 18 19 As a visual for you, this is what the 10 percent might look like and the under 5,000-square foot 20 space might look like if we were to fill all of it with medical office or with health retail. The red 21 area gives you a glimpse of what the entry area percentage at 15 percent might amount to. And 22 I want to stress that Sale Tax impacted by this change is truly de minimis. Even if we converted 23 100 percent of this potential space, 15,000-feet, the amount of Sale Tax impact would be no 24 more than $39,000 to the City. Less than half a percent of the Citywide Sales Tax and we believe 25 that if we are allowed to fill these spaces with medical retail. The customers that would come 26 there would more than offset that $39,000 annual Sales Tax revenue number by shopping at 27 Trader Joe's and CVS and other struggling retailers at Town & Country. 28 29 I want to thank you again for your time and consideration. And again, we don’t ask for your 30 appreciation or your kiddos for our stewardship here for the last 16-years creating Town & 31 Country as the wonderful place it is. We just ask for your trust and your understanding that we 32 know our business, our tenants know their business and we ask you for your understanding and 33 flexibility. Thank you so much for your time. 34 35 Chair Hechtman: Thank you, Mr. Rubinson. Questions of the applicant before public comment? 36 Alright, I’m not seeing any hands. 37 38 Commissioner Alcheck: Chair Hechtman, are you going to entertain questions just for the 39 applicant or questions for the applicant and Staff? 40 Page 43 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Hechtman: I’m sorry, questions for yeah, it could be the applicant or Staff. Clarifying 2 questions in advance of public comment. 3 4 Commissioner Alcheck: Ok, I’ll go after Giselle [note – Vice-Chair Roohparvar]. 5 6 Chair Hechtman: Vice-Chair Roohparvar. 7 8 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Thank you for the presentation both Staff and the applicant. I had a 9 quick follow-up question regarding the 2-year time limit. I hear that you feel… that the 10 applicant feels it's unjustified. What do you feel would be a reasonable time limit? I’m just 11 curious, you know what is your perspective on what would be a reasonable time limit to fill the 12 current vacancies? 13 14 Mr. Rubinson: Well, like with any of the other uses that we have at the site. They are deemed 15 acceptable uses and there’s no time limit. So, it’s… it would be the first time that we would ever 16 have a shopping center with a particular time limit. So, it’s not a question that I’m necessarily 17 prepared to answer but certainly the longer the better than you could consider. We see that 18 this is a longer-term trend and that there’s no real reason to provide limits on it. I think there 19 was some thought at the origin that this might just be COVID-related and when the Pally High 20 kids came back. All of sudden they’d be buying expensive boutique dresses but that’s not the 21 case. So, our apparel retailers are getting creamed and I don’t think that’s necessarily going to 22 change. So, some of those spaces long-term would ideally be given some flexibility, but we 23 would ask for whatever time that you are willing to offer. 24 25 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Thank you. 26 27 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Alcheck. 28 29 Commissioner Alcheck: Quick question for Assistant Director Tanner for the first one. I know 30 this not an emergency ordinance but does Staff consider this a COVID-inspired or COVID 31 responsive ordinance that is highly time-sensitive? 32 33 Ms. Tanner: Certainly, it’s time-sensitive. I think Council was pretty clear that they also wanted 34 us to ask quickly to return the matter to them but I would say it is a time-sensitive item. 35 36 Commissioner Alcheck: So, just to be really clear, you’re not suggesting this is a COVID-inspired 37 or COVID responsive measure? 38 39 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. Ms. Tanner: Well, I think the applicant has expressed I think both COVID is related to this as 1 well as longer-term retail trends. I think that is a pretty accurate description of what… I mean 2 again, this is an ordinance inspired by an application from a private party like many of our 3 applications. And so, what inspired it for them, they’ve explained I believe and so the City is 4 responding and has responded thus for the direction from the Council. I don’t know if that 5 answers your question but it isn’t something that (interrupted) 6 7 Commissioner Alcheck: Like I would suggest (interrupted) 8 9 Ms. Tanner: City took up to try to do this. 10 11 Commissioner Alcheck: Yeah, I would suggest that the decision to let restaurants sort of occupy 12 space in the public right of way was COVID inspired or COVID responses. I’m trying to 13 understand if… my understanding last time around was that Staff felt strongly that this was 14 responsive to impacts from COVID. I’m trying to get a better sense if that’s the same case this 15 go around. 16 17 Ms. Tanner: Yes, that has not changed. 18 19 Commissioner Alcheck: Ok, alright, this second question is for Attorney Yang. If you could help 20 clarify if enacted as written, would this ordinance allow retail health uses at any other location 21 other than Town & Country? 22 23 Mr. Albert Yang, Assistant City Attorney: No, it will only be… they will only be… I guess retail 24 health is a subset of medical office and so any place that medical office is permitted. By 25 definition, they’ll also be able to have retail health. But (interrupted) 26 27 Commissioner Alcheck: Where they… are there uses that you could not formally have in a 28 medical health zoned space? 29 30 Mr. Yang: No, every retail health use is a medical office. Not every health (interrupted) 31 32 Commissioner Alcheck: Ok, so this doesn’t confer any flexibility to any other parcel other than 33 Town & Country? 34 35 Mr. Yang: That’s right. This would allow Town & Country to have some small portion of medical 36 office as long as it conforms to this definition of retail heath. 37 38 Ms. Tanner: I do think it I would (interrupted) 39 40 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. Commissioner Alcheck: Another (interrupted) 1 2 Ms. Tanner: And I think the way that we’ve structured it is that because we’re both doing the 3 definition but then we also have another part of the ordinance that dictates where this can 4 occur in the City. That’s kind of how we’ve structured the legislation. I do want to confirm 5 though Albert, is this not also impacting the Stanford Shopping Center? 6 7 Mr. Yang: No, it’s not. 8 9 Ms. Tanner: Ok, great and that’s the only other parcel… other area that has the same zoning at 10 Town & Country but that’s… we’ve structured it so that it’s not applicable there. 11 12 Commissioner Alcheck: Another question for Attorney Yang. Turning to Packet Page 31, looking 13 at the language of capital letter D there, fourth… third paragraph. If a 5-year lease is signed this 14 summer under this ordinance as written, could the tenant and landlord sign a new lease in 2026 15 for the same space? 16 17 Mr. Yang: So, as currently written and the way that we understood the Council direction. The 18 lease had to be executed… that blank would be 2-years from the effective date of the 19 ordinance. Whenever that was we would fill that in and so as written it would not allow a 20 subsequent lease for the same space for similar use. 21 22 Commissioner Alcheck: So, just to be clear, if a 5-years lease is signed in the summer under this 23 ordinance or a 7-year lease or a 10-year lease, the tenant could not sign a new lease in 2026, 24 2028, or 2031 for the same [unintelligible]. 25 26 Mr. Yang: Correct. 27 28 Commissioner Alcheck: Ok and then last question for you. Why are the names of the authors of 29 the letters redacted at the end of the Packet? I’m looking at Packet Page 30, on Packet Page 41, 30 on Packet Page 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46. 31 32 Ms. Jodie Gerhardt, Planning Manager: So, if I may? We had wanted to redact addresses and 33 phone numbers. Names could have been left in so sorry for that. 34 35 Mr. Yang: Yeah, I think that was just a (interrupted) 36 37 Commissioner Alcheck: I would suggest that maybe you reprint the report or repost it. At that, 38 in the 2 ½-terms, I’ve been on the Commission, I’ve literally never seen that before and struck 39 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. me as really odd that the… it’s not just names. It’s email addresses so there’s no identifying 1 information (interrupted) 2 3 Ms. Tanner: It’s a clerical error. 4 5 Commissioner Alcheck: By any of the individuals who tried to provide input. Other than a major 6 road. 7 8 Mr. Yang: Yeah, that’s a clerical mistake and we’ll make sure it’s fixed on what’s posted online. 9 10 Commissioner Alcheck: Those are all my questions of Staff at the time. 11 12 Chair Hechtman: Thank you. Commissioner Chang followed by Commissioner Summa, 13 questions. 14 15 Commissioner Chang: Thank you. First, I have to apologize, my internet went down and so I 16 missed the better… the vast, vast majority of the presentation. So, if I am asking questions that 17 have already been answered, I apologize. My first question is for Mr. Yang. I’m just trying to 18 clarify my understanding of how the Ordinance 5517 interacts with what is being proposed 19 today. So, on Packet Page 25 it says that as a result of Ordinance 5517 retail health uses will not 20 require a Condition Use Permit to establish at Town & Country Village. But my understanding is 21 that still… but I think based… I thought my understanding was that based on current code 22 18.16.050 still not retail… no office use whatsoever is allowed on the first floor at Town & 23 Country. Can you please explain how the two interact? 24 25 Mr. Yang: So, right now office use is not permitted on the first floor and that is a regulation 26 that’s specific to Town & Country. But the zoning district that applies to Town & Country more 27 generally now allows medical office without a CUP. So, if we didn’t have that Town & Country 28 specific limitation that says no office on the ground floor. Then they’d be able to have medical 29 office without a CUP and that change to the CC Zone more generally is what was accomplished 30 in Ordinance 5517. And what’s being proposed here is to modify that Town & Country specific 31 limitation that says no office on the ground floor to say you can have office on the ground floor 32 as long as it’s retail health. And so now that we’d be allowing retail health on the ground floor, 33 they’d be allowed to have it without CUP because that’s the more general rule for the CC Zone. 34 Does that make sense? 35 36 Commissioner Chang: Yes, that makes sense and then my follow-on question is read Ordinance 37 5517 but does it sunset in any date? Is there an end date to it or is it a permanent change as of 38 right now? 39 40 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. Mr. Yang: I believe those are permanent changes and I’ll… I just want to (interrupted) 1 2 Ms. Tanner: I think that we do need to come back with those changes because they did not 3 come through the PTC. I don’t know if there’s an actual sunset date or just that we know it’s 4 temporary and we need to come back through. 5 6 Commissioner Chang: Ok and then my final question to Mr. Yang is as current written 7 Ordinance 5517 would then allow medical office on the second floor of Town & Country, 8 correct? 9 10 Mr. Yang: Yes. 11 12 Commissioner Chang: And that would be new? 13 14 Mr. Yang: Yes, that is correct but technically (interrupted) 15 16 Ms. Tanner: There were (interrupted) 17 18 Mr. Yang: Practically it’s not possible because of accessibility requirements for medical offices. 19 So, theoretically yeah, but in reality, no, that’s not going to happen. 20 21 Commissioner Chang: Ok, thank you and then I separately have a question for Mr. Rubinson 22 and Mr. Ellis. I’m wondering if you have any data showing what the typical foot traffic for 23 different types of medical office use? I think I saw a slide flash right as I was… my internet 24 started again talking about percentage of people who go to medical office and then also visit 25 retail. But I’m curious if you have any data comparing medical office foot traffic versus 26 traditional retail foot traffic? Like per square foot say, you know as (interrupted) 27 28 Chair Hechtman: Mr. Rubinson, you’re muted. 29 30 Mr. Rubinson: I’m sorry. I’m happy to read that slide if you’d like but I think your question is a 31 good one and I think it would very much depend upon the type of retail because different retail 32 has different foot traffic patterns generally. You know supermarkets are much more active than 33 furniture stores of example. And I would imagine that these types of retail health uses have 34 greater foot traffic than a regular retailer like a furniture store or book store because people 35 are making appointments and it’s a more of a destination trip. Not just a one-off or impulse 36 trip. So, I can certainly try to get back to you if there’s any data on it but in terms of the slide. 37 Did you want me to read you some of the pieces (interrupted) 38 39 Page 48 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Chang: No, that’s ok. It's ok, I got the gist of it. That there’s an increasing number 1 of people in malls going to medical offices and that they often make a retail visit in conjunction 2 with their medical visit. Let me rephrase the question slightly. I guess I’m wondering do you 3 have a sense of whether the proposed medical office or how the proposed retail health use will 4 generate foot traffic in comparison to Town & Country’s historical pre-pandemic foot traffic? 5 Because that’s really the relevant question is retail use like at Town & Country or maybe you’re 6 average foot traffic over the entire real estate… entire retail real estate at Town & Country. 7 How… what you think that the medical… the retail health piece foot traffic will look like in 8 comparison to that? 9 10 Mr. Rubinson: I can’t say I have data to back it up but from my experience, different retail has 11 different foot traffic. Obviously, a Trader Joe's for example, I would imagine is a peak foot traffic 12 both in terms of the region that they draw and the repetition of your visit. On the other side, an 13 antique store would probably be the other end of the spectrum. It may draw a large area but 14 you’re not going to go to an antique store as often as you’re going to go to the grocery store. 15 My sense is that a One Medical or a Carbon Health Urgent Care is going to have somewhere in 16 the middle. It may not be as much as Trader Joe's but certainly more than an apparel retailer or 17 a furniture retailer because people… it will draw from a larger area, people will make 18 appointments and their calendar is going to constantly be full. The people walking into a 19 furniture store is not a constant so I would say somewhere in the middle. Definitely, it would 20 help on average the foot traffic at Town & Country as compared to where we were several 21 years ago. 22 23 Commissioner Chang: Ok and I suppose that also depends on the success of the individual retail 24 health outlet, right? 25 26 Mr. Rubinson: Absolutely. 27 28 Commissioner Chang: Because if they’re not busy, then it wouldn’t generate any foot traffic. 29 Ok, thank you, appreciate it. 30 31 Mr. Yang: So, I just have one follow-up clarification on Ordinance 5517, Commissioner Chang. 32 So, that ordinance does sunset on June 30th, 2022 unless it is replaced with permanent 33 legislation which will… Staff will be bringing through to the Commission shortly. Sometime in 34 the next year. So, I guess how that interacts with the change that’s proposed here is if that does 35 sunset and it’s not replaced. A tenant looking to occupy health… spaces as retail health in Town 36 & Country would just need to get a CUP whereas between now and 2022 they don’t. 37 38 Commissioner Chang: Thank you very much. That’s very helpful. 39 40 Page 49 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Hechtman: Commissioner Summa followed by Commissioner Alcheck, questions of Staff 1 and the applicant. 2 3 Commissioner Summa: Thank you. Some of my questions were asked by my colleagues. I was 4 wondering the slide that… and this is for Mr. Rubinson or Mr. Ellis I guess. The slide that 5 showed Sales Tax revenue for the City. Did that include restaurants and other food service or it 6 was just retail in a more narrow sense? 7 8 Mr. Rubinson: Muted again. The relative change in Sale Tax that we calculated here was just for 9 the potential reduction in converting up to 15,000-feet of retail to health retail. So, it’s not 10 retailed to food or grocery. It would just be if the let’s say 15,000-square feet of vacant retail 11 we have was either released as clothing stores or released as medial… as health retail. So, we 12 looked at our inline apparel and books sales and the relative Sales Tax of those and if basically, 13 we said 5-years from now those were all filled with apparel stores. There would be $39,000 a 14 year of Sales Tax. If they were filled with health retail, there would not be the $39,000 in Sales 15 Tax. 16 17 Commissioner Summa: Oh ok, so it didn’t contemplate of those vacancies or potential vacancies 18 being filled by restaurants or cafes or that kind of thing I guess. And then I think this is a 19 question for (interrupted) 20 21 Mr. Jim Ellis: I would just interject real quick, excuse me. 22 23 Commissioner Summa: Thank you. 24 25 Mr. Ellis: We’re not allowed to add any more restaurants or food. We’re limited on that as well 26 so we couldn’t just fill that 15,000-feet with more food. 27 28 Commissioner Summa: Ok, I didn’t realize that you’re… ok, thanks, that’s good to know. 29 30 Mr. Ellis: Sorry to interrupt. 31 32 Commissioner Summa: No, thank you very much and then I… I guess this is a question for 33 Rachael Tanner or maybe… and maybe Albert Yang but I mean, so I have a question about 34 medical versus wellness. Wellness sort of falls in the category of what can become personal 35 services and medical is regulated by the State of California. So, are we going to run into any 36 problems with kind of picking and choosing some… sense it’s regulated by the state which is 37 higher authority. Are we going to run into problems when we try to pick and choose amongst 38 the medical uses? Does that make sense? 39 40 Page 50 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: Problems with trying to determine if it’s a personal service or if it’s a medical use? 1 2 Commissioner Summa: No, I already know what a personal service is because there’s a lot of 3 wellness and health-related things that are not medical. They’re not regulated by the State 4 Medical Board. 5 6 Ms. Tanner: Like a spa or something. 7 8 Commissioner Summa: Yeah, like a facial and even cryogenic therapy is not regulated. So, are 9 we running into some sort of butting heads with the state on this? 10 11 Ms. Tanner: I don’t believe there’s any conflicts that we would have with the state but Mr. 12 Yang, just came off mute so he may have something to add. 13 14 Mr. Yang: I agree. I don’t perceive any issues. We have the ability to control land use through 15 zoning and that is squarely a local problem. 16 17 Commissioner Summa: So, even if we… are we running into any problems where we have some 18 medical uses we think are the kinds we want that are retail like and will other medical providers 19 object to that distinction? I’m just kind of worried about the nuance of the distinction. 20 21 Ms. Tanner: Well, certainly that someone could object because people can object to lots of 22 things. I think what we’ve tried to do with the definition is distinguish it based on part of the 23 typology of the space itself. So that’s part of the reason for requiring the lobby, the frontages, 24 again that retail orientation and so if a provider of a services wanted to say hey, I want to have 25 that format and I’m medical. I provide this service, certainly, that argument could be made and 26 perhaps it could be considered. I don’t think we’d run into any issues though. In particular, 27 we’re talking about 15,000-square feet which in this case can be… could be several retailers but 28 none can be larger than 5,000-square feet in the individual retail space. And so, I think the 29 amount of potential nuance is somewhat limited and I think we could manage to figure that out 30 as the Staff if there were any I think issues. Mr. Yang, did you want to add to that? 31 32 Mr. Yang: I think just to reiterate what I said that this is really just a question of our land use 33 regulation through zoning and it’s not the City choosing amongst medical services providers. It’s 34 just about what sort of uses do we think are appropriate where? 35 36 Commissioner Summa: Ok, thanks. 37 38 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Alcheck followed by Commissioner Chang. Questions? 39 40 Page 51 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Alcheck: Yeah, quick questions, a couple of quick questions for Staff. I’m looking 1 at Page… Packet Page 24. What does… most of my… I guess with the acceptation of Sunglass 2 Hut. Most of my interactions with optometrists involve a retail-like presentation. I need some 3 clarity here. Would a shop that checks eyes and also sells eye wear, what would that… what is 4 that in our code? 5 6 Ms. Tanner: So, if… as proposed it would… could qualify as retail health. 7 8 Commissioner Alcheck: What is it now though? 9 10 Ms. Tanner: Right now, I believe it would be medical office. Is that correct, Sam? Do you have… 11 I’m not sure who did Warby Parker downtown but perhaps that’s Sam. 12 13 Mr. Gutierrez: Can everyone hear me? 14 15 Ms. Tanner: We can. 16 17 Commissioner Alcheck: Yeah. 18 19 Mr. Gutierrez: Ok, perfect. The Zoom presentation locked my screen so. Yes, so the 20 optometrist are a bit interesting because depending on what type of optometry, we have by 21 practice maybe designated it as retail or medical office. For example, an optometrist that 22 merely checks your eyes for prescriptions and has a retail component, meaning that they are 23 selling eye wear or contact lenses. Our understanding is that actually half or potentially more 24 than that of their revenue comes from retail sales. So, in that way they kind of function more 25 like a standard retail use. You know no different than kind of another retailer but then they 26 have an axillary medical use. So, we’ve seen them as a retailer for that purpose but then if you 27 have an optometrist who might perform procedures. Those optometry offices typically don’t 28 have as much as that front-of-house kind of sale of glasses and contact lenses. So, those would 29 be more in the medical office category. 30 31 Commissioner Alcheck: It sounds like you’re making the distinction between an optometrist and 32 an ophthalmologist. 33 34 Mr. Gutierrez: Correct. 