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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2021-12-08 Planning & transportation commission Summary Minutes_______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Planning & Transportation Commission 1 Action Agenda: December 8, 2021 2 Virtual Meeting 3 6:00 PM 4 5 Call to Order / Roll Call 6 Approximately 6:02 pm 7 Madina Klicheva, Administrative Assistant, conducted the roll call and announced that there is a 8 quorum present. 9 1. Adoption of a Resolution Authorizing Use of Teleconferencing for Planning and 10 Transportation Commission Meetings During Covid-19 State of Emergency 11 MOTION 12 Chair Hechtman introduced the item and stated that the item will need to be adopted monthly 13 until the Commission begins in-person meetings. He moved the adoption of the resolution. 14 SECOND 15 Vice-Chair Roohparvar seconded 16 VOTE 17 Madina Klicheva, Administrative Assistant, conducted a roll call vote and announced that the 18 motion passed 7-0. 19 MOTION PASSED 7-0 (Ayes: Alcheck, Chang, Lauing, Hechtman, Roohparvar, Summa, 20 Templeton) 21 Commission Action: Motion by Hechtman, seconded by Roohparvar. Pass 7-0 22 Oral Communications 23 The public may speak to any item not on the agenda. Three (3) minutes per speaker.1 24 Chair Hechtman invited members of the public to speak on items, not on the agenda. 25 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Madina Klicheva, Administrative Assistant, announced that there are no speakers for oral 1 communications. 2 Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions 3 The Chair or Commission majority may modify the agenda order to improve meeting management. 4 Chair Hechtman called for any agenda changes, additions and deletions. 5 Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director, reported that Staff has no proposed changes to the agenda. 6 City Official Reports 7 2. Directors Report, Meeting Schedule and Assignments 8 Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director, reported that at the last City Council meeting, the Council 9 adopted an Interim Urgency Ordinance to integrate Senate Bill (SB)9 into the Palo Alto 10 Municipal Code (PAMC). Also, Council made a Motion of Intent to adopt an Interim Ordinance 11 that contained additional updates to integrate SB478 into the PAMC. Staff will be bringing both 12 ordinances to the Planning and Transportation Commission (PTC) for review in January 2022. In 13 their coming meeting, Council will be appointing new Commissioners to the PTC and the new 14 Members will be joining the Commission in the year 2022. At the end of November, Council 15 heard the tenant protection item, and Council directed Staff to continue work on most of the 16 topics that PTC recommended. In January 2022, Staff will be presenting ordinances for various 17 tenant protections to the PTC. Council was still discussing when Commissions and Boards will 18 resume in-person meetings. Staff predicted it the Commission will hold in-person meetings in 19 January or February of 2022. Council has held several hybrid meetings and they were 20 successful. Lastly, the Sustainability Climate Action Plan (S/CAP) Ad Hoc Committee will hold a 21 meeting to discuss how land use and transportation can be used to reduce the City’s 22 greenhouse gas emissions. 23 Commissioner Summa reminded the Commission that public speakers are allowed to speak up 24 to 5-minutes during public comment for action items and that time can be reduced to 3-25 minutes at the discretion of the Chair. The agenda has an error and she requested that Staff fix 26 that for future meetings. 27 Vice-Chair Roohparvar inquired how the City’s 1990 greenhouse gas emission levels compare to 28 present times. Sylvia Star-Lack, Transportation Manager, answered that the City currently is less 29 than 1990 greenhouse gas emission levels due to the utility moving to green clean power. 30 Action Items 31 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Public Comment is Permitted. Applicants/Appellant Teams: Fifteen (15) minutes, plus three (3) minutes rebuttal. 1 All others: Five (5) minutes per speaker.2,3 2 3. Review Programs of the Implementation Chapter of the Comprehensive Plan and 3 Recommend Modifications or Additions 4 Chitra Moitra, Planner, stated that the goal of the presentation is to have Planning and 5 Transportation Commission (PTC) review the programs of the Implementation Chapter of the 6 Comprehensive Plan and recommend modifications or additions as necessary for City Council to 7 consider. Section 65400 of the State mandated Government Code requires the City to submit 8 an annual report by April 1st to the Office of Planning and Research (OPR) and the Department 9 of Housing and Community Development (HCD). Section 19.04.030 of the Palo Alto Municipal 10 Code (PAMC) requires PTC annual review of the Implementation Chapter and recommend any 11 revisions for Council consideration. Due to prior PTC members commenting that one meeting 12 with PTC is not enough time for PTC members to suggest changes to the Implementation