35 36 Commissioner Alcheck: Because I don’t know if optometrists can do medical procedures. So, let 37 me ask this question a different way. If an optometrist wanted to open up a shop that sells a lot 38 of eye glass wear at Town & Country right now. Does he need a CUP or is he ok? He or she. 39 40 Page 52 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 the distinction that Mr. Gutierrez is drawing, and I’ll ask Ms. Gerhardt if 1 she wants to join in, is kind of part of what we look at is what… you can have the primary use 2 and then you can have the axillary or accessory uses that are there. And part of why Mr. 3 Gutierrez is referencing the revenues is that’s one metric to determine what the primary 4 activity that’s happening are the sales. So, Jodie do you know for Town & Country if an 5 optometrist wanted to locate there with eye glass for sales how we might process that 6 application for Town & Country today without the definition? 7 8 Ms. Gerhardt: So, for the most part, we do have a 50 percent requirement when we’re talking 9 about restaurants and things but we don’t have the same sort of thing when it comes to retail. 10 So, I think really if there was any sort of doctor’s office as part of the selling of glasses. Then it 11 starts to become more of a medical office so we would look at it more that way. And so that’s 12 why we’re trying to come up with this hybrid use and give it a name such as retail health. 13 14 Commissioner Alcheck: Ok so I’m not trying to understand how Staff perceives this ordinance 15 moving forward. I’m trying to understand for example if there’s an optometrist in downtown 16 Palo Alto in a building, let’s say the ground floor. Would his space be considered a space that 17 must be preserved in the Retail Preservation Ordinance because it’s currently viewed as retail, 18 or would his space be considered medical office? I’m trying to understand… I didn’t… maybe I 19 don’t quite… maybe the real question is for the applicant. Do you consider the space that you 20 currently have leasable to someone who has an eye glass shop, an optometrist who sells 21 frames? I assume in Palo Alto high-end frames. Is that something that you think you can or 22 cannot do at the moment? I’m just trying to get a sense for whether that’s… I’m just trying to 23 understand that specific application of use. Whether that only falls into medical office and is 24 currently restricted in places like Stanford or Town & Country? 25 26 Mr. Rubinson: I’m happy Mr. Alcheck to clarify that we have Lisa Berkowitz over near Pete’s 27 Coffee and I believe that tenant pre-dated our ownership and we consider them as an office 28 use that is grandfathered in that location. So, we list them in our parking calculations for 29 example as an office user. It’s the one and only ground floor office use that we have on our 30 books currently. 31 32 Commissioner Alcheck: So, it’s a… are you suggesting that in your view if that lease terminated 33 you couldn’t replace that… that you couldn’t lease any of your other ground space to 34 optometrist who have eye glass shops. Is that what I’m understanding? 35 36 Mr. Rubinson: That’s my understanding. I mean it would be up to Staff but you know we would 37 hope that this would be passed so we could at lease to optometrists and not limit it to 2-years. 38 We have not leased to any other optometrists since. 39 40 Page 53 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: Ok and I… just to be clear Staff, is that also the case at Stanford? That 1 we don’t have… I mean is it a CUP if you want optometrists at Stanford Shopping Center or and 2 does it work differently downtown if the space is not zoned for medical office? 3 4 Ms. Tanner: So, the Conditional Use Permit I believe I required currently or well, I guess now 5 we’ve changed it to change the threshold that which a CUP is required for medical office. But as 6 Mr. Rubinson was stating, the optometrist can be considered medical office. You know some 7 eyeglass places are different and don’t have the doctors and the exam rooms. They just sell the 8 eyewear itself and that would be pure retail in that type of sale environment. 9 10 Commissioner Alcheck: Ok, alright, one quick question cross over here. I see that the definition 11 on this page includes for example a chiropractor. Sort of the envisions of a chiropractor for 12 example using the space. Is… do the happy feet massage places, are those also considered 13 medical office or health, or do those qualify as retail? How does that work? 14 15 Ms. Gerhardt: Those would be personal service. 16 17 Ms. Tanner: Yeah, there’s not a licensed (interrupted) 18 19 Commissioner Alcheck: That’s personal service. 20 21 Ms. Tanner: Professional providing the service like a chiropractor has a certain level of 22 education and degree for providing that medical service. So, that’s the distinction (interrupted) 23 24 Commissioner Alcheck: So, that’s like nail salon? 25 26 Ms. Tanner: Yes, that’s correct. 27 28 Commissioner Alcheck: And is that currently permitted at Town & Country? 29 30 Ms. Tanner: Personal services permitted at Town & Country? Is that your question? 31 32 Commissioner Alcheck: Yeah. 33 34 Ms. Tanner: Sam or Ms. Gerhardt, do you have… I believe (interrupted) 35 36 Mr. Gutierrez: Personal service uses are allowed within the CC Zone. That is correct which is 37 what zones Town & Country. 38 39 Page 54 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: That’s what I thought. Alright, that was my final question for Staff. 1 Thank you. 2 3 Chair Hechtman: Thank you. Commissioner Chang. 4 5 Commissioner Chang: Thank you. I think I’m headed down the path where Commissioner 6 Summa and Commissioner Alcheck were headed. So, I’m going to try and restate Commissioner 7 Summa’s question because I’m not sure it was answered and at least the question I have is… 8 wasn’t answered. So, for… this is a question for Mr. Yang. So, medical office, medical is 9 regulated under the state. If we start trying to say we’re ok with this medical like chiropractic 10 and this medical, dentists, and this medical, I don’t know ophthalmologist or something like 11 that. But we’re not ok with certain other medical because right now as currently drafted. My 12 understanding is almost… pretty much everything that’s allowed at PAMF next door, with 13 exception of the surgery center, would be allowed provided it was under 5,000-square feet. So, 14 we haven’t really put anything other than anesthesia, overnight stay, or square footage 15 limitation on the medical office usage. And so, but… so my question is if we start trying to parse 16 out certain types of medical office, does that then cause us to start running into issues with the 17 state legislation? 18 19 Mr. Yang: I see so you’re asking not what does the ordinance do right now but if you wanted to 20 add more to this ordinance to do that more detailed regulation. 21 22 Commissioner Chang: Correct. 23 24 Mr. Yang: I’ll be honest, I don’t know. I’d have to look into that. My gut sense is that there’s 25 some degree in which we’d be alright and you know there’s probably some line at which we 26 would be treading in an area where the state has intended to occupy the field of regulation. But 27 I think… you know we wouldn’t be… yeah, I think I have to see a particular proposal to really 28 provide a meaningful response. 29 30 Commissioner Chang: Ok, thanks. 31 32 Chair Hechtman: So, Commissioner Alcheck, your hand is still up. I have a question for I think 33 Mr. Rubinson on the example diagram which I don’t know that you need to pull up. But it’s 34 Packet Page 37 and you’ve highlighted in yellow one scenario where you’ve identified space in 35 yellow that could be occupied by this retail health and it would be consistent with the other 36 requirements. The max square footage and not on Embarcadero or El Camino. What I’m 37 wondering is this space that you’ve shown in this hypothetical example, are those all currently 38 vacant spaces which if this ordinance were passed you would be pursuing filing those with retail 39 health as well as retail opportunities? 40 Page 55 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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. Rubinson: I believe those are all vacant, yes and that’s not to say that there aren’t other 2 vacant places that would be chosen by those particular tenants but this was just a theoretical 3 visual to help you understand. 4 5 Chair Hechtman: Sure, sure. If I’m understanding that particular diagram, you’ve made an effort 6 to label those spaces where you have a current tenant with the tenant’s name and then in 7 addition to the yellow spaces you show some spaces in just pure white which I assume are also 8 current vacancies. 9 10 Mr. Rubinson: Correct. 11 12 Chair Hechtman: That was my question. So, I see Commissioner Summa has another question 13 and I’m hoping pretty soon here we’re going to get to public comment and then onto some 14 discussion. So, Commissioner Summa? 15 16 Commissioner Summa: Thank you so much. Just really quickly there’s already an 17 ophthalmology… I believe Four Eyes has ophthalmology… ophthalmetrist there but it’s primarily 18 a retail store. But would this… would they have to reconfigure their space to have a lobby and 19 put the rest of it behind the lobby? I mean so the eye doctor thing is kind of a grey area it 20 sounds like already and it's maybe just the way eye doctors have associated themselves 21 compared to other doctors with retail sales but would they have to change? 22 23 Mr. Gerhardt: Existing permitted uses would not need to change. 24 25 Commissioner Summa: So, they wouldn’t need to have a lobby? 26 27 Ms. Gerhardt: As long as their existing and permitted and continuous. 28 29 Commissioner Summa: Ok, thank you. 30 31 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Templeton. 32 33 Commissioner Templeton: Thanks. Hopefully, this is a quick question. When… Mr. Rubinson, I 34 don’t know if you… if Day One was there when you guys started managing the property. Do you 35 remember if Day One, what kind of use that was? 36 37 Mr. Rubinson: We brought Day One to the shopping center I think it was maybe 2006. I believe 38 that was considered retail use. They did have very minor classes and so forth but I believe it was 39 primarily retail. 40 Page 56 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Templeton: Great, thank you. Yeah, I was reminded that they had lactation 2 consultants there and it was a nurse. So, I was wondering if would that be considered 3 something like medical retail or it would just be straight-up retail? 4 5 Mr. Rubinson: I guess I would assume that they amount that Day One had would be an ancillary 6 component of the retail store. 7 8 Commissioner Templeton: Ok, alright, thanks for clarifying. 9 10 Mr. Rubinson: But not my call so. 11 12 Chair Hechtman: Alright, I’m going to move us now to public comment and open the floor for 13 that purpose. Please raise your hand if you wish to speak. On the Zoon App, there is a raise 14 hand button on the bottom of your screen. If you’re dialing in from a phone, please press *9. 15 Mr. Nguyen, I see we have public speakers for this item. 16 17 Mr. Vinh Nguyen, Admin Associate III: Yes, we currently have three raised hands and the order 18 of the speakers shall be first shall be Aruna, followed by Rick, and then followed by Michael. Ok, 19 so up first [note – audio cut out]. 20 21 Ms. Tanner: Vinh, I think you went on mute and I don’t know if we heard the name of the 22 person you called. 23 24 Mr. Nguyen: I’m sorry. Up first is Aruna. 25 26 Ms. Aruna Busacca: Yes, hello, can you hear me? 27 28 Mr. Nguyen: Yes. 29 30 Ms. Busacca: Hello, my name is Aruna Busacca. I’m the Chief Operating Officer of Crossroads 31 Trading Company and we are nationwide reseller of men’s and women’s apparel. Been in 32 business for 30-years. We are also the parent company of Fillmore and 5th and Fillmore and 5th 33 is a resell boutique located at Town & Country and we have been there since 2012. 34 35 In late 2019 we expanded our space and doubled the size of our store. We finished construction 36 and reopened our store 3-weeks before the pandemic hit and we were shut down by the 37 government-mandated closure. We are a business who’s only real asset is in operating and so 38 as you can imagine, the shutdown presented an existential threat to our company. We 39 immediately reached out to our 40 plus landlords to figure out how we were going to survive 40 Page 57 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 closure and the terrible uncertainty we knew was to come. We were met by a spectrum of 1 responses. Some landlords showed no mercy and threated to find us in default if we didn’t 2 immediately pay full rent. Others were flexible and understood that our fates were intertwined 3 with theirs and that we would both be better off if we made it through to the other side of the 4 pandemic. In addition to being flexible, some landlords were also very kind and supportive. 5 Even though they to were facing exceedingly difficult circumstances. 6 7 Ellis Partners are in that ladder group. They were understanding, flexible, and willing to 8 negotiate and come to terms that allowed us to get to the other side where are now and 9 finding some measure of recovery. Ellis Partners are very good landlords and they operate an 10 excellent center. I support their proposal to add health retail users to the center because they 11 have an amazing track record of providing a great tenant mix and I trust that they will continue 12 to add users who are a good fit. Vacancies are also bad for our business and I would like to see 13 the center return to its former vibrancy. Thank you very much for your time. 14 15 Mr. Nguyen: Thank you for your comments. Our next speaker is Rick. Rick, if you’re there? 16 17 Mr. Rick Juncker: Sorry, sorry, I was muted. So, I’d reiterate a lot of what Aruna said but my 18 name’s Rick. I’m sorry, back to the beginning. My name is Rick. I own Kirk’s SteakBurgers. It’s a 19 very small business, we’ve been in Palo Alto for over 70-years. We’re the third family to own it 20 and the pandemic, of course, was brutal for all of us but restaurants were hit in a certain way. 21 And I will say that Ellis Partners were helpful and cooperative and flexible which was not my 22 experience with some other businesses that I’m involved with. And in way, it was both personal 23 in terms of the conversations I had with them, with Sarah specifically, about what our specific 24 needs were, what the challenges were. They put in time and effort and energy and money to 25 put in all the outside seating for a lot of the restaurants largely at their own expense and we all 26 know that was sort of the life blood of restaurants for a long time; months on end. 27 28 Additionally, they were very helpful for a lot of small businesses of getting information out. 29 We… they were regularly communicating whether it was PP Loans or what the City was doing or 30 what was happening and as a small business, especially when you are so stressed with all that 31 was going on. It was nice to have the help and the support in what might be available to… might 32 be available for us in terms of just general support and financial support and sort of safety 33 alliance. 34 35 And I will also say regarding this specific proposal, I’m no expert. You guys clearly have a lot 36 more information than I do about how retail health or medical impacts shopping centers. But it 37 seems to me the vibrancy that they might bring, especially in a limited fashion, the type of 38 business speaking to what Commissioner Chang I think talked about and alluded to a little while 39 ago in terms of what I would call the channels of business. It’s a different sort of business than 40 Page 58 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 up and down retail. It’s regular, it’s a different customer and if that’s brings us something 1 else. Especially, speaking selfishly, especially if it fills the vacancies, that would be huge for us a 2 very small retailer, very small restaurant in Palo Alto. So, my times up, thank you, guys. 3 Appreciate the effort. 4 5 Mr. Nguyen: Thank you for your comments. Our next speaker is Michael followed by Joel. 6 7 Mr. Michael Tucker: Hello. Can you hear me? 8 9 Mr. Nguyen: Yes, we can hear you. Thank you. 10 11 Mr. Tucker: Great. Michael Tucker and I’m an owner and former president and CEO of Books Inc 12 and we were one of the early leases signed up when Town & Country was first being revamped. 13 And it was just chain link fences and sort of tumble weeds coming through and I didn’t have 14 tremendous confidence going in as to what Ellis Partners would be able to do with that space. 15 And they were true to everything that they said they were going to put together. Particularly, 16 being able to bring in a number of independents which was critical for me. And not only with 17 the response to the COVID but with the great recession, we weathered that by being able to 18 come to them and getting relief through that whole dilemma. So, I have had to great trust in 19 what they’re doing, so much so that when Prune Yard came up and that was an Ellis property. 20 And I looked at that in some what the same way as Town & Country to be able to see what they 21 were able to do with this. I have tremendous faith in what they can put together for a mix and 22 have done to turn the Town & Country into a center for the City of Palo Alto which really didn’t 23 exist in that way. It’s just a meeting place. 24 25 To the point earlier about the retail sales falling off. It’s been a dilemma for a number of years 26 and the foot traffic is critical for us as the book store. So, being able to fill those spaces and I 27 think that the health sector is a tremendous prospect for that would be tremendous help to us 28 and I think to all the other tenants. So, I very much throw our weight behind a favorable 29 response to them being able to do what they do best and have done for years. I’m very 30 impressed with how they’ve handled everything that they’ve done to date. Thanks so much and 31 I thank the Commissioners. 32 33 Mr. Nguyen: Thank you for your comments. Our last speaker is Joel. 34 35 Mr. Joel Gott: Hello, my name’s Joel Gott. I’ve been a tenant with Ellis Partners for 8-years now. 36 I own and operate Gott’s Roadside on the corner of Embarcadero and El Camino. I guess after 37 the other tenants had already spoke, the thing that I would say is that I entrust in Ellis in their 38 tenant selection and management of their properties is having a diverse group of us tenants. 39 So, when I look at this retail medical offices, I think that it will add to the mix. You know they’re 40 Page 59 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 an active landlord. Not… most landlords are not this active. That they really do manage the 1 tenants and the space very well. So, I believe in their tenant mix and how they manage and 2 [unintelligible] so that we don’t overlap with each other; or for instance, during the pandemic, 3 be able to provide services for everybody that was needed. As the guy from Kirk’s said as well, 4 right, we needed outdoor seating which was managed very well. I think it was well-received in 5 the neighborhood as well. So, my vote is with Ellis just as a great operator and a very smart 6 tenant mixture and manager of the facility. So, I believe that their selection would do well for 7 the City and the center. That’s about all I can add other than good trust in them. 8 9 Mr. Nguyen: Thank you for your comments. Chair Hechtman, that concludes public comments 10 for this item. 11 12 Chair Hechtman: Alright, thank you. So, we will bring it actually back to the applicant. If you 13 have any response to any of the comments from the public, all of whom happen to be your 14 tenants. So, you may not but if you do, this is your opportunity to make those comments. 15 16 Mr. Rubinson: I’ll let Jim jump in on that one because he’s the one who’s the… who focuses 17 mostly on the tenant mix. So, he deserves all those kudos. 18 19 Mr. Ellis: All I can say is obviously thank you to our tenants that were willing to speak. It… I hope 20 you can appreciate that it can be pretty frustrating for us to see letters with no names on them 21 alleging all sorts of things and it just doesn’t really represent what we believe is reality. And we, 22 Dean and Sarah who is our Asset Manager on the property and many people at Ellis Partners, 23 work day in and day out to try to make this property the best experience it can be for Palo 24 Alternative and Dean referenced trust several times. I mean really what we’re looking to do is 25 have a level of limited flexibility that allows us to implement what we believe to be the optimal 26 merchandising plan for the center. And as Joel just mentioned, how you merchandise the 27 center and create the mix of tenants and where those tenants are is really the secrete sauce in 28 having a successful shopping center. And we’re just asking that the City give us a little more 29 flexibility to keep the center current in terms of best practices for merchandising. Thank you. 30 31 Chair Hechtman: Alright thank you and I will bring it now back to the Commission for discussion 32 and eventually a motion. So, what I’d like to do here is give Commissioners up to 5-minutes to 33 make some remarks and so we get a sense of the direction that the Commissioners want to go. 34 And then maybe in a second-round, we can hear a motion so who would like to lead off? Thank 35 you, Commissioner Alcheck followed by Commissioner Templeton. 36 37 Commissioner Alcheck: I’ll jump into some of my thoughts on this. To quote the applicant, 38 Town & Country is struggling, brick and mortar retail is getting killed by e-commerce, they’re 39 asking for serious consideration of their request for flexibility. Not 2-weeks ago we had a 40 Page 60 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. discussion on this dais about retail and I walked away from that discussion thinking that a great 1 majority of us were very interested in pursuing flexibility and diagnosing and treating the 2 problem that is what I would suggest is existential to the retail environment. 3 4 I just want to say to the applicant, this has nothing to do with trust. I’m very impressed by the 5 words of the public businesses that came to speak on your behalf. I don’t like that pitch that 6 much because I appreciate that this is flexible. That this is a sign of what’s to come. This is a 7 flexibility we need to begin to entertain. 8 9 I will tell you that I opposed the application of this flexibility on a retail-specific parcel by parcel 10 basis. What is do different about Edgewood Shopping Center, Midtown Shopping Center, 11 Charleston Shopping Center? Why couldn’t the chiropractor or optometrist occupy space that 12 those shopping centers? 13 14 I think the notion that a loss in Sale Tax revenue should dictate how we approach this decisions 15 is non-sensical. The flexibility in retail uses should be granted to save our retail from an 16 existential attack. We need to set aside some of the concerns we have about Sales Tax. I really 17 think that that’s… that’s like… that would be… that would deprive us of what we really need to 18 do. 19 20 I think the materials… the meeting materials do a very poor job of providing the reasoning 21 behind our recommendation to Council. I suspect the same is true for the Council materials. 22 One of the reasons the conditions we added to the recommendation were such was because 23 spot zoning did not have broad support at this Commission. The important element… this 24 important element wasn’t articulated. It was articulated in this Packet well. I don’t think it was 25 articulated well to the Council. The Commission isn’t ignorant of the impractically of a 10-year 26 limit on a lease. We’re not oblivious to the fact that a 10-year limit may require the 27 determination of a healthy business as the Staff points out on Packet Page 25. The only reason I 28 supported allowing retail use before was because Staff took the position that we view this 29 context in… we view this use flexibility in the context of the pandemic and its impact on retail. 30 And I was skeptical that retail health uses would be the golden ticket to save Town & Country or 31 retail in general. I don’t… that is not… that is one micro-step towards flexibility that we talked 32 about 3-weeks ago or 2-weeks ago but it’s a step. I’m not going to suggest that I would support 33 that step. 34 35 But I was supportive of the motion the first go around only in the context of the impacts of the 36 pandemic. That’s… there was such pressure from Staff that I was willing to support this spot 37 zoning and I suggested listen if this is about now. Give them the calendar year to do the lease. 38 Let the lease run 10-years. Not because I thought oh, the lease should terminate in 10-years but 39 because I figured that in the span of 10-years. We would have come up with a more 40 Page 61 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. fundamental flexible approach to retail everywhere in the City and they wouldn’t need this 1 ordinance anymore. 2 3 I emphasized multiple times that this City should review its comfort level with retail health uses 4 not just for Town & Country, but for all similarly situated properties. Why should Town & 5 Country benefit from this flexibility alone? What, Midtown doesn’t have this problem? 6 Charleston? Edgewood? For real, they’re… or any other retail property. 7 8 The crazy part is that at one point I think Assistant Director you said that Staff takes… gave clear 9 direction. I mean Council gave clear direction. Nothing about what Council did was clear. It was 10 at best incoherent. They took away the 10-year lease limit but Staff and Council are 11 comfortable with the requirement that you can only sign a lease in the next 2-years. What 12 happens when the lease ends in 5-, 7-, or 10-years? Does that not present the exact same 13 problem you write about that a healthy business would have to terminate? It’s like… it’s 14 illogical. 15 16 Our recommendation was responsive to the suggestion by Staff and the applicant that this… 17 that we needed to host these new health-related uses and that was dire. That without it, Town 18 & Country would suffer dramatically and something needed to be done quickly and I am 19 amendable to that. Our response was in part we hear you, we don’t support retail zoning 20 flexibility on a parcel by parcel basis, but we will support it in this particular case. Only because 21 of the dire circumstances presented and the conditions that we put on it that were supported 22 by a majority of the Commission at the time were designed to bring this issue back. So that we 23 could approach it holistically; globally. How do we want to rethink retail? This wouldn’t cause 24 termination of leases in 10-years. This would become redundant in 10-years because we would 25 have a more flexible approach to these properties. 26 27 I think the implication was clear. I don’t think Council understood that and I’ll tell you what. 28 Starting with Section 1 of Packet Page 29. 29 30 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Alcheck, Commissioner Alcheck can I interrupt you? 31 32 Commissioner Alcheck: Yeah. 33 34 Chair Hechtman: I think you’ve hit the 5-minute mark on this first round. Will you yield and let 35 us hear from other Commissioners? We’ll come back to you. 36 37 Commissioner Alcheck: Yeah, then I’ll end on this one last point that I started which is that I 38 would suggest to you that Findings One and Two are exactly why I have a problem with this 39 ordinance. That this is so specifically focused on one retail center. As if we have nothing else in 40 Page 62 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 City that could be experiencing this problem and I don’t understand why Council sent this 1 back to us. If they have strong opinions about this, just do it. This feels like they’re kicking it to 2 us and they just don’t want to make a decisions. I’d be… let me put it to you this way. I’d be 3 astonished if City Council passed this because I don’t think their hearts are in it. But we need 4 the flexibility and I wish that Staff did a better job of communicating exactly why we were 5 concerned about it. Because we would be in a different place today if the approach Staff took 6 was we want to think about retail in a different way and it should apply broadly. Just like our 7 Retail (interrupted) 8 9 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Alcheck (interrupted) 10 11 Commissioner Alcheck: Preservation Ordinance. I’ll yield. 12 13 Chair Hechtman: Will you yield? Thank you. Commissioner Templeton, followed by 14 Commissioner Lauing, then Commissioner Chang. 15 16 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. Yes, I’m also a bit perplexed about Council’s 17 interpretation and I really appreciate Commissioner Alcheck breaking it down because maybe 18 there was a communication gap somehow. I’m not sure that what we’re looking at as a Staff 19 recommendation today reflects the discussion… the previous discussion that we had. 20 21 Specifically, I’m concerned about the 2-year limitation. It doesn’t make sense. I’m wondering if 22 it might be better for us to have milestones like we do with some of the other guidance that we 23 give in our code. So, I think Commissioner Chang mentioned on a different topic that there was 24 a check point. Maybe that’s the better way to frame this, that in 5-years we check and see how 25 it’s going. But currently, the way the Staff recommendation is reding, it doesn’t quite jive with 26 what we had discussed before. Those are my initial comments. Thank you. 27 28 Chair Hechtman: Thank you, Commissioner Templeton. Commissioner Lauing… oh, I’m sorry, 29 Ms. Tanner, you have your hand up. 30 31 Ms. Tanner: Yeah, I just wanted to be clear if it wasn’t already that we took this Council and 32 Council made the direction to bring it back to PTC. So, I think there’s been some suggestion that 33 Staff are doing this or doing that, but Staff is following the direction of Council. So, if the PTC 34 disagrees with that direction, certainly that can be included in the motion or motions that the 35 PTC makes and the recommendations to Council. But this is what the Council has directed the 36 Staff to do and we work at their pleasure and are bringing it back to the PTC as directed. So, if it 37 doesn’t reflect the previous motion the PTC made, it’s because Council took that 38 recommendation and then made their own interpretation and decision. And then asked for the 39 Page 63 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. PTC to look at the Retail Health definition and so that’s not to say that you can’t disagree with it 1 but just it isn’t what we have made up. It’s what we’ve been asked to do. 2 3 Commissioner Templeton: Chair, may I? 4 5 Chair Hechtman: Chair Templeton [note – Commissioner Templeton], that was a response to 6 your question. You have a follow-up? 7 8 Commissioner Templeton: I do. I just wanted to say that I apologize if it came across that 9 somehow Staff have inserted themselves in this. I’m looking at the Staff report and I could have 10 been clearer but (interrupted) 11 12 Ms. Tanner: No, it’s ok. 13 14 Commissioner Templeton: I totally understand. I watched that discussion and I think is a 15 reflection of what Council directed us to do and the Staff report reflects it accurately. So, my 16 confusion is that the whole conversation seems to have lost something in translation and I 17 don’t believe that is on Staff necessarily. It happens so I apologize that that came across 18 incorrectly. 19 20 Ms. Tanner: No offense, I just wanted to just make sure we’re on the same page. That’s all. 21 22 Commissioner Templeton: Yes, of course. 23 24 Chair Hechtman: Alright, Commissioner Lauing followed by Commissioner Chang. 25 26 Commissioner Lauing: Excuse me, thanks. So, in addressing the assignment tonight of adding 27 some kind of retail health store front. The specifics in the Staff report are, you know, direct us 28 to do this in leu of allowing medical office. And I believe that clearly part of Council’s original 29 intent on this issue with Town & Country starting in 2020 was to see if this new definition could 30 help T&C and only T&C in the pandemic. So, I think both of those things are on the table coming 31 back from Council. 32 33 Overall, here’s how I thought about this request and then I’m going to say wanted to be in sync 34 with previous comments. First of all, what would retail health category include and exclude? So, 35 in other words, what goes… what’s going to go into this definition? Secondly, can any of these 36 new types of retailers, medical retailers, contribute to what we always call vibrant retail which 37 is how we universally describe the goal of retail for our residents? That includes the key retail 38 term of draw which means appealing to customers to come shop there. Does the assortment of 39 shops have goods I want? Do the windows catch my interest with merchandise? When I look 40 Page 64 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. through them is the interior compelling me to walk in and browse and maybe buy? That we also 1 refer to this as creating a dynamic retail experience. So, that’s the second thing. 2 3 The third thing for me is can conversion of 10 percent of retail space of some kind of medical 4 retail help T&C in the pandemic? And fourth, as an extension of that, is T&C a special 5 circumstance retailer in the pandemic? Now, I think we have a lot of work to do tonight or 6 beyond possibly on what this new definition can or should be and I have some comments on 7 that. Including whether or not they can be vibrantly retail but I want to go to the second half of 8 this since this is on the table now. 9 10 Can we help T&C in this pandemic? I believe that as a pandemic response, the clock has pretty 11 much run out. If you just look at the likely going forward timeframe from here, this gets to 12 Council in June, it passes… if it passes it goes to a second reading. Ellis starts to market medical 13 office leases in August. Think forward on lease negotiations. It could be 2022 before there’s a 14 tenant open. So, I don’t think this anymore is pandemic-oriented. It could be long-term which 15 could be also fine. That’s what we’re trying to discuss here. 16 17 For the record and we’re all predicting the future. You know, I don’t by the argument that retail 18 is forever changed. Before and after the pandemic, that consumers are now trained to stop 19 shopping in retail stores because depending on the category. Online is sometimes the very 20 efficient experience but it’s not a vibrant retail experience. A lot of retailers have a bricks and 21 clicks approach which is superior to clicks only and some former online-only retailers such as 22 Warby Parker and the RealReal learned that and chose to open stores in other places in Palo 23 Alto. So, I still strongly believe in retail and there are a lot of remarkable positive statistics 24 retailers that are coming out. I quoted some 2-weeks ago of mall traffic up 86 percent. 25 26 Is Town & Country an economically special case? I just don’t see that at all. I think the viruses 27 impacted almost all retailers at close to the same rate in Palo Alto. Stanford Mall being the 28 acceptation and before the pandemic, Town & Country was a rank for national success. I grant 29 the fall off in retail from the statistics. I’m not questing that. 30 31 The applicant in the Council meeting said that they wanted to maintain vibrancy and create 32 great retail but that’s a different set of glasses than what we, as PTC and Council, have to think 33 about when we’re talking about land use of retail for our residents. And that’s back to can we 34 sustain retail? So, I think that we should be looking at this on a broader case, including retail 35 and others. Sorry, excluding… including Town & Country and more broadly, across the various 36 geographies and that should be incorporated in what we’re doing now. Not just look at this 37 from a T&C perspective. 38 39 Page 65 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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’ll stop there and we need to get back to defining what this would look like and by the way. 1 Council is going to bring this to us, education, financial services and food; which they should so 2 that we can give consideration to what’s the future look like and can we get flexibility for 3 retailers because things do change. That’s all for now Chair. 4 5 Chair Hechtman: Thank you. Commissioner Chang followed by Commissioner Summa. 6 7 Commissioner Chang: Thank you, Chair Hechtman. I want to focus on what I think is being sent 8 back to us by Council so that whatever we give back to them at least answers that question 9 explicitly. And it sounds like what they wanted was a more narrowly defined Retail Health use 10 so I’m concerned that this… the proposal currently on the table isn’t necessarily that. And I 11 appreciate Staff’s desire to make this aligned with current medical office definitions as well as 12 aligned with the Emergency Ordinance 5517. 13 14 But if this really is a long-term trend. like other Commissioners have said before me. Then it’s 15 important that we look at that question carefully and try and do something that really applies 16 broadly to all retail areas in Palo Alto and that would work. 17 18 And so, my concern right now is that as written, if it didn’t have the 2-year sunset date… sorry, 19 the 2-year deadline for the signing of leases. That essentially, like I said before, every single-use 20 at Palo Alto Medical Foundation next door with the exception of the Surgery Center would 21 allowed. And it’s such a convenient location and that place is bursting at the seams and I would 22 hate to see kind of just like this extension into Town & Country which is such a lovely place. And 23 regardless of how much I trust Ellis to curate things. The reality is also that again if we didn’t 24 have a 2-year deadline, longer term there might be somebody else and so we need to think 25 about what we really want in this place. In this kind of precious retail location that our City 26 versus what we don’t want. 27 28 And so, I would be interested, for example, in looking at some of the other definitions that were 29 proposed. So, things like a percentage of revenue that is retail because the square footage of 30 the lobby that’s proposed is 500-square feet. That’s like 10 x 5. That’s the size of a bathroom. 31 That’s enough room for a desk and two chairs if you don’t want everybody to be on top of each 32 other. And so that… and if it’s a waiting room, it’s not going to be vibrant space. So, if we were 33 to talk about something like percentage of revenue that’s retail. Then we’re talking about 34 things like optometrist which we know work, which we… you know there’s been the eye 35 glasses… eye glass stores there. There’s plenty of examples of that as an example of that does 36 work and if there were some space in the back for maybe small procedures. Ok, maybe but 37 then we’ve got this significant portion of retail either square footage or revenue. I’m not quite 38 sure what the right definition is there. 39 40 Page 66 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Similarly, there may be, and I’m very interested in kind of the foot traffic element. If this is an 1 office for therapist which would be allowed under the current usage and therapists are one of 2 the usages I can think of that really need a very small space. Each therapist is going to see at 3 most, at most, two patients an hour but more typically one patient an hour. That’s not 4 generating a tremendous amount of foot traffic. So, what we want here is vibrancy and foot 5 traffic and so maybe that there’s type of medical office practices that allow for that more so 6 than others. And if we’re really going to be allowing a change of use, I would certainly want it to 7 be a vibrant as possible. Both for how it feels as a Palo Alto resident going through there as well 8 as for the benefit of the other retailers in the space. That’s it, thank you. 9 10 Chair Hechtman: Thank you. Commissioner Summa, you’re next. 11 12 Commissioner Summa: Thank you very much. My colleagues have all spoken really well about 13 this and I would agree that I would… it’s problematic to discuss this broadly. Discuss the issue of 14 what retail health is broadly in the same action as preferring one location because of COVID. A 15 special kind of dispensation when COVID is a… COVID didn’t just affect Town & Country. So, I 16 find it… I find that the… we’re mixing too many things together and I even wonder whether… I 17 agree with… so my concerns. I align my concerns with the findings in Section One with 18 Commissioner Alcheck and then Commissioner Chang with the definition of medical office is 19 very broad and would exclude only very… would exclude tiny portions of medical uses. And I’m 20 not sure that’s what we really want to do here. 21 22 I think the timing visa via COVID for helping Town & Country is kind of… it’s too little, it’s too 23 late and there’s no longer an emergency. I find the 10… I find the 5,000-square feet or fewer, I 24 find the maximum of 5,000-square feet at Town & Country problematic. It’s very large 25 compared to most of their stores and it doesn’t reflect the importance of store front 26 necessarily. I find the little tiny lobby funny. I think this is too specific and it suffers that way, 27 this proposal. 28 29 I think it’s not really believable that it’s a COVID emergency situation and I think we should be 30 looking at this in a broader way. I think that wellness and health uses are… they’re a variety and 31 huge number of them that are not governed by medical that can already go in here. That fall 32 into the category of personal services and I do think that’s a big part of the retail field that’s 33 growing. I think we see that at the Stanford Shopping Center included many more restaurants 34 and personal services in their recent mix and they’re kind of… they’re very good at doing that. 35 36 And so, I… whatever this is, it isn’t the right thing right now for me for Town & Country. And I 37 think we… I agree with some of my colleagues that we probably need to have a larger 38 discussion about retail health outside of the confines of applying it just to Town & Country 39 tonight. So, I’ll leave it at that, thank you. 40 Page 67 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Hechtman: Thank you. Ms. Tanner, I see your hand. 2 3 Ms. Tanner: Thank you. I just wanted to offer, for what it’s worth, to the Commission that we 4 did try to, as Council asked us to look at the definition, think about what would define retail 5 health space. So, that’s why there’s the 500-square feet or 15 percent whichever is greater. I 6 don’t think many folks would want to pay rent for space that isn’t somehow useful to their 7 operation. My understanding and Mr. Ellis or Rubinson can confirm if that’s desired that many 8 of the spaces at Town & Country are about 2,000-square feet and if it's up to 5,000-square foot 9 max and then that’s 500-square feet of that location. It’s a pretty good… could be a pretty good 10 sizeable portion of the real estate of the space that is dedicated to the lobby type use. 11 12 So, just to try to put in perspective, I think there was concern about the medical center coming 13 over. They could only have one space of up to 5,000-square feet and then a total of 15,000-14 square feet of this type of use at the Town & Country overall. So, there are some limitations 15 that would prevent these types of uses from proliferating beyond 15,000-square feet. That’s all. 16 17 Chair Hechtman: Alright, Commissioner Alcheck I do see your hand but I’d like to hold you off 18 until Vice-Chair Roohparvar and I have given our initial remarks. Vice-Chair Roohparvar, you’re 19 up. 20 21 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Thank you. So, I feel like we need to… I’ll start off with this. I think it’s 22 very… I go to Town & Country all the time, literally multiple times a week. I do feel like 23 something does need to be done to solve this issue with vacancies. It is very discerning to have 24 seen what has happened. 25 26 That being said I do share similar concerns raised by my fellow Commissioners. This does feel 27 like spot zoning to me and I do have concerns about the broadness and vagueness of the 28 definition of retail health as others have said. And then as Commissioner Chang said, I had the 29 same kind of thought run through my head where it feels like it’s going to be a slow creep with 30 the neighboring office use. I also don’t agree that I don’t think retail is dead. I think you can’t 31 take into account what happened to retail during the pandemic and I think that we do need to 32 take… and I also agree that we’re out of the COVID situation. 33 34 So, all of that being said, I do think we need to take a longer-term view as to what to do with 35 respect to retail and come up with a solution. I’m absolutely on board with coming up with a 36 solution. I just don’t think the one currently before us is the right solution but happy to think 37 through ideas and if… I don’t know if we can get to the right solution on the dais tonight but 38 happy to think further through it. So, those are my initial thoughts. 39 40 Page 68 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Hechtman: Thank you, Vice-Chair. So, I would like to start with a question. Commissioner 1 Chang suggested as an example a therapist in one of these spaces and frankly when I heard her 2 say that I was thinking well that’s not retail-like. You know store front or no, that’s not retail-3 like. So, I said the definition we have of retail health, it’s got to make clear that that’s not what 4 we’re talking about and when I read it I really… I think that was the intent of Staff in writing this 5 but I don’t think it comes through. So, let me just ask to Staff first, if Staff thinks that a therapist 6 with the 500-feet or 15 percent storefront would be able to qualify under the current version of 7 the definition? 8 9 Ms. Tanner: Yes, if a therapist wanted to have a large lobby, a large portion of their store front 10 be there and not have the room that their meeting with their clients invisible from the front. 11 Then that would be a permitted use. So, if those are… there’s certain uses that the Commission 12 would like to see struck from the definition, we would encourage and welcome those uses. 13 14 Chair Hechtman: Thank you for that, that was really helpful and Commissioner Chang thank you 15 for opening my eyes on this issue. Because I do think that there can be a definition and I think it 16 does have to focus a little bit more on the retail nature which I think of as selling products as 17 more than selling services. Therapy I think of as a service whereas braces or Invisalign’s, I think 18 that is product. It’s applied through a service but it’s a product. You’re paying for materials and 19 so I think that we could improve the definition to make it not just have a retail look from the 20 outside but more retail activity. So, that’s what I want to say about the definition. 21 22 I guess I’m in the minority. Actually, let me stop there because Albert has his hand up. Mr. 23 Yang? 24 25 Mr. Yang: I’m happy to wait for you to conclude your comments. 26 27 Chair Hechtman: Alright, I will come to you afterward unless you feel that I say something that 28 you need to immediately interrupt me, let me know. In terms of… I guess I’m a little troubled or 29 at least I’m not thinking the same way. I’m hearing a lot of talk about oh is this COVID driven or 30 not? We have an application before us and we don’t have a law in Palo Alto that says if you 31 have a business or a shopping center, you’re not allowed to ask to change the rules for your 32 shopping center. Instead, you must only ask that we change the rules Citywide. So, we have an 33 application before us and in fact, we’ve already moved it to Council once and Council didn’t kill 34 it because it wasn’t Citywide. Instead, they narrowed it quite a bit in my view but sent it back to 35 us to further refine. And so, I don’t think we penalize applicants, shopping center owners, or 36 business owners for taking the initiative to try to save their business. And I don’t think we tell 37 them, you know, come back in a year and a half when we can figure this out Citywide. So, we 38 have an issue that’s been presented to us and I think we need to… we have a problem at Town 39 Page 69 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. & Country. Just like we have problems at other shopping areas but Town & Country is the one 1 that has come to us with the problem. 2 3 And I do think that the retail health concept that we’re trying to refine here, once we do refine 4 it, the way this is written, that Retail Health definition is a Citywide definition. Now it may now 5 only apply to Town & Country but it can be applied in other places should that be the will of the 6 Council. So, I really don’t see a spot zoning issue here. Yeah, I don’t. 7 8 So, when I talk about… when I think about this application, for me it's… and I hear Mr. Rubinson 9 talk about trust. For me, it’s not really an issue of trust as it is a recognition of experience. You 10 know we hire consultants all the time to bring us information because it’s beyond our 11 experience. And sometimes you don’t have to hire that expertise because the expertise is the 12 applicant and I think that’s one of the… I think that’s where we are with this application. I 13 believe Mr. Rubinson and Mr. Ellis when I hear their analysis of where they’re at and what they 14 need. And I… then that’s not blind belief, that is belief based on my observation of the 15 remarkable success that they brought to Town & Country. Taking what was essentially a stone 16 or what looked to be a stone in 2005 when I was shopping there and polishing it until we all 17 realized hey, this is a diamond. And that is not a fluke, it’s not luck. It’s what they did and it’s 18 because they know their business. 19 20 And so, I want to… where I’d like to go tonight is I’d like to take what Council presented, the 21 direction they gave us which is a pathway to finding some flexibility for them, and I’d like to 22 pursue that. And the issue that I really want to pursue, which I will do on the next round, is this 23 2-year idea because I do have some ideas on how to maybe find a middle road between just a 24 flat 2-year suggestion by Council and the no time limit suggested… requested by the applicant. 25 So, I’ll leave it there and I’m going to go to Mr. Yang and then start a second round with Mr. 26 Alcheck. 27 28 Mr. Yang: Alright, thank you, Chair Hechtman. So, I just wanted to clarify two points. One is I 29 feel like I’m finally understanding Commissioner Summa and Commissioner Chang’s question 30 about the state preemption issue. And it’s… now I’m understanding the context of could we 31 narrow this to say no therapists or no pediatrists or is that an issue with are we stepping on the 32 state’s feet? And I don’t believe it is as long as we’ve got some sort of rationale basis for the 33 distinctions we’re making. We’re not getting into the field of medical licensure, we’re just 34 talking about which types of uses support the goals that we are pursuing with our zoning. So, I 35 think we’re ok on that front. 36 37 The second thing I want to clarify is related this issue Chair Hechtman that you just brought up 38 and a question Commissioner Alcheck asked earlier on about the 2-years and could a 39 subsequent tenant come into a space after that 2-years? And I had initially said no, I don’t think 40 Page 70 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. that’s possible but on further consideration, it strikes me that after the 2-years has passed. That 1 use is in place and it would then become a non-conforming use and so it would be once 2 someone else wanted to come in. We could treat it… consider it under the regulations in 18.70 3 that apply to non-conforming uses and basically as long as the space isn’t vacant for a year or 4 more and it’s not expanding or intensifying. Then as it’s currently written I think we would allow 5 a subsequent tenant come into that space for the same use. 6 7 Chair Hechtman: Second round, Commissioner Alcheck followed by Commissioner Lauing. 8 9 Commissioner Alcheck: I’m going to be try to be as quick as I can because I want to respond to 10 some of the comments but I also want to say some new information [unintelligible] challenge. 11 12 First of all, I want to distinguish my view on this from some of my colleagues who have taken 13 issue with the recommendation because I want to make it really clear both to the applicant, 14 both to the community, both the Council. I am not opposed adding to this flexibility. This is an 15 imperfect; sloppy ordinance and it frustrates me. I didn’t sign up for this Commission to 16 recommend poor land-use policy. I joined this Commission with my decades of land use legal 17 background because I know we can do better. 18 19 Let me start by saying that to Attorney Yang that response is, in my opinion, such a sloppy way 20 of getting around the 2-year. It completely circumvents what any reasonable person would 21 understand this document to say. To suggest that oh ok, you know then it would be a 22 grandfather… it’s just that’s. Write it, write it how you intend it. If any leased space remains un-23 vacant… remains occupied for no less than a year then it can continue to be released to any 24 future medical retail health users. I mean just write it the way you want it to be so that the 25 Council understands it, and we understand it, and someone doesn’t go that… you know, we 26 don’t get some member of the public suggesting that some how the Staff didn’t… it’s just it 27 can’t be our goal to have that be the tool. 28 29 And I’ll tell you what, if I was this applicant’s attorney, I would say find a creative leasing 30 attorney who included five, no less than maybe five 5-year options to extend every single use 31 for unspecific terms that allowed you to renegotiate lease extensions which would still be 32 considered the original lease. That’s what you’d do, that’s probably while you’re not losing your 33 hair on this issue because that’s the workaround. It wouldn’t get you a new tenant if that 34 person went out of business but it would solve this problem. 35 36 Listening I will… I want to respond to Director Tanner. It says on Packet Page 25 that Staff does 37 not support term limits on a lease for several reasons. Determination of a successful business at 38 10-years. Great reason. I don’t support that either. On the following page, it writes that eth 39 Council in its review agreed that a limitation on the timeline for execution should be included 40 Page 71 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 they said 2-years. And then it goes on to say that Staff does not object to a limit on the 1 timeframe which is illogical because if you didn’t have the new perspective that Attorney Yang 2 just brought in which I would argue is sloppy and not clear and unreasonable for a Palo Alto… 3 for a City like Palo Alto to legislate. If you didn’t have that new concept, then you’ve just 4 suggested that the problem you had on Page 25 is not the problem you had on Page 26. That’s 5 not (interrupted) 6 7 Ms. Tanner: That’s not what I said. 8 9 Commissioner Alcheck: That to me, that’s an inconsistency. And my point to you and this is a 10 response to Commissioner Hechtman’s [note – Chair Hechtman] comment which is that I 11 wasn’t suggesting to Council that we should have a retail health use which I agree, the process 12 of crafting all the uses. If there’s… look, to the Commissioners who are getting hung up on 13 distinctions here. Listen, we can decide how many nail salons happen on a certain street. We 14 have tremendous discretion. We can pick and choose exactly what we want. We can say we 15 don’t want retailers who have more than 10 stores. So, it’s not… this isn’t about being specific, 16 it’s about being broad, this is about being flexible, this is about what we talked about 3-weeks 17 ago, and so the issue if it’s that we need to figure out a solution to your problem 18 Commissioner… Chair Hechtman. My suggestion to you is our recommendation last time was 19 we get… 20 21 Hold on, I have to say one more thing before I say that. I mean no respect but the notion that 22 the changes to the retail trends are not here to stay flies in the face of all the creditable data 23 and analysis in the industry and I don’t believe the COVID crisis is over. Not for small 24 businesses. Just open the doors of a book store last week doesn’t mean the pain is gone. If will 25 take years to recover from the 14-month pandemic impact. We’re far from over when it comes 26 to our small businesses and we need to think through that lens. We have to know that they 27 aren’t going to come… the hair salons just lost 12-months of business. They still paid $14,000 28 worth of rent. That’s Midtown Shopping Center. They didn’t get out of it so they’re still in that 29 situation. 30 31 So, I’m fully prepared to pass to what I would suggest to you in the sloppiest, flexible ordinance 32 but the only reason I added conditions last time is because I wanted to ally with this applicant. 33 Get them in the envelope and say listen, you’re jobs not done applicant. You need to show up 34 at more meetings. You need to push Staff. You need to get in touch with Edgewood and 35 Charleston and Midtown and you need to be a part of this discussion about evolving retail 36 because you know better than anyone about the existential crisis and you know what? You 37 weren’t at our meeting 2-weeks ago when we needed this input and we need Staff… we need a 38 reason to keep you involved. That’s why said 10-year limit and the 2-year thing is… you want a 39 Page 72 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 2-year limit? I’ll… you have my support. I support this recommendation even though it’s sloppy, 1 even though it's imperfect because I… at the very end of the day we need flexibility. 2 3 But we can do better and the better isn’t oh, that the definition of medical are too specific or 4 not to specific and the issues aren’t whether or not this responsive to the pandemic. The issue 5 is if Staff had said we want to apply this to Town & Country and promise to be back in 6-months 6 with something that applies to Edgewood and Midtown. You have my full support. If Staff 7 would have said that we… if Staff would have written well Council recommended this. There 8 does seem to be conflict with the 10-year issue. I would have agreed with it. I think that 9 Attorney Yang’s first read is everybody’s read and while there’s a lawyer out there who could 10 figure out how to argue that wait, well, it’s grandfathered. That’s the backward way that pisses 11 off all the members of the public that care about this stuff. 12 13 So, I would suggest to you Commissioner Hechtman [note – Chair Hechtman] that if you are 14 interested in a motion tonight that I guess in my opinion would have to be abundantly more 15 clear. That we are interested in giving this amazing asset flexibility but we want Council to 16 recognize that that flexibility should be granted temporarily with the vision that a broader 17 application of retail flexibility would be applied Citywide. I would support that motion. 18 19 Chair Hechtman: Thank you, Commissioner Alcheck. Commissioner Lauing followed by 20 Commissioner Templeton. 21 22 Ms. Tanner: Excuse me, Chair? Can I just respond to something? I just want to make sure that 23 we’re clear on the timelines. The 2-years that Council passed in their motion is 2-years to sign 24 the lease. The 10-years as I understood it previously was that that use would need to stop 25 within 10-years and so that is what Staff did not support. We did not want to have the City be in 26 position (interrupted) 27 28 Commissioner Alcheck: I know but the average (interrupted) 29 30 Ms. Tanner: To shut down an operating business in 10-years from now. So, I do agree that 31 (interrupted) 32 33 Commissioner Alcheck: I completely concur with that. 34 35 Ms. Tanner: If it would help to clarify for Council and for all members of the public to have 36 included specifically how the 2-years would operate. That certainly would be an addition to the 37 ordinance that we could work on. 38 39 Page 73 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: Wait, hold on, just for the sake of better understanding here. If I told 1 you that the average lease at Town & Country was less than 10-years. Do you realize why the 2 logic is problematic? That in effect the 2-year timeline to sign a lease would mean that at the 3 conclusion of 12-years from today if passed tonight. We would be in the exact same position as 4 the 10-year limit. That any viable business could not continue to lease unless you use Attorney 5 Yang’s new interpretation of being grandfathered in which I would argue shouldn’t be the way 6 you write this law. 7 8 Ms. Tanner: Certainly, can understand that, though our current Municipal Code does provide 9 for how to treat non-conforming uses and that if they are in continuous operation. If there’s a 10 gap of less than a year for a new tenant, for example, that use can continue to operate. So, 11 we’re just looking (interrupted) 12 13 Commissioner Alcheck: Ok, last question (interrupted) 14 15 Ms. Tanner: At the existing code but again, if you wanted to include something in the ordinance 16 to clarify (interrupted) 17 18 Commissioner Alcheck: Is that what you think Council understood? 19 20 Ms. Tanner: Then we could do that. 21 22 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Alcheck (interrupted) 23 24 Commissioner Alcheck: [unintelligible] (interrupted) 25 26 Ms. Tanner: What we’re saying (interrupted) 27 28 Chair Hechtman Hold on a minute. Wait. Commissioner Alcheck, please stop talking. Ms. 29 Tanner, Commissioner Alcheck, I’m going to ask you, Commissioner Alcheck, to hold your next 30 question, even if it’s your last question, till the next round. Alright, we’re going to move now 31 (interrupted) 32 33 Commissioner Alcheck: I just… I can’t imagine that Council understood that. 34 35 Chair Hechtman: We move now to Commissioner Lauing followed by Commissioner Templeton. 36 37 Commissioner Lauing: Thank you, Chair Hechtman. We have to come up with a definition that’s 38 actionable. We can’t just grant complete license and Staff tried to come up with a definition. I 39 Page 74 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. think in reading that about 50 times, it actually left it almost as broad as where it is. So, I think 1 there’s a lot of work that we have to do on the definition. 2 3 I started thing about that. You know bouncing options off of Committee Members and figuring 4 out a list of what shouldn’t be there which to be included traditional medical care practices and 5 full-service dental practices and surgery centers and the like. And I first thought that Stanford 6 agreed with that because they wanted something in lieu of medical office uses. But apparently, 7 they and the applicant includes folks like One Medical and Carbon Health which are medical 8 practices. Carbon Health, until recently, was strictly an emergency services and we’ve got PAMF 9 200-yards away. So, if they’re thinking that the definition allows those and we’re thinking that 10 those are actually primary care facilities. Then we’re nowhere yet on this definition and that’s 11 going to take some work. So, what would I include? I would include spa services but guess 12 what? They’re already there. I’d include personal medical service like, like we use to call it 13 retail-like services. We’ve referenced before odd things like oxygen inhaling. That would be 14 fine. Clearly, retailers and medical merchandise like eye glasses which is already there and I was 15 aware that they had an optometrist so it’s full service. I think that’s perfect under an expanded 16 ordinance. Injury equipment like knee and ankle braces and hot and cold wraps. Perfect, that’s 17 already covered by the drug store there, And so there’s a lot of stuff I think even in the current 18 ordinance that could be expanded, but I do think we have to articulate pretty specifically as 19 we’ve just seen in our hour and a half conversation on this and we’re only at the beginning of 20 the second round. That some people think a therapist is in, some think they’re out, some 21 think… etc., etc., etc. So, we may have to come up with a broad one and then put a list of 22 examples that fit and examples that don’t if we’re going to get it right and I think we should get 23 it right. 24 25 Now, one other thing I want to mention, will these new medical retailers meet our 26 requirements for vibrant retail? I don’t think there’s anyway they can based on what happens 27 inside their shops other than a perfect example of who does is the eye glass store with an 28 ophthalmologist or optometrist. But this discussion for example of creating beautify lobbies to 29 see through the front window, well yeah that’s better than seeing a guy in a dentist chair 30 getting his teeth cleaned like I did this afternoon. On a side street by the way, but from the 31 outside or the inside, it doesn’t have any retail interest. It doesn’t sell… the retailer doesn’t sell 32 merchandise. It’s not an exciting draw, pull customers in and another question I had is will 33 other retailers want the space next door to a dentist office? Instead of being surrounded by an 34 ice cream shop and a cool book store. 35 36 And by the way, some of these medical offices of these types won’t be open 7-days a week. 37 They might be 5 or 6. Another thing to consider, so with this kind of medical store front, the 38 question is will it make it harder to attract some of the retailers there? So, I think is a 39 compelling point to be considered and if that’s collateral damage from having to do this 40 Page 75 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. flexibility then we can make that decision. We want to go… we ought to go in with our heads up 1 on that. 2 3 And at the last meeting… I want to point out one other thing. At the last meeting, I asked the 4 applicant if medical services at Town & Country for example could be grouped in a wing? 5 Mostly us of sight or condensed so it wouldn’t interfere with some of the things I just 6 mentioned and I thought the setback area near the former Cheese House would be a very good 7 place for that. But the applicant wasn’t interested in that approach, so I still think that that has 8 some opportunities there and in other centers. 9 10 So, my problem right now is that I think we need a lot of work on getting to a definition that we 11 can apply to T&C and other people. I don’t want to wait 6-months as was suggested. Maybe we 12 have to wait 2-weeks and then have a couple of Commissioners work offline for the next 2-13 weeks to come up with a real specific list for something we can debate. And that would be a 14 good way to make progress as opposed to trying to crank on that in the next 2-hours and go till 15 midnight. 16 17 I want to be able to expand retail in all the areas that I mentioned; medical; educational; food. 18 But we got to do it right and we have to do it where it applies. Thank you. 19 20 Chair Hechtman: Thank you, Commissioner Lauing. Commissioner Templeton, before I go to 21 you I’d like to do a time check. It is 10 o’clock. So, forgive the interruption but Commissioners 22 it’s 10 o’clock and we ideally end our meetings at 10:00. We recently seldom do but that’s our 23 goal. So, I’d like to know what the pleasure of the Commission here is. I would note that 24 Council… I think part of the Council direction is to bring this back to them promptly because 25 they want to make a decision on this before their break. And working backwards, what that 26 means is the second reading of the ordinance would need be on June 21st. The first reading I 27 think would have to be on June 7th and so if the will of the Commission is to continue this to 28 even March 26th, I don’t know how realistic it is that we can meet the timeline that the Council 29 gave us. So, I’d like people to consider that as they chime in on whether they want to… what 30 they want to do this evening. So, Commissioner Templeton, you’re hand is up I know to speak 31 substantively but since your hands up I’ll give you the first opportunity to weight in on how we 32 should handle this tonight. 33 34 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. I really wish we had seen this earlier so we would have 35 the time to give it that it deserves and be prompt. Ideally, things that have time-critical 36 deadlines shouldn’t be the last thing on the agenda. But my observation tonight is that people 37 are very passionate and I don’t see us being done with this in an hour. I would love to be able to 38 give my comments that I have prepared tonight but I understand if there are people that want 39 to continue this. I’m ok either way. 40 Page 76 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Hechtman: Other Commissioners want to speak to this? If you don’t speak, I’m taking that 2 as you’re good to keep going for a while. 3 4 Commissioner Alcheck: I would just… oh, sorry. 5 6 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Chang. 7 8 Commissioner Alcheck: I would suggest to you that if we’re going to decide to continue this 9 item. I would appreciate the opportunity to speak for a few minutes to give direction to Staff at 10 what I think would be helpful to me should the item return. So, I wouldn’t be a fan of 11 continuing this item simply to the next meeting. I would be… I would continue this item with 12 feedback. 13 14 Chair Hechtman: Alright, so hold (interrupted) 15 16 Commissioner Alcheck: On the other hand (interrupted) 17 18 Chair Hechtman: If you just hold your thought. 19 20 Commissioner Alcheck: I just want to say, on the other hand, I’m not opposed to continuing the 21 discussion because maybe we can… maybe there is solution to this or maybe there is a motion 22 that really simplifies this I could support. 23 24 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Chang followed by Commissioner Lauing on the procedural 25 question. 26 27 Commissioner Chang: I am in line with Commissioner Templeton. I’m not sure that we can 28 make that much progress on this tonight which is really unfortunate because I do understand 29 the sense of urgency. However, I mean just like up or, down right? I’d love to be able for Town 30 & Country to walk away with a decision given that they brought this before us. However, I do 31 want to hear what Commissioner Templeton has to say. I wouldn’t want to end right now. I’d 32 like her thought to at least be finished and I can see the value also in if we decide to continue to 33 this to another meeting to give Staff some direction. So, that we have new information to feed 34 our next discussion about this. 35 36 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Lauing followed by Vice-Chair Roohparvar. 37 38 Commissioner Lauing: I completely agree word for word with Commissioner Chang on exactly 39 what she just said. What I would add or refer back to my previous suggestion of about 5-40 Page 77 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. minutes ago is that I would continue the meeting to the next meeting and I have two 1 Commissioners, maybe Ms. Chang and Ms. Templeton, work on this offline and see if we can 2 come up with something to edit and debate in 2-weeks; as opposed to all of us jumping back in 3 and starting three or four rounds and going on for hours which we may need to do anyway. 4 5 Chair Hechtman: Vice-Chair Roohparvar. 6 7 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: I’m on the same page. I agree with Commissioner Templeton, I don’t 8 think we’re going to resolve it tonight and I do think we should give direction to Staff. But if 9 folks want to say I’m also happy to stay. I will just let people know, I might have a conflict for 10 the 5/26 meeting that I’m trying to work out. I’m ok either way, just a heads up. 11 12 Chair Hechtman: Ok, thank you. So, I’d like to continue for a while tonight. I’d like to at least get 13 through a second round. I want to hear what Commissioner Templeton has to say and as I 14 mentioned before, I have an idea on the 2-year language that I haven’t been able to daylight 15 yet. I do think that there’s a possibility that we could have a definitive motion tonight because I 16 don’t think it's necessarily our job to write the ordinance or write the definition of Retail Health. 17 I think it’s our job to give Staff sufficient guidance so that they can write the definition of Retail 18 Health and I think we can accomplish that tonight. And I don’t think it involves a list of 19 companies that count and companies that are excluded. So, I’d be supportive of staying with it 20 for a while and if after a second round, let’s see if there’s a motion and we’ll see what our 21 timing is and maybe there will be a motion later to continue. But right now, any Commissioner 22 who would like to continue right now is welcome to make that motion and we’ll see how it 23 goes. 24 25 So, I’m not seeing any hands for that motion so thank you for a pretty brief discussion on that 26 item. I think we’re doing better on that and so I’m going to go… we’re in the second round now, 27 and I’m going to go to Commissioner Templeton first. 28 29 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you so much Chair. I just wanted to say that I support your 30 comments that this is... the application before us is for this specific applicant and while we have 31 a desire to be more broad and not do spot zoning. That is not what’s before us. So, as 32 frustrating as that may be, that could be potentially some additional language that we add into 33 a motion to go back to Council in addition to what is in front of us. 34 35 Regarding the types of medical retail, I agree with what the Chair just said and he probably said 36 it a little bit better. It is late and I am tired so my note was I don’t really want to be 37 micromanaging this definition. And I think that the way that the Chair phrased it is much better, 38 was that we can provide guidance to Staff and Staff can write it probably better than we could 39 as a group. So, I’d support that notion as well. 40 Page 78 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Regarding if there were therapists or specific targeted types of medical services in this shopping 2 center. I mentioned this before in a question to the applicant but I want to share with the 3 Commission how absolutely critical having Day One as a shop that I could visit was for me when 4 I first had my… when I had my first child. This was a place where you could go and yes, they had 5 a beautiful store front and retail windows and lots of toys and baby gear. But they also had very 6 specific services that were, I mean I guess I don’t know if they were therapy or not, but there 7 was a new moms group there that saved my life. Like literally saved my life because I had other 8 people to talk to about recovering from childbirth. And if a similar store front were to be there 9 that maybe wasn’t on the scale of Day One but if it was a therapy that was specific for new 10 moms or parent of autistic children who may need to have therapy but also buy products that 11 will help them at home. I’m ok with that because I feel like that having the retail aspect is 12 enough to keep the vibrancy that we’ve all been longing for in those store fronts which are now 13 empty. So, also acupuncture, I don’t know if any of you have ever seen an acupuncturist but 14 they have products that they sell that you can continue to maintain your health when you’re 15 not there to seek treatment. 16 17 So, I’m not as concerned about some of those details of what kind of services might be 18 provided as long as there is a retail component that is useful whether you’re seeking treatment 19 or not. And you know, we could have a go-to space like we did with Day One and it would be 20 wonderful. So, I just I want to say it's not always a negative. We can find a way to frame this 21 and to craft our definition that brings the real value to the larger shopping populous. Not just 22 those who seek treatment. So, those were my thoughts. Thank you. 23 24 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Summa, you’re next. 25 26 Commissioner Summa: I couldn’t hear but maybe you called on me? 27 28 Chair Hechtman: I did, I’m sorry. Commissioner Summa. 29 30 Commissioner Summa: Thank you. So, I think Commissioner Templeton hit on something. It 31 isn’t the use per se, it’s do you have a significant or primary use as retail and an ancillary use 32 maybe as some medical. And so, I think the… what’s being proposed here didn’t get that mix 33 the way I see it. 34 35 And I also will say this was a 3-4 vote at Council. Three Council Members voted against it so I 36 don’t see it… and I think the Council Members that vote for it put very strict or severe 37 restrictions on it with the percentages and the 2-years and whatnot. So, I don’t see… I don’t 38 think they… I think it was a lukewarm recommendation to us and I think it’s our job to heat it up 39 and I think Commissioner Templeton got to the right thing. It should be primarily retail with 40 Page 79 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 sort of medical ancillary use. And if we can get to something that looks like that, I would 1 be more willing to support it than what’s presently being supported. I mean suggested. 2 3 So, I don’t know if that makes sense to everyone but and I don’t know if we say… I don’t know 4 how we do it. If we say 80 percent of the square footage has to be retail and you can have a 5 place in the back that’s private where you get some sort of medical thing. 6 7 And I also… and one of the reasons I feel strongly about this is because there’s medical right 8 nearby. Commissioner Chang mentioned that we don’t want this to become an extension of the 9 Palo Alto Medical. We don’t want it to become all medical and there could a be a camel’s nose 10 under the tent creep sort of situation there. We want to retain… you know, when I think about 11 Town & Country, yeah, it’s kind of a high end, fancy, small shopping center but it also has CVS… 12 I would say CVS and Trader Joes which are not fancy stores as it’s anchor stores. And it’s a place 13 where people really love to just go hang out. It’s beautiful, it's lively, if you go to Trader Joes it’s 14 not Draeger’s and you take some time afterward to… maybe with your kids or not. I just don’t 15 want to kill that vibe and I’m sure the applicant doesn’t want to but I think it’s our job to kind of 16 help steer this the right way. So, if we can come up with a solution that demonstrates quite 17 clearly a high percentage of retail and some sort of therapeutic or medical thing that’s a small 18 percentage of the same related use. Then maybe I would be able to support it because what’s 19 in the Staff report right now I can say I don’t support. So, I don’t know if that’s helpful and also 20 reminding everybody this was not a very… this wasn’t an overwhelming recommendation to us 21 by Council. 22 23 Chair Hechtman: Thank you. Other Commissioners for a second-round comment? Ok, there we 24 go. Vice-Chair Roohparvar followed by Commissioner Chang. 25 26 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: I guess I’ll be brief. I… this idea of what Commissioner Templeton and 27 Summa are proposing is starting to appeal to me too. So, if we can find consensus around that, 28 that’s all I’ll say. I could get on board. So, I’d like to see how everybody feels. 29 30 Chair Hechtman: Thank you for your comment and your brevity. Commissioner Chang. 31 32 Commissioner Chang: Commissioner Roohparvar [note – Vice-Chair Roohparvar] must be 33 reading my mind. We’re on the same wave length tonight because that’s exactly what I was 34 going to say. I am on board with what Commissioner Templeton and Commissioner Summa 35 have said. It’s just I don’t think we need to… I don’t want to be overly prescriptive but I think 36 that there’s a way to do this where we can still keep the vibe that we want. 37 38 Chair Hechtman: Let’s see, let me give my second-round comments and then we’ll go 39 Commissioner Alcheck. Actually, I’ve got two points. I want to talk about the 2-year for a 40 Page 80 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. minute and then I want to ask for some Staff input on this better defining retail health. So, let 1 me talk about the 2-year for a minute. 2 3 So, Council gave us this on a 4-3 vote as Commissioner Summa said. Once this idea of you’ve 4 got to sign your leases within 2-years from adoption of ordinance. We heard… before the 5 meeting I thought of the same workaround that Commissioner Alcheck suggested in a little bit 6 different form. I thought well ok, fine, what’s to stop the property owner from entering into 7 essentially a 50-year lease with a series of 5-year extensions freely assignable with lots of 8 flexibility. So, you’re always on the same lease but it goes forever and that’s not really 9 desirable. It’s not desirable from our stand point and it’s not really desirable from the property 10 management standpoint. Then I hadn’t even thought of what Commissioner Chang suggested in 11 this idea of the non-conforming use and that continuing on. 12 13 But so, what I thought is I don’t really have an issue if the Council says look Town & Country, 14 you say you’re really hurting, you need this flexibility, you need to fill the spaces because you 15 have existing tenants suffering now. And so, we’re going to put you to it and give you 2-years to 16 sign leases. I think that concept is fine, although I heard Mr. Rubinson say he’d like as much 17 time as possible. So, instead of 2-years from adoption of ordinance which could be June of 18 2023. I would say we should give them to the end of 2023 so that’s really 2 ½-years, but what I 19 would… on the 2-years, what I would promote is this idea that if you get someone into one of 20 those spaces in the next 2 ½-years before the end of 2023, sorry, sign a lease by the end of 21 2023, then that space can stay retail health beyond that tenant. It basically… and it’s not a 22 grandfathered right. We would write the ordinance and I have drafted some language but I can 23 come back to later if there’s interest in it. That basically you’ve got 2-years to get into the door. 24 If you do, then fine. That could be retail health or revert to retail, whatever you want. But as to 25 any space that you haven’t signed a lease on for retail health within your 10 percent limit, then 26 by the end of 2023, then no go. That space is not available for retail health going forward. So, 27 that the concept and again, I have language that I can propose on that. 28 29 Now I want to turn to the definition of Retail Health and really, I wanted to ask a question of 30 Staff because I know Staff started from scratch. They got a direction from the Council to come 31 up with a definition of Retail Health and I’m sure they talked about a lot of ideas and presented 32 something to us. So, I’d like to hear from Staff, now that they’ve started to hear this flavor from 33 a number of Commissioners about really to bring out the retail component of this concept. Are 34 there some things that Staff talked about that could be folded in that would help us in that 35 direction? Ms. Tanner? 36 37 Ms. Tanner: Certainly, we did talk a goo deal, and sorry if my sounds low, about how to parse 38 out different types of uses. And then it does get to kind of this trying to imagine every type of 39 use that might be medical and how would that would that look and have been to that service? 40 Page 81 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. So, it’s not a perfect system but then it started to get a little squirrely and so that’s where we 1 kind of said well what do we want it to look and feel like as opposed to what do we want to 2 occur within it? Because there’s such a wide variety of medical services that we couldn’t even 3 contemplate all of them and I don’t think we could get all of them. Things will be changing in 5-4 years anyways about different medical services. So, that’s where we kind of came to the store 5 frontage, the lobby space, things like that. 6 7 What I might suggest if the Commission is interest is to continue to turn that dial upward. So, 8 for example, saying 40 percent of the tenant space must be dedicated to retail sales, displays 9 and related services to the retail. And then to that point then, also that the… if there are exam 10 rooms or private meetings rooms. Those would be not visible from the store front and the 11 things that we’ve kind of said. That might be a way for the Commission to allow a variety of 12 types of medical uses but again, keep the flavor that I’m hearing you want which is the store 13 front and the retail. You if somebody can just walk in right and do something even if they don’t 14 have an appointment they could look at glasses or I think Commissioner Templeton’s answer 15 browse the toys. Even if they’re not there for a meeting but the meetings can also occur in the 16 back or in another location within the retailer. I hope that’s helpful for the Commission. 17 18 Chair Hechtman: It was very helpful to me, thank you. Commissioner Templeton followed by 19 Commissioner Alcheck. 20 21 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. I just wanted to quickly share my thoughts. We had 22 started… the Commissioner who spoke after me started talking about space and you do… we do 23 want to have your places to meet and have sufficient space. So, I wouldn’t want to go too low 24 on that ratio. You know I keep going back to the Day One. I mean I was meeting in their office 25 because they didn’t have a room where I could meet with a lactation consultant. Like it was a 26 tiny, tiny little space and that was uncomfortable so I would say you know we want to reserve 27 enough space for the meeting rooms while making sure that the retail space is sufficient and 28 attractive enough for people… multiple people to be browsing around in it. So, I’m not sure 29 what size… looking at our diagram on, I don’t know, Packet Page 38… 37. You know roughly the 30 Cara’s Space might be a minimum and it looks like if it’s… if we’re approximating from this 31 diagram which I know is now is not precise. But you know maybe instead of 15 percent, maybe 32 we’re talking 30 percent 1,000-square feet or something like that. So, that… I just wanted to 33 throw that out there if we are starting to come together on that aspect of what retail health is. 34 35 And then regarding the Chair’s suggestion on how to be flexible. I’m open to that as well. I think 36 regarding the timing [unintelligible], you’re suggestions is pretty good. So, I differ to you folks 37 who are more in this field to hear your thoughts. I hope others will share. Thank you. 38 39 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Alcheck, you’re up. 40 Page 82 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: First let me respond to the Retail Health definition component of this 2 discussion. I am in favor of more flexibility, not less. I hope that Commissioner Templeton and 3 Commissioner Summa’s initial sentiments about proving general direction as opposed to 4 specific direction is in line with that thinking. Let me expand on that for a minute. I think it’s 5 unreal that… let me say this. It’s not surprising to me that our antiquated ordinance doesn’t 6 allow an optometry/high-end frame store exist without a CUP in Town & Country. I’m not 7 surprised by that, but we should change that. That should be completely allowed. I’m surprised 8 that we haven’t had that change. That seems like a late to the game. 9 10 [unintelligible -audio cut out] sorry, can you hear me alright? 11 12 Chair Hechtman: Now we can. 13 14 Commissioner Alcheck: So, you know I think a chiropractor at Edgewood or an eye glasses 15 stores at Edgewood is equally acceptable. I know that’s not what we’re talking about here yet 16 but I would also like to suggest that I would support a recommendation that suggested to 17 Council that we would be in favor of retail health uses like the one suggested here; like a 18 chiropractor; like a One… Day One; like an optical frame store to exist not just in Town & 19 Country. But also, at places like Edgewood and the Midtown Shopping Center and the 20 Charleston Shopping Center. 21 22 I want to suggest to you that for those of you who said there were concerns about this 23 becoming an extension of was it PAMF? Or what… I don’t know the… whatever it is next door. 24 Maybe it’s not PAMF, maybe it’s something else, but I would suggest to you that this limit of 10 25 percent should address that discomfort. There’s only 10 percent of the ground floor under this 26 ordinance as written that could be converted into these retail health uses. Not medical office 27 and so if this applicant did succeed at all 10 percent. I don’t think that would create that 28 problem where oh, suddenly the whole shopping goes this direction. Well, there’s a 10 percent 29 limit. 30 31 I want to address this suggestion by Commissioner… Chair Hechtman about the 2-year rule. I 32 completely agree. I want to suggest to you that this is exactly the sort of unclear articulation of 33 what is imaginable that led to the lawsuit at Edgewood. Where residents around Edgewood 34 understood the agreement differently and then encouraged their leadership to sue the 35 shopping center and put us in a lawsuit that cost unreasonably ungodly amount of money. So, 36 this idea that could be 10-years from now a lease that gets signed when Letter D says any lease 37 for this use must be executed within 2-years of X. That to me is the kind of thing we would 38 absolutely want to follow Commissioner Hechtman’s advice here and be specific. If your 39 Page 83 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. intention is that once you’ve leased this space and it’s turned into medical retail health. Then it 1 can be that way in perpetuity. 2 3 I want to suggest to you Commissioner Hechtman [note – Chair Hechtman] that we have to be 4 even smarter especially, in light of the Edgewood results that occurred in our neighborhood. 5 Which is to say that should three of those spaces become vacant and landlord decide to engage 6 in a lease for a space that was not used before, which would increase the ground floor use to 7 more than 10 percent. Not current and then because they’re still within that year of vacancy. 8 Resigning… what I’m trying to suggest to you is the logic that Attorney Yang used could create a 9 situation where more than 10 percent of space could get leased up if done in a 10 nonchronological fashion. What I’m trying to suggest to you is if we follow your language 11 specifically saying that once a space is leased up. Then they could continue to lease it for that 12 use but if the space becomes vacant. Then in that moment it is not technically used and 13 doesn’t… it would be under the 10 percent criteria if they had reached it. And if they were to 14 lease a different unit or suit for the first time as medical office and then 3-months later sign a 15 lease for space that had been vacant but previously used as retail health. It could increase the 16 total percentage of use. So, I think we need to be even more specific. We need to say that the 17 space can be used in perpetuity, however, at no time can the total space at the shopping center 18 exceed 10 percent. Because I wouldn’t want to get into a situation where a City attorney 19 explained to me in 10-years well, actually, because of the timeline here. They’re allowed to 20 have 14 percent. 21 22 So, I may not have been able to articulate how that works specifically but the point I’m trying to 23 make is if we have a clear vision of what we want. We need to articulate that and so I am 24 supportive of providing general direction in regards to the definition of Retail Health. I think 25 that would be better than specific direction. I am supportive of encouraging the Council to 26 consider applying the retail health use definition to all shopping centers in Palo Alto. And I am 27 supportive of including the language that would allow the space that’s leased in the next 2 or 2 28 ½ years, whatever everybody can agree on, to be continued… to be leased again in the future 29 beyond the 2-year limit. And also, to be very specific that we want the leases to… we want that 30 space to at a maximum at all times be no more than 10 percent. So, that we can hedge this 31 problem that people are concerned about too much retail health. So, I’m supportive of that. If 32 there’s someone who wants to make that motion, I think it would be better than me making it 33 and I would be… I move this forward. 34 35 Chair Hechtman: Ok, I don’t think we’re quite ready for a motion but let me just point out, 36 Commissioner Alcheck, that if you take a look at Subpart 7(a) as proposed by Staff, total retail 37 health uses on the ground floor shall not exceed 15,025-feet, 10 percent, of the ground floor 38 area. 39 40 Page 84 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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’m in agreement with you but the they are grandfathered… you can 1 grandfather things in that would exceed. For example, this optometry thing isn’t currently 2 allowed but it’s grandfathered in and my assumption is, is that a follow-up optometrist wanted 3 to come in. They could probably use the space. I’m just trying to say that I want to avoid a 4 situation where someone down the road says to us well, yeah, technically this could happen. I 5 want to avoid that and I want it to be specific. 6 7 Chair Hechtman: So, let me… while we’re on this 2-year topic, let me just daylight the specific 8 language that I would… that I’m suggesting for Item D, Subpart D and we can get some takes on 9 that. I’m not wedded to the language but I try to capture this concept of really what the lawyers 10 in the room will understand. I’m trying to capture the concept of having this right essentially 11 run with the land. The land being the specific space where the lease is. So, and I’ll repeat this a 12 couple times. 13 14 So, Item D would read, retail health uses shall only be permitted for ground floor space for 15 which an initial lease for this use is executed by December 31st, 2023. I’ll read it again. Retail 16 health uses shall only be permitted for ground floor space for which an initial lease for this use 17 is executed by December 31st, 2023. So, I give us the roughly 2 ½-years to get it done. I used the 18 term initial lease to reflect the fact that there can be other leases beyond that and we limit 19 where retail health can be to these spaces where an initial lease was signed by the end of 2023. 20 So, that’s the language I had in mind and if other people want to pursue it, perhaps I think what 21 Mr.… Commissioner Alcheck is saying is, having not heard that language, he’s concerned that 22 somehow there could be a loophole between that language and what appears to be pretty 23 clear limitation in Subpart A which is total retail health uses shall not exceed 10 percent. 24 25 Commissioner Alcheck: Commissioner Hechtman [note – Chair Hechtman], if I could just clarify? 26 What I was concerned about was a situation where a tenant that signs a lease this summer in 27 several years, 10-years, decides they want to expand into a suit next door. I know under your 28 new terms that wouldn’t be possible. 29 30 Chair Hechtman: Right. 31 32 Commissioner Alcheck: Which arguably I don’t know if we would necessarily be opposed to that 33 but let’s just say it wouldn’t be possible. But my previous concern was if that happened, 34 someone expanded to a suit next door. They didn’t necessarily sign a new lease. They 35 essentially amended their lease to include greater square footage and at that same time 36 another suit that had been leased had gone vacant after the 10-years, but it was still considered 37 grandfathered. You could in theory have a situation where well now the new space but the 38 open space was grandfathered. That was my concern and I don’t want that to be the issue. So, 39 that was my point. I think your solution solved that problem. 40 Page 85 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Hechtman: Great, great. Alright, so I think everybody’s now heard the potential language 2 on the 2-year and so really, I think what I’d like… and I’m hoping what we can do is talk a little 3 bit more about the retail definition and whether we can give Staff sufficient direction to revise 4 it that we’re comfortable making a recommendation tonight. I see… oh, I don’t see it. It came 5 up, it went down. Oh, it went back up. Vice-Chair Roohparvar. 6 7 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: I just had a technical question for you Chair Hechtman. Do we need any 8 sort of… I’m just thinking through it but I don’t think it’s an issue. Do we need any sort of so 9 long as the tenants remain the same? So long as like it is not assignable? So, any sort of another 10 loophole that could create problems that we need to anchor it on with the tenant or with the 11 assignability or anything like that or no? 12 13 Chair Hechtman: No, let me… perhaps my language is not clear enough. Under my concept, you 14 can have in the next century 17 different tenants come and go in the same space with 17 15 different leases. All for retail health but you get… if you get the first one in the door in the next 16 2 ½-years. Then that becomes a space and again, it’s space-based rather than overall square 17 footage space because you already limit it. So, let’s say it’s whatever, Unit 107. They lease that 18 for retail health the next 2 ½-years. Then whatever happens to that tenant, that particular 19 tenant 3-years from now. They can re-lease that space for retail health or if they get better 20 retail they can do that. 21 22 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Can you read the language one more time? I’m not sure that… ok, can 23 you read it one more time? 24 25 Chair Hechtman: Retail health uses shall only be permitted for ground floor space for which an 26 initial lease for this use is executed by December 31st, 2023. 27 28 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: So, it seems confusing… and we don’t need to get into the semantics 29 but let me just tell you what I’m thinking. To me it sounds, I hear you but I think we should be 30 more direct and what… do you have a concern with saying something like if any personal 31 property and I can’t craft it on the fly but if just saying it exactly how you mean it. If it is leased 32 for retail health by May whatever, then forever this piece of property shall be used for retail 33 health in perpetuity for whatever. Do you know what I’m saying? 34 35 Chair Hechtman: Yeah and that’s what I’m (interrupted) 36 37 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Because this is a little bit… it’s not clear. 38 39 Page 86 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Hechtman: That’s what I’m trying to… right, that’s what I’m trying to say but I’m not 1 wanting to limit them to retail health uses forever in the future because again, depending on 2 what happens in the market, a retail health user may leave and their best offer is from a retail. 3 You know a straight retail. 4 5 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Yeah but then we can say may. Then we can if this unit is… if this 6 property is lease by whatever for retail health then in perpetuity it may be whatever used for 7 retail in addition to any other uses. Just because I think it’s a little bit more clearer than. I mean 8 you’re better at crafting language. I’m better at planning legal so I would differ to your 9 neighbors the language but that’s where I could see wiggle room to argue around your… think 10 about it. 11 12 Chair Hechtman: Let see, Mr. Yang you had second thoughts about… you need to say anything? 13 14 Mr. Yang: Yeah, no, I think… I had a question. It was answered so. 15 16 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Lauing, then Commissioner Summa. 17 18 Commissioner Lauing: I think that I want this to get done but I want to get it done right. So, if 19 the plan now is try to redo the definition of retail on the fly as someone just said. That might 20 not be the best approach. Why wouldn’t we be giving Staff direction and they come back with a 21 new definition so that we know what we’re actually voting on? So, maybe I’m missing what 22 you’re looking for in terms of the definition but they worked a couple weeks for a month to get 23 to this definition and we don’t like it. Let’s let them have a week. If you want to do a special 24 meeting in a week or whatever and come back and vote on it. So, tell me if I’m missing 25 something? 26 27 Chair Hechtman: I don’t think you’re missing something. Just a different idea. Different 28 direction to hand it off to… give Staff sufficient direction, hand it off to them and this is a place 29 where I will use the word trust, trust them to craft something that expresses our motion and 30 take it to Council. 31 32 Commissioner Lauing: I’ll have to see what you come up with then because I know to know 33 what I’m voting on. So, if it’s just conceptual, that’s a little bit more problematic. 34 35 I think this is still the biggest issue in the room and the 2-years or 2 ½-years, that can be worked 36 out. That’s all. 37 38 Chair Hechtman: Thank you. Commissioner Summa. Commissioner Summa. 39 40 Page 87 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Summa: So, I think we’re getting a little lost in the details of the lawyer chat here 1 and kind of losing sight of… totally respect the lawyers but and I’m not one but I think we’re 2 getting lost in those details and we’re forgetting the main thing here. The more we talk about it, 3 the more I think I’m uncomfortable with the whole motion. I think there are plenty of wellness 4 options, personal services that are not medical and I think we should just stick with that for 5 now. I think the timing is wrong. I was really excited when Chair Templeton [note – 6 Commissioner Templeton] expressed such a… expressed a great idea which is oh this has to be 7 a retail facility with a little bit of office for some kind of therapeutic something or other. I’m not 8 even sure we couldn’t do that under personal services. I think we’re straying from the main 9 issue here and I’m not going to support… from what I’m hearing tonight. I don’t think I’m going 10 to be able to support the medical use change here. I don’t think the timing is right and I think 11 there’s so many options for this wellness options that aren’t strictly medical. That I think we 12 should leave it at that for now and I’m happy to make a motion. And nobody has recovered or 13 we don’t even know what recovery from the pandemic looks like. So, I would be more willing to 14 look at this in a more holistic way sometime in the future and not feel pressured to make this 15 decision right now for Town & Country which even during the pandemic has been incredibly 16 busy as I noticed. So, I’ll make a motion to… if you want me to but I don’t know where this is 17 going other than that. It just seems to me getting bogged down in nuances and details without 18 dealing with the main issue. So, I don’t know what you think about that but. 19 20 Chair Hechtman: If you’re asking me I feel like I’m hearing some Commissioners that see some 21 light at the end of the tunnel and want to pursue it. Although, I don’t know how much longer 22 they’re going to want to pursue it this particular night. So, my sense is that motion would not 23 succeed but it would take some time. So, I’ll you decide whether you want to make it. While 24 you’re thinking about it I’m going to go to Commissioner Alcheck. 25 26 Commissioner Alcheck: I share your sentiments Commissioner Hechtman [note – Chair 27 Hechtman]. I think that you do… I think you’re… I think that between you and Commissioner 28 Templeton, there is some consensus here. And I think what we need to do… I’ve been 29 approaching this the following way. The first question is, do we want to be flexible or not? I 30 think that’s yes. Second question is, how long do we want to be flexible for? That answer is a 31 little less clear and we’ve kind of lawyered it up if you don’t mind me saying. And when I say 32 lawyered it up, you know we’ve worked this hard to kind of make this specific and as you’re 33 drafting the language. I’m sitting here going so if they succeed at leasing 5 percent, half of the 34 space by the end of 2023 and in 2025 they want to add one more suit that takes them up to 6 35 percent and we were comfortable with 10 today. Why are we not comfortable with 10 then? 36 Like what are we so… why are we so concerned with how long they have to use the 10 percent? 37 Which if they’re successful at using now we’re comfortable with. From my perspective it's like 38 either we’re comfortable with 10 percent being this additional potential use or we’re not. 39 40 Page 88 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 it doesn’t matter to me whether it’s signed in the next 2-years. The only reason I focused 1 on that language 5-weeks ago, whenever it was, was because I wanted to create a reason for 2 Council and for this applicant to bring it back to us. So, we could talk about it as a community-3 wide application. Not just for Town & Country and so what I would suggest to you is I will 4 support your language. I would also support language that said that we recommend that City 5 Council adopt an ordinance that allows for retail health flexibility and I would ask for 6 Commissioner Templeton maybe or someone to be a little more specific about what they would 7 change about the general definitions that would make them more comfortable. Because I 8 would support it and then I would also suggest that in keeping with that. We found that the 10 9 percent was enough and it doesn’t particular… I don’t think anybody on this Commission, and I 10 may be speaking for you so tell me if I’m wrong, but I don’t understand the logic that anybody 11 has with this fear that if they don’t sign the lease in 2-years. Well, then they shouldn’t be able 12 to have the flexibility. 13 14 We are talking about two things. A response to the COVID pandemic which that’s a good reason 15 to be quick and hasty. But also, we’re talking about fundamental changes in retail which I think 16 majority of us understand are there and flexibility is a good approach. So, what’s the logic for 17 just… why are we comfortable… are we concerned that it’s going to ruin the shopping center so 18 we want to see what happens? Ok, so then that’s where we daylight… you sunset this 19 ordinance. You don’t create a perpetuity that allows them to lease 10 percent forever. 20 21 So, my… what we do today can always be changed. We can create 10 percent and if in 5-years 22 we’re not happy with that. Then we can change it back and you’re right. They’ll have the 23 grandfather but who knows. I would just suggest to you that the… I think there’s support for 24 your language. I would support it even though I find it imperfect. I support the broadening of 25 the Retail Health Ordinance to include some of the examples that Commissioner Templeton 26 made. But also, I don’t want to get too specific because I feel like we don’t really know and I 27 think that the definition of not having medical procedures done is a very good one. That 28 distinction between ophthalmology and optometrist, for example, I think that’s a good 29 distinction because that does in my mind separate medical office from retail health. 30 31 And then I would finally suggest to you that at the ever end of the day what we’re really 32 suggesting to… and I think most of the people here are on board which is to say we’re… we 33 want Council to be responsive to the kinds of landlords that are in the room tonight. Who’s 34 tenants show up and tell us that they’re working hard to help them in every way they can and 35 we want a vibrant shopping center. We don’t want vacancies that last forever and are this 36 tenant who has the support of his… this landlord who has the support of his tenants saying 37 listen, I can’t fill this place up without flexibility and you know what? 4-weeks ago or 3-weeks 38 ago we talked about this. We knew it. 39 40 Page 89 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 would… I’m prepared. I don’t want to make the motion because I think there’s some 1 specific things that maybe Commissioner Templeton has in mind. I think that between 2 Commissioner… Chair Hechtman and Commissioner Templeton, you guys could do this and I 3 would encourage you to do it because it sounds to me like maybe between Commissioner 4 Chang and Commissioner… I think you’ve got it. 5 6 And I just want to say that it’s not a gift. It’s not a giveaway. They got to go lease the space and 7 they have to fill this shopping center. And if they had some tenant that was interested in the 8 space, they would have leased it. So, I don’t feel like this is them taking advantage and… but I 9 do feel like it’s a disadvantage to Edgewood and Midtown. That they don’t have some level of 10 flexibility as well and I would really love it if whatever motion you make. You would allow me to 11 make a friendly amendment that requested that the City Council consider directing Staff to 12 investigate whether the same approach should be taken at other shopping centers in the 13 community. 14 15 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Templeton. Commissioner Templeton. 16 17 MOTION #1 18 19 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. I see Commissioner Summa’s hand went down so I was 20 prepared to make a motion but you were first. So, if you wanted to go first, you could. Ok, so it 21 looks like maybe not. So, I would like to move that we adjust Staff recommendation… we 22 recommend Staff’s recommendation with the following adjustments. The text of the lease 23 duration should reflect Commissioner or Chair Hechtman’s text and the definition of retail 24 heath should be amended to include in PAMC 18.04.30(a) that not requiring convalescence, 25 general anesthesia, local anesthesia, or emergency services. And then later where it says 26 minimum of 500-square feet or 15 percent. If we could change that to 1,000-square feet or 30 27 percent. 28 29 Ms. Tanner: Can you repeat the middle part for Section A just so we can make sure 30 (interrupted) 31 32 Commissioner Templeton: Oh, I’m sorry. I couldn’t hear that, Ms. Tanner. 33 34 Ms. Tanner: Oh, sorry. Can you repeat what you wanted Letter A to say? 35 36 Commissioner Templeton: Yes, so where it starts talking about not requiring convalescence or 37 general anesthesia. I wanted to suggest local anesthesia or emergency services be added to 38 that list of exclusions because I think that will address the concerns around dentistry, regular 39 medical… you know standard medical care that might be provided at your primary care 40 Page 90 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. physician. Things like that or emergency services which would be like urgent care, doc 1 [unintelligible], that kind of thing. 2 3 Ms. Tanner: Ok and then 1,000-square feet and was there (interrupted) 4 5 Commissioner Templeton: And 30 percent. 6 7 Ms. Tanner: 30 percent, ok. 8 9 Commissioner Templeton: I don’t know… you know I’m open to suggestions from other 10 Commissioners if 30 percent is too much but the image that Commissioner Chang gave us about 11 how small 500-square feet is. We do want multiple people to be able to be in the store and 12 browse at the same time. So, I think that’s kind of what we’re targeting. Any… that’s it for my 13 motion. 14 15 Chair Hechtman: Mr. Ellis, I do see your hand but hold on a second. We have got a motion 16 without a second at the moment. So, let’s take care of some formalities along that and I will 17 come back to you. Ms. Tanner, I see your hand up. 18 19 Ms. Tanner: The other question that I wanted to clarify which may help for the Commissioners 20 if there is a second. For the 1,000-square feet or 30 percent, as currently written it’s directed to 21 be a lobby or sales area. Do you want to emphasize that it should be for sales and display of 22 retail merchandise? Is that important? 23 24 Commissioner Templeton: Great suggestion. Thank you for clarifying. It is late so I appreciate 25 that. You caught the good one. 26 27 Ms. Tanner: No, I just want to make sure. 28 29 Commissioner Templeton: Yes, that’s exactly the intention. 30 31 Ms. Tanner: Ok, thank you. 32 33 Chair Hechtman: Let’s see, Commissioner Chang. 34 35 Commissioner Chang: Commissioner Templeton, can you repeat… I’m sorry, it’s late and so 36 I’m… how… what language are you using to exclude PCPs and or I heard the emergency and 37 urgent care but. 38 39 Page 91 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Templeton: Yes, absolutely. I’m looking at the slide… the revised slide deck that 1 was sent out today on slide 7. So, if anybody is around that could bring that slide up that would 2 be super helpful. Revised ordinance per City Council slide 7. Oh, you have it right there in the 3 Packet Page instead. It’s the same text. So, here where it says under point A on line three, not 4 requiring and then it has a list of two, convalescence or general anesthesia. I was suggesting… 5 the motion says to add to that list, so convalescence, general anesthesia, local anesthesia, or 6 urgent care services. 7 8 Commissioner Chang: Local anesthesia or general or urgent care (interrupted) 9 10 Commissioner Templeton: General is where you’re knocked out but local means 11 [unintelligible](interrupted) 12 13 Commissioner Chang: Yeah, I know, I understand but it doesn’t… but just urgent care doesn’t 14 necessarily eliminate a PCP then. No? I’m just trying to understand. 15 16 Commissioner Templeton: Right, it would have to be a PCP who was willing to have a retail of 17 some time of services. So, they would have to incorporate retail which is what we include on 18 line five when we changed that to 1,000-square feet and 30 percent. 19 20 Commissioner Chang: So, I’m not quite willing to second. I think I would need to up the retail 21 percentage some and I don’t know. I need to think about this. It might be too fast for me 22 tonight. Alright, that’s it for me. 23 24 Chair Hechtman: Let’s see, we’re still looking for a second. Commissioner Alcheck, your hand is 25 up. 26 27 SECOND 28 29 Commissioner Alcheck: I will absolutely second this. Bravo to you Commissioner Templeton for 30 taking a stab at this. It is rare that the exact wording that you choose is adopted by City Council. 31 So, obviously, we know going into this, this is more about broad strokes than it is about 32 specifics. But I applaud that you’re… I really, really am appreciative that you got specific 33 because that’s I think what we needed. We needed something that anchored the concerns that 34 people had. It may not be perfect but I think friendly amendments could fix that if there were 35 real concerns and we wanted to push for strong consensus. So, thank you. 36 37 Chair Hechtman: So, I do (interrupted) 38 39 Commissioner Templeton: Can I speak to it? 40 Page 92 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Hechtman: Pardon me? 2 3 Commissioner Templeton: Should I speak to it? 4 5 Chair Hechtman: Oh you… yeah, I was wondering if you wanted to hear… so the applicant I 6 think has a reaction which do you want to speak first or hear (interrupted) 7 8 Commissioner Templeton: I’m happy to hear from the applicant, of course. 9 10 Chair Hechtman: Ok, I would like to do that because you know we’re here designing your 11 shopping center in a sense and we want to respect your expertise and get your feedback. So, 12 that we can do it in a way that works for you but also fills our intention. So, Mr. Ellis, can you 13 (interrupted) 14 15 Mr. Ellis: Thank you, Chair. We appreciate it and we have worked with Staff at great lengths to 16 make sure that the language that’s put forth addresses Staff’s assignment as well as actually as 17 a piece of ordinance that actually could work for us as you said. Two comments, one I noted the 18 suggestion that local anesthesia be included and I am not doctor or medical expert but I fear 19 that inserting the local anesthesia may eliminate a lot of potential future outpatient, you know 20 convenience related treatment that could be anything from cosmetic to normal dentistry if you 21 will. I believe they use local anesthetic when you have your teeth worked on so I would caution 22 against precluding a bunch of future uses through that language change. 23 24 And then with regard to the modification to the minimum amount of retail area. That is 25 something we’ve thought about very carefully and gone back and forth with Staff on. And you 26 know going to the 15 percent or 500 I think is what’s in the proposal was difficult. I would… I 27 fear that the 30 percent is going to preclude probably half of the prospects we’re currently 28 looking at. It’s just too much area being dedicated to something that they can’t utilize. Some 29 mix… some of these retailers… health retailers absolutely do have products to offer in-display 30 but some don’t have as much and are still offering what we believe to be a very additive 31 service. And so, we will try to work with a 20 percent or 750-square foot minimum but I think 32 for us, any more than that it really becomes more futile as an ordinance for us to try to mitigate 33 our problems with. Thank you. 34 35 Chair Hechtman: Thank you for the feedback, Mr. Ellis. Let’s see, so Commissioner Summa, I see 36 your hand up but I’d like to know from the maker of the motion any reaction to what you’ve 37 just heard from the applicant? 38 39 Page 93 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Templeton: Thank you and thank you so much to the applicate for speaking up. 1 The reason why I put these… maybe I should have spoken first. The reason I suggested these 2 changes was to in an effort to gain support for changing this ordinance, this application at all. 3 What I’m hearing from the other Commissioners is that the… there was not an appetite for 4 dentistry and or regular medical services at this site. And we were… in including those, my 5 intention was to exclude those types of retail establishments because that’s what I heard from 6 others. And I’m happy to accept amendments to this motion if there is an appetite to includes 7 those back in by changing the language. 8 9 Regarding the minimum square feet, I’m comfortable with changing that to 750 and 25 percent. 10 Is that what the applicant requested? 11 12 Chair Hechtman: I think he said 20 percent and 750. 13 14 Commissioner Templeton: Ok, if my seconder would be happy with that change I’m willing to 15 do that. 16 17 Chair Hechtman: Mr. Alcheck. Commissioner Alcheck. 18 19 Commissioner Alcheck: Yeah, allow me just say for the record that I don’t… I would welcome a 20 loosening of the… I will suggest to you that if there is broad support for not allowing dentistry. 21 Then I’m on board because I think that whatever flexibility this group can confer is worth it. 22 23 I think that the 750 versus what was it, 500 before? I think that sounds like we’re being tough 24 but I don’t think that’s necessary either. I don’t think a chiropractor needs to have 750-square 25 feet or retail in order to be the kind of tenant that would be a great fit for a space. You know 26 chiropractors normally have between 20 and 35-minute appointments and they see lots of 27 people. And when you walk out of a chiropractor you don’t mind going and sitting down and 28 having lunch. Maybe that can’t be said about a dentist appointment. You get your teeth worked 29 on, you’re not ready to go eat. So, but my point is that I don’t know that this requirement of 30 500 or 750 or even more does anything but sound like we’re oh, we’re being hard. And I don’t 31 want to be hard on retail. Not I don’t want to be hard on Town & Country. I don’t want to be 32 hard on retail and so I would accept if you’re willing to change your motion. I will continue to 33 second it and I would even consider continuing to second it even if you were a little more 34 lenient than there but you have my support. 35 36 I think the dentistry question I would rather open up to the rest of the Commission. If there’s a 37 friendly amendment and there seems to be support for that and you’re willing to accept it. 38 Then I would accept it of course too. I still would like to, at one point, make a friendly 39 Page 94 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. amendment or a second component which recommends that the Council consider using this at 1 other locations but I’m going to save for the end. 2 3 Chair Hechtman: Alright so what I’m hearing is a suggested amendment to your motion to 4 change the 1,000-square feet and 30 percent to 750-square feet and 20 percent and I’m 5 hearing acceptance of that by the maker and the seconder. I’m not yet hearing clear revision on 6 the language local anesthesia which is part of the current motion. Alright, but we’ve heard from 7 the applicant some concerns about the inclusion of that language so be that as it may. 8 9 So, now we have a motion and a second and with that revision, I see Commissioner… I’m sorry, 10 Mr. Ellis your hand is still up. Is that up again or? Ok, thank you. Commissioner Summa followed 11 by Commissioner Lauing. 12 13 Commissioner Summa: Thank you. So, a few things I’m really uncomfortable with right now. 14 One is that I appreciate Commissioner Alcheck wanting to look at this in a broader way but it is 15 not agendized for the whole City or other locations tonight. So, I don’t think we can consider it. 16 17 I… none of us are medical professionals and we’re making these nuanced distinctions about 18 medical services that I think are… we’re not… we don’t have the expertise to make and I think 19 are kind of bizarre. It’s either medical or it’s not medical and the state regulates that. 20 21 And I will say I think it’s a regular for an applicant to take… to participate in motion making and 22 this happened the last time this applicant came and I’m very uncomfortable with that. And I 23 don’t think we do that. I don’t think we have a process for doing that. I know that an applicant 24 or a member of an applicant team can be called upon at our Chair’s discretion but just 25 participating in motion making is to me highly irregular. 26 27 That being said, I cannot support this motion. I don’t think we have gotten any further in any 28 understanding of what a retail-like medical use might be. Other than the fact that I have stated 29 before that there are plenty of wellness medical like personal services that are already available 30 to this applicant in this location and that’s what I would be comfortable with. 31 32 Chair Hechtman: Thank you. Commissioner Lauing. 33 34 Commissioner Lauing: A couple things on first in terms of content. It’s not clear to me that this 35 motion does what I think needs to be done to identify what’s in and what’s out. I mean it’s just 36 the same as it was before which is that it seems like you can do anything you want but I mean 37 who’s even going to judge this? Does the Director of Planning have to decide on each retail site 38 if it’s fits this or not? You know I just don’t feel like this gets us to clarity we’re looking for and I 39 don’t agree with what I’m hearing from Mr. Alcheck. 40 Page 95 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 That as broad as possible, everything should be in. We don’t need to go that far. We have to 2 have some demarcation so we know not only what we’re voting for, but much more 3 importantly we need to know when somebody applies to become a retailer what’s there. 4 5 And with respect to process, you know it’s just, here we go again. We’re heading towards 6 midnight trying to craft motions. I thought what we had talked about almost an hour ago was 7 to give Staff direction on reworking it and potentially then coming back so we can have the time 8 to in the light of day discuss this. So, I’m uncomfortable with where we are in the current 9 motion and I’m not sure that we should spend another hour trying to amend that motion. 10 Rather than have Staff take some of this consideration and try to build it. 11 12 Now if, as I read this, things like One Medical and Carbon Health and all that are all in the 13 motion and that’s part of what I think should be discussed because the specific direction was to 14 get away from medical office uses. And all of those are direct medical office uses so it seems 15 like we’re not even accomplishing our objective that we were handed by Council. So, as written, 16 I can’t support the motion and I would again rather move this to a week or 2-week from now 17 and get another motion back from Council or sorry, from Staff if we can give the correct 18 direction. 19 20 Chair Hechtman: Thank you. Commissioner Chang. 21 22 Commissioner Chang: Yeah, I think I’m coming out not being able to support it right now. I was 23 really on board when Commissioner Templeton was talking about Day One and this idea that 24 we’re going to have kind of a more retail focus. But I’m… I mean maybe because it’s so late and 25 I can’t think that clearly right now but you know, if we up it only to 20 or if it’s only 20 percent 26 or 750, whichever is smaller. So, now I’ve got two bathrooms worth of space up front for retail. 27 And I do like the addition that Assistant Director Tanner suggested about devoting that space to 28 retail space but that is not a lot of retail space. I understand that if you’re doing Invisalign, 29 that’s all you need, but I think we’re trying to… I mean where I was on board earlier was with 30 this concept of a real retail focus with a couple small office in order to do your lactation 31 consultant or maybe a therapist is there or maybe some… you know. 32 33 So, I actually am more on board with sort of space restrictions but I don’t think 20 is enough 34 and you know, whether we use general anesthesia or sorry, not general. Local anesthesia or 35 not, I don’t care. If there’s a ton of retail space, Botox all you want or whatever it is that you 36 want to do in the backroom or but if there’s sufficient retail space. I don’t want to limit it and I 37 don’t think I know enough to know what I might be limiting by putting that in there. And 38 actually, you know if we want to do urgent care and 50 percent of it is retail space. Ok, maybe 39 that’s a creative… I’m having hard trouble visualizing what that business plan looks like for that 40 Page 96 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. tenant but that’s not my job. But if there’s retail space that’s inviting, that with product there 1 that people want to go in and look at. Ok, that works too. So, I think where it right now is not… I 2 think it's kind of missing the mark in both directions and I am not sure I can support it right 3 now. 4 5 Chair Hechtman: Alright, thank you, Commissioner Chang. I’ll provide a few remarks. First of all, 6 just to get us all spatially thinking the same way. Just to clarify, 750-square feet is like two 7 bathrooms? Is that what you said? 8 9 Commissioner Chang: No, sorry, just to clarify. 20 percent of some of the small spaces here 10 would be two bathrooms. 750 is great, 750 is pretty good for a small space. Now for a big 11 space, I’m a little bit less clear on that. 12 13 Chair Hechtman: Ok. 14 15 Commissioner Chang: So, I would be wanting to up the percentage and I’m hearing from the 16 applicant that may not work and now I don’t know what to… you know (interrupted) 17 18 Chair Hechtman: Alright (interrupted) 19 20 Commissioner Chang: I’m not sure I can be on board with it. 21 22 FRIENDLY AMENDMENT 23 24 Chair Hechtman: Right, thanks for the clarification. So, a couple things, first on the retail health 25 definition. So, I don’t… and this really plays off of what Commissioner Chang was just saying. I 26 don’t know that the size of the space matters as much as what’s happening in that storefront 27 space. And this is where I think we were having a conversation earlier about retail activity 28 upfront and again, you can have very small, very exclusive boutiques that they have a counter 29 and they’re only selling three things in that store. You know they’re high-end things so I was 30 wondering if instead of expanding the space requirement beyond what we’re hearing from the 31 applicant may be workable, if really, we want to have some language in here about drawing 32 revenue from product sales because that’s really… to me that’s the thing that I’ve heard a lot of 33 Commissioner talk about. This retail experience that isn’t captured right now and that’s what 34 would happen in that 20 percent. 35 36 And I guess… so I think we could come up with some language there. What I want… and I 37 looked at it. What I wanted to be careful about is I don’t want to demand too much. I don’t 38 want to say oh you’ve got to have 40 percent of your revenue from product sales or any 39 Page 97 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. percentage. It’s just it has to be an amount of product sales that’s legitimate so as people walk 1 by that there’s a store aspect to this retail health business. So, that’s a concept I have on that. 2 3 And then I did listen to Vice-Chair Roohparvar on her concerns with the language that I came up 4 with that maybe could be clearer and so I’ve actually written a follow-up sentence to that to 5 expand it a little bit more. I was thinking I could read that and see if that would address a 6 concern of the Vice-Chair’s that might keep her from voting against this motion because right 7 now there’s a hole in what I wrote which has been incorporated into the motion. So, let me 8 just… so, I’m going to read the first sentence again and then the new sentence that I’ve written. 9 Retail health uses shall only be permitted for ground floor space for which an initial lease for 10 this use is executed by December 31st, 2023. The specific space leased for retail health by 11 December 31st, 2023 shall thereafter be allowed to be used for retail or retail health uses. So, I 12 would like to ask the Vice-Chair if that sentence addresses the concern that she was expressing 13 before and she’s nodding that it does. And so that being so, I would offer that as a friendly 14 amendment to the motion. 15 16 Commissioner Templeton: I accept. 17 18 Chair Hechtman: Ok and the seconder, Mr.… Commissioner Alcheck? Accepts. Ok, alright so 19 then (interrupted) 20 21 Commissioner Templeton: Are you also going to make an amendment for the other part? Well, 22 I… let me first give you a brief response (interrupted) 23 24 Chair Hechtman: Yeah, thank you. 25 26 Commissioner Templeton: To what you said. I included that because I was trying to incorporate 27 the sentiments that Commissioner Summa indicated were important to her. However, what 28 we’ve heard in the comments since that this just overall isn’t palatable to her. So, I think I’m 29 more flexible in that area. So, if you want to make an amendment, please do. 30 31 Chair Hechtman: So, are you talking about the sale of products idea or the local anesthetic 32 idea? 33 34 Commissioner Templeton: Sale products. 35 36 Chair Hechtman: So, I (interrupted) 37 38 Commissioner Templeton: I don’t recall your local anesthetic idea. 39 40 Page 98 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. FRIENDLY AMENDMENT 1 2 Chair Hechtman: Well, I didn’t mention it but Commissioner Chang mentioned and I kind of 3 agree that I don’t really need that language in the… that carve-out, the local anesthetic. I don’t 4 really need that particular carve-out in the definition of retail health. So, I like the (interrupted) 5 6 Commissioner Templeton: And yeah, that’s fine with me. I included that because several of the 7 Commissioner had mentioned this interest in services like dentistry. And so, since the applicant 8 is not interested and that’s maybe a misinterpretation on my point. We can change that. 9 10 Chair Hechtman: Ok, we have that from the maker of the motion. The seconder, are you ok 11 without including local anesthetic? 12 13 Commissioner Alcheck: Yeah, I said this earlier. I said earlier, I think this concept of flexibility 14 for 5 or 8 or 10 percent included the belief that maybe a dentist office would move in. I thought 15 that was the whole idea and I get if we don’t… if we can’t get consensus on that. Fine but if we 16 can I’d support that. This is… just to be clear, just so you know Commissioner Hechtman [note – 17 Chair Hechtman] before you make your last amendment. It’s like we’re talking about flexibility 18 here. So, we can’t say we want… you know we want to give you flexibility but it has to look just 19 like retail. There’s no lactation consultant that’s going to… that’s also in the business of selling 20 25 or 35 or 50 percent of a revenue is about selling products. She’s not pushing products. 21 22 Commissioner Templeton: Not true, not true. 23 24 Commissioner Alcheck: Well maybe there are. Maybe there are lactation consultant who 25 daylight as product salesman but I think Bye Bye Baby or Bed… whatever that store is, is really 26 taking over that space and frankly Amazon is too. So, all I’m trying to say is, is I think what 27 they’re asking for it mix it up and I think one thing that really could have helped tonight’s 28 application would have been if Staff brought to us something that was done maybe in a 29 different City or if the applicant demonstrated some examples from other shopping centers. 30 Because I think we’re having a hard time imagining but anyways, I support it. I want to hear 31 your amendment. 32 33 Chair Hechtman: So, Commissioner Alcheck, just to clarify. The question put to you is 34 (interrupted) 35 36 Commissioner Alcheck: I support the amendment of not carving out the anesthesia and I’d like 37 to hear what you have to say about the retail selling. 38 39 Page 99 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Hechtman: The product, right and actually I’d like to hear a little bit from other 1 Commissioners on that concept before I try to hazard some wording. Vice-Chair Roohparvar. 2 3 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: So, I… as you know I agree with the change in the language that you 4 provided in the second part. So, I agree, I think we need to get away from a percentage of the 5 space and focus… that doesn’t really mean much to me and focus on the sue. What we want is 6 that retail forward use so either doing it by-product or saying… or being super vague and saying 7 the primary purpose of the space needs to be for retail use with ancillary… I don’t know how 8 we want to do it. But my only concern is if we do it with product and say well your revenue has 9 to be 40 percent derived from products. It’s hard to track or monetize. So, I’m within concept, I 10 just think we need to flush out and think through how do we focus on having it be retail 11 forward use. I’m open to ideas. 12 13 Chair Hechtman: So, let me ask… well, oh? Ok. Let me ask Staff if we’re… you hear us now 14 wrestling with this idea of folding into the definition some flavor or product sales. You know 15 retail sales, not the service side. In your discussions and trying to come up with the language, 16 did you come up with thoughts that might help us with that? 17 18 Ms. Tanner: So, the sales is not a metric that we like to use. So, if you can imagine, what we do 19 as planners is someone proposes an application. Here’s my footprint, here’s what’s going to 20 happen there, here’s what I’m going to be doing. It gets approved, they build it out, they 21 operate. We never talk to them again unless they need to change something. So, if you have a 22 brand-new use that does not operate, are they going to show us their business plan of what 23 they think they’re going to sell? I guess that’s something. If it's an existing use, it’s a chain or 24 another brand. They could show us something. It’s very difficult to have that be meaningful in 25 my opinion to rely on the sales because at the time of application they have none for that 26 location. So, that’s why we kind of went to the percentage dedicated to display and retail. To 27 your point, maybe it’s not that many products. I mean I think about your hair salon. I don’t 28 know how much shampoo they really sell but they got it at the front. How much percent is 29 that? Again, not a great example but that’s kind of why we went to this size because that is 30 what we do review when folks are applying is what the size is located. I have asked Staff if there 31 other metrics that we might use to try to do it but you know we can use it. It’s just… I think we 32 would just want to know… the Commission to know that going into it. It’s an estimate from the 33 applicant of what they project their revenue sources would be. 34 35 Chair Hechtman: So, I think that was very helpful to me because the phrase you used there was 36 retail sales. and when I look at the language I’m wondering… first of all, I agree entirely that 37 trying to qualify this in terms of a volume of sales or having to track it or measure it,it should be 38 a non-starter, but if we can make clear our intent that there shall be sales, to me, that might be 39 enough and so when I look at the sentence “the use shall include a storefront and entry lobby 40 Page 100 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. design”, it gives the size, “that is consistent with the retail environment.” I’m wondering if we 1 said instead of storefront and entry lobby design. If we said something like storefront and… I’m 2 sorry, it is late. Sales… what was the language you had? Sales… something sales. 3 4 Ms. Tanner: Retail sales? 5 6 Chair Hechtman: Yeah, retail, right. Storefront and retail sales area minimum the square 7 footage. What about changing entry lobby design which could be pretty office like to storefront 8 and retail sales area? 9 10 Ms. Tanner: I don’t know what the other Commissioners think but for Staff, I think that does 11 help to convey the dress of what the Commission may want. 12 13 Chair Hechtman: Any Commission comments on that? Commissioner Lauing, I see you hand up. 14 15 MOTION #2 16 17 Commissioner Lauing: I think these are all very good brainstorming ideas but in this example, 18 for example, the counter would be hey, if we have two chiropractors and we think that’s an ok 19 practice and they don’t have any product to sell. Why wouldn’t we let them lease it? Which 20 brings me to the point of I think we’re kind of waiving here late at night. So, I would like to 21 move to table the motion and move it to a date uncertain which is hopefully 2-weeks from 22 now. 23 24 SECOND 25 26 Commissioner Summa: I’ll second that. 27 28 Commissioner Templeton: Don’t we have a motion in progress? 29 30 Commissioner Lauing: I move to table that. 31 32 Ms. Tanner: The motion to continue supersede the motion on the floor. 33 34 Chair Hechtman: [unintelligible] 35 36 Commissioner Summa: Well, we… actually now we can have substitute motions. It’s in the new 37 handbook so. 38 39 Page 101 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Hechtman: Yeah but you don’t need it here because as Ms. Tanner just said, the motion 1 supersedes and so you’ve explained your motion. Do you (interrupted) 2 3 Commissioner Lauing: The motion would come back exactly as is and we can be discussing it 4 with the insight from Staff that they bring back and we hear so that they’ve had to study it. 5 6 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Summa, do you have any additional information regarding your 7 second that you want to share? 8 9 Commissioner Summa: No, I just think this is… we’ve gone in the wrong direction I think this 10 evening and I thought we were going in a good place where we were going to have some good 11 direction from Staff. But I think we’ve gone down a rabbit hole, particularly when we get into 12 thinking we understand what local anesthesia is and how that might be different. I had major 13 surgery and I didn’t… on my wrist and I have 16 screws in my arm, not under general 14 anesthetic. So, I think we’re just getting into stuff… definitions of things that we’re not experts 15 at and that we don’t understand and I think we should continue this discussion. 16 17 Ms. Tanner: Might the Commission consider if there is a motion to continue to the 26th of May? 18 19 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Lauing, is that acceptable to you as the maker of the motion? 20 He’s… your… I think you’re saying yes. You’re muted. 21 22 Commissioner Lauing: I wanted to say that that was preferable. That’s what I was hoping for. 23 24 Chair Hechtman: Preferable, ok and Commissioner Summa as the seconder? 25 26 Commissioner Summa: Yes. 27 28 Chair Hechtman: Thank you. Alright, ok we will hear from Commissioner Templeton. Sorry, 29 you’re muted. 30 31 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. I appreciate that it’s late and I also don’t want to go too 32 much longer because I don’t think it’s going to be terribly productive. I would love to see this 33 motion just dealt with. You know I think if we vote on it and then we can decide to continue 34 that would seem to be more fair given the investment that we’ve already made into discussions 35 tonight. I would hate to short circuit it. With all due apologies to Commissioner Lauing, I won’t 36 be supporting this motion. 37 38 Chair Hechtman: Vice-Chair Roohparvar. 39 40 Page 102 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: I agree. I’d like to see what happens with this motion and I think we’re 1 close. 2 3 VOTE 4 5 Chair Hechtman: Mr. Nguyen, will you conduct a roll call vote on the motion on the floor, 6 please? 7 8 Mr. Nguyen: Yes. Commissioner Alcheck? 9 10 Commissioner Alcheck: No. 11 12 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Chang? 13 14 Commissioner Chang: Yes. 15 16 Mr. Nguyen: Chair Hechtman? 17 18 Chair Hechtman: No. 19 20 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Lauing? 21 22 Commissioner Lauing: Yes. 23 24 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner… Vice-Chair Roohparvar? 25 26 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: No. 27 28 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Summa? 29 30 Commissioner Summa: Yes. 31 32 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Templeton? 33 34 Commissioner Templeton: No. 35 36 Mr. Nguyen: The motion does not carry. 37 38 MOTION #2 FAILS 3(Chang, Lauing, Summa) – 4(Alcheck, Hechtman, Roohparvar, Templeton) 39 40 Page 103 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. FRIENDLY AMENDMENT 1 2 Chair Hechtman: Alright, so we have a substantive motion on the floor, nearly 15 and a second 3 and so let me to follow up on the conversation we were having. Let me propose another 4 friendly amendment for consideration by the maker and the seconder of the motion. And that 5 in the definition of retail health to replace in the fourth line after storefront, to replace “and 6 entry lobby design” with “/retail sales area”. 7 8 Commissioner Templeton: Accepted. 9 10 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Alcheck? 11 12 Commissioner Alcheck: I accept this, I think it’s good guidance. 13 14 Chair Hechtman: So, I think we have… let’s see, let me then restate the changes that are being 15 proposed to the retail health definition A. Adding after general anesthesia the language “or 16 emergency services”, replacing in the fourth line “an entry lobby design” with “/retail sales 17 area”, replacing the 500-square feet with 750-square feet and replacing the 15 percent with 20 18 percent. Do I have all of the changes correctly identified? 19 20 Ms. Tanner: I had that urgent care services was along with emergency services not being 21 allowed but I don’t know if that was the will of the group. 22 23 Chair Hechtman: Was that part of the motion? Sorry, you’re muted. 24 25 Commissioner Templeton: That’s how it was. I… if anyone wants to change that, speak now. I’m 26 very flexible on that. 27 28 Commissioner Alcheck: Sorry, Director Tanner will you repeat that one more time? 29 30 Ms. Tanner: So, there were… so what I have remaining in terms of I think it was letter A was 31 listing certain types of things that could not occur. Certain services and one of the services that 32 could not occur would be emergency services. An additional service that could not occur would 33 be urgent care services. 34 35 Commissioner Alcheck: I don’t believe that Commissioner or Chair Hechtman’s amendment 36 intended to change that. Did it? 37 38 Ms. Tanner: No, it was going back to Commissioner Templeton’s original letter A restatement. 39 40 Page 104 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 think his amendment… my understanding was his amendment was 1 to… was as it related to anesthesia and… well, go ahead Mr. Hechtman. 2 3 Chair Hechtman: Yeah, no, I think the problem is that I didn’t include it in trying to restate the 4 motion and that was an unintentional oversight on my part. So, in addition to after general 5 anesthesia or emergency services or urgent care. 6 7 Ok and then the motion also includes a rewrite of Subpart D which is now comprised of two 8 sentences which were read into the record earlier. And then I heard Commissioner Alcheck 9 mention a couple times that he has a friendly amendment regarding really just direction to 10 Council I think to have Staff look at other places throughout the City that might benefit from 11 being able to use retail health and I’d be supportive of that concept. 12 13 Commissioner Templeton: Let me correct, I don’t believe he can direct Council. 14 15 Commissioner Alcheck: I literally could not have said it better. I could not have said it better so 16 if you don’t mind maybe you could make (interrupted) 17 18 Commissioner Templeton: Lets… I don’t think direct is the right word. 19 20 Chair Hechtman: Sorry, recommends to Council that instead of direct Council. 21 22 FRIEND AMENDMENT 23 24 Commissioner Alcheck: Yeah, I think that’s exactly the language. Look, everything we’re doing is 25 a recommendation and I would recommend that Council consider application of this retail 26 health flexibility to other shopping centers in the community. I wish that was what was before 27 us tonight. And I hope that… I think Council might say well if they want it, let them ask for it and 28 I hope they do if they want it and I hope they know. But we’re suppose to do this at some point, 29 retail discussion, it’s coming and this is a precursor to some extent so. 30 31 Chair Hechtman: So, I think that’s a proposed friendly amendment. I put that to the maker of 32 the motion. Commissioner Templeton says accepted, Commissioner Alcheck accepts. Ok, so we 33 have a motion and a second. Is Staff clear on the motion? I’m seeing Ms. Tanner say yes. So, 34 Mr. Nguyen please conduct a roll call vote on the motion on the floor. 35 36 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Alcheck? 37 38 Commissioner Alcheck: Thankfully yes. 39 40 Page 105 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Chang? 1 2 Commissioner Chang: No. 3 4 Mr. Nguyen: Chair Hechtman? 5 6 Chair Hechtman: Yes. 7 8 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Lauing? 9 10 11 Chair Hechtman: Muted. 12 13 Commissioner Lauing: Yep, sorry, no. 14 15 Mr. Nguyen: Vice-Chair Roohparvar? 16 17 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Yes. 18 19 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Summa? 20 21 Commissioner Summa: No. 22 23 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Templeton? 24 25 Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 26 27 Mr. Nguyen: The motion carries 4-3. 28 29 MOTION #1 PASSED 4(Alcheck, Hechtman, Roohparvar, Templeton) -3(Chang, Lauing, Summa) 30 31 Chair Hechtman: Alright thank you to members of Staff who hung out for the duration of that 32 dialog. Thank you for the… to the applicant and thank you to my fellow Commissioners for what 33 is just always respectful conversation, even when we’re not seeing eye to eye so I greatly 34 appreciate that. We’re going to move now to approval of minutes, Item Five. We have April 14th 35 draft PTC minutes as revised. 36 37 Commissioner Lauing: Excuse me, Chair? 38 39 Page 106 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Hechtman: Did I miss… oh, I did. I’m sorry, it’s the lateness of the hour. I did not ask 1 people to speak to their no votes. Forgive me. 2 3 Commissioner Lauing: Yes. 4 5 Chair Hechtman: So, thank you for reminding me. So, we’ll start with you Commissioner Lauing. 6 7 Commissioner Lauing: Yes, so I think that the… there’s a huge problem with the definition that 8 we ended up with because there’s no jurisdiction on what’s in and what’s out. Which means 9 that not only is it extraordinarily broad but there’s no deciding factor as to what’s in or what’s 10 out in my view. 11 12 Secondly, as I said in my comments, I support the extension of a valid retail medical ruling to 13 other areas and I do not think it should just be applied. So, I would kind of supported that last 14 amendment. Thank you. 15 16 Chair Hechtman: Sorry, I’m in transit here between rooms. Commissioner Summa, would you 17 like to speak to your no vote? 18 19 Commissioner Summa: Sure, thank you so much. Yeah, I don’t think we add to any clarity. I 20 think this is a confusing and weak direction to give. I don’t think it satisfies any sense of retail 21 and I don’t think it’s going to result in anything clear or good and I’m very sorry that it went 22 down the way it did. And I also… I just want to mention again that I don’t think it’s typical that 23 we allow an applicant to participate in making the… clarifying the motion and I wouldn’t like to 24 see that again. That’s the second or third time it’s happened now and I’d be happy to hear our 25 legal representative chime in on that. Thanks. 26 27 Ms. Tanner: I don’t know if you want that response now or if that was (interrupted) 28 29 Chair Hechtman: I’m having (interrupted) 30 31 Ms. Tanner: I mean I would offer no legal advice but if we were in a room together, the 32 applicant might raise their hand and indicate they want to speak. So, we could go over what our 33 Zoom protocols are for such interaction because if in the Chamber and then if you physically 34 see the hand. Then the Chair can decide to recognize or not recognize and so you know we 35 could review that type of protocol for the Zoom meetings. I don’t know Mr. Yang if you had any 36 legal to advise upon in terms of participation by applicants and other [unintelligible – audio cut 37 out]. 38 39 Mr. Yang: I guess if the Chair… with Chair’s permission? 40 Page 107 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Hechtman: Please. 2 3 Mr. Yang: As Commissioner Summa mentioned earlier, the Chair is always able to recognize the 4 applicant and I think it is actually fairly typical. If there is a motion that is made that differs from 5 what the applicant has initially sought for… before there is a vote on that motion to seek the 6 applicant’s input. So, you know, I’m not sure if there is a difference in the precise timing of 7 seeking that input from what the Commission has done in the past but in general, the overall 8 structure is fairly typical of any governing body. 9 10 Chair Hechtman: And frankly that has been my experience representing applicants in front of 11 Planning Commissions and City Council all over the south bay. That there are times when they 12 raise some new piece of information and I want to speak to it. And I raise my hand and the 13 Chair has the discretion to recognize me or not. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t 14 but it’s always been my understanding that that’s within the Chair discretion. Commissioner 15 Chang, would you like to speak to your no vote? Please do. 16 17 Commissioner Chang: Thank you. So, I was really excited the direction this was heading but 18 then now I’m just concerned that we’ve don’t done enough to make this truly retail health. I’m 19 worried that what we’ve done is essential forced just any medical office to have a larger lobby. 20 So, that’s why I voted no. Thank you. 21 22 Chair Hechtman: Thank you for your brevity and explanation. Commissioner Alcheck, I see your 23 hand up but you voted yes. So, is it related to this item? 24 25 Commissioner Alcheck: I want to suggest that I think this is the second or third time that the… 26 you're allowing applicant to speak has been challenged and I think it’s the second or third time 27 our legal counsel has clarified that it’s not legally problematic. And I think that we should 28 address that and we should deal with that because I don’t like the insinuation. I particular… I 29 have been consistently attacked in the press with… or even in the forums suggesting that 30 somehow the relationship with applicants is too close. I’ve never met this applicant, I don’t 31 know this applicant, and what did you tonight allowing the applicant to provide clarity is totally 32 within the reasonable expectations of Planning Commissions all over the state. And already 33 twice, in this calendar year, our legal counsel has suggested that. So, the continued statement 34 and the continued challenge gives the impression in my opinion to the community that there’s 35 an unethical act. And it calls into question the way we are working and I think that that’s 36 unhealthy. And so, I’m… I decided to raise my hand and make this point because I take it 37 personally and I find your integrity to be above reproach and I appreciate your leadership. And I 38 will consistently appreciate the legal counsel stepping in to defend what you’re doing and I 39 thank them for that. 40 Page 108 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Hechtman: [unintelligible – muted] Commissioner Alcheck, I guess I will say that it’s… the 2 hour is late and while this did come up at a prior meeting, not 10-minutes ago I forgot 3 something that Ms. Tanner said not 30-seconds after she said it. I couldn’t repeat it even 4 though I was trying to. So, the fact that at this late hour, Commissioner Summa may have raised 5 something that was raised before and maybe didn’t remember that, I don’t have any problem 6 with that and I do think it’s important for us to have rules that we all understand and so 7 hopefully now this rule is understood and won’t come up again. But I don’t fault Commissioner 8 Summa for making sure she understands. So, with that, I would like to move now to the 9 approval of the minutes. 10 Commission Action: Motion by Templeton, seconded by Alcheck. Pass 4-3 (Chang, Lauing, 11 Summa against) 12 Commission Action: Motion by Lauing, seconded by Summa. Fails 3-4 (Alcheck, Hechtman, 13 Roohparvar, Templeton against) 14 Approval of Minutes 15 Public Comment is Permitted. Five (5) minutes per speaker.1,3 16 5. April 14, 2021 Draft PTC Meeting Minutes 17 Chair Hechtman: And I see no hands but I’d like to see a hand to approve the April 14th minutes 18 as revised. Commissioner Summa. 19 20 MOTION 21 22 Commissioner Summa: So, moved. 23 24 Chair Hechtman: A second, please? Please. 25 26 SECOND 27 28 [note – Commissioner Alcheck held up two fingers to second the motion] 29 30 Chair Hechtman: Thank you. Commissioner Alcheck, seconds that motion. Mr. Nguyen, can we 31 have a roll call vote, please? 32 33 Mr. Vinh Nguyen, Admin Associate III: Commissioner Alcheck? 34 35 Commissioner Alcheck: Aye. 36 37 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Chang? 38 Page 109 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Chang: Yes. 2 3 Mr. Nguyen: Chair Hechtman? 4 5 Chair Hechtman: Yes. 6 7 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Lauing? 8 9 Commissioner Lauing: Yes. 10 11 Mr. Nguyen: Vice—Chair Roohparvar? 12 13 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Yes. 14 15 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Summa? 16 17 Commissioner Summa: Yes. 18 19 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Templeton? 20 21 Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 22 23 Mr. Nguyen: The motion carries 7-0. 24 25 MOTION PASSED 7(Alcheck, Chang, Hechtman, Lauing, Roohparvar, Summa, Templeton) -0 26 27 Chair Hechtman: Thank you. 28 Commission Action: Motion by Summa, seconded by Alcheck. Pass 7-0 29 Committee Items 30 Chair Hechtman: Are there Committee items? 31 32 Ms. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director: I think the one Committee we had, the XCAP is 33 concluded and then Housing Element, I think everybody’s pretty much up to speed. We did 34 have our first working group which Commissioner Lauing is on but it was similar I think 35 information to the joint meeting on Monday. So, I don’t think there are any updates from the 36 Housing Element group and the NVCAP is chugging along. I will say we are bringing NVCAP to 37 City Council on June 14th so mark your calendars. 38 39 Page 110 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Hechtman: Thank you for that. 1 Commissioner Questions, Comments or Announcements 2 Chair Hechtman: We will move to Commissioner questions, comments, announcements, or 3 future agenda items. Commissioner Lauing. 4 5 Commissioner Lauing: Yeah, let’s end this meeting on a high note. I just wanted to report that 6 the Lauing fleet is now 50 percent electric. We traded in a carbon-spewing automobile and got 7 a bolt. A Chevy bolt. Very tiny, very effective and we’re taking Zoom meetings now with Aptera 8 to learn how to run it and charge it and everything. So, put our money where our mouth is. Just 9 reporting it. 10 11 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Templeton. 12 13 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you, Chair. Commissioner Lauing, I have to say wise choice. I… 14 we have a bolt and we love it and I’ve never appreciated having an EV so much as this week 15 watching the east coast troubles with their ICEs. So, congratulations, I hope you love it as much. 16 What color did you get? 17 18 Commissioner Lauing: Greyish, greyish. Silver greyish. 19 20 Commissioner Templeton: It’s pretty, it’s great. I hope you love it. The comment I wanted to 21 make, also wanted to address the tone in the room is that I thought we had a really good 22 discussion tonight. And I anticipated that we might continue and continue our discussion and 23 that you would make that motion to continue after we vote on my motion. So, I… it wasn’t my 24 intention to cut that conversation short, just as I’m sure it was not your intention to cut the 25 conversation on the other motion short. I think we have a lot of say and there is still a lot of 26 work to do on this. So, I’m glad that we included the idea of diving in further on a broader… in a 27 broader on this topic so that we can refine things and get to the level of specificity that you are 28 hoping for. So anyway, Commissioners I appreciate the chance to have had the dialog tonight 29 and I hope that we will come out at the end of it. 30 31 Chair Hechtman: Vice-Chair Roohparvar. 32 33 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: I’ll be brief and maybe we don’t want to take this up right now but at 34 one of our prior meetings two things. We discussed whether we want to… we’ll we discussed 35 coming back as we got closer to the date whether to take 7/28 and 8/11 off and those were 36 called to the start week and I think it corresponded with City Council’s summer session that 37 they take off. So, I don’t know if we wanted to pick that up now or maybe at a subsequent 38 meeting but we did say at a prior meeting we would do that. 39 Page 111 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 And then I guess the secondary issue, I don’t know if you want to raise is Chair Hechtman or we 2 do it now but the retreat. It might be too late to open up these topics but I just wanted to put it 3 on people’s radars. So, we do have those two outstanding issues. 4 5 Chair Hechtman: Yes, thank you Vice-Chair. So, I would like to use what you just said to really 6 tee these two potentially related items up for Commission discussion at the end of our next 7 meeting which I am thinking is going to be shorter. It looks like it from the agenda. Whether we 8 want to recess for the last meeting in July, first week… first meeting in August and potentially 9 related to that, I’d like some feedback from those five Commissioners who have been to 10 retreats in the past, whether they think it’s worthwhile and we should think about one this 11 year. So, those are things for next time. Commissioner Summa. 12 13 Commissioner Summa: So, oops, oh, I’m on. So, we are supposed to do our… Assistant Director 14 Tanner will help me remember. 15 16 Ms. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director: Work plan. 17 18 Commissioner Summa: Our work plan for the Council. So, we should probably do that before, I 19 don’t know, half the year is up because that’s a new requirement. So, I think we need to think 20 about that. 21 22 Chair Hechtman: Good point. Alright, any other Commissioner comments or announcements? I 23 will point out… well, you can’t really see me pointing. How do I do that? That the… perhaps the 24 next time we meet that connecting piece will be in place. We’ll keep our fingers crossed and 25 with that, I am going to adjourn tonight’s meeting. Thank you. 26 Adjournment 27 11:56 pm 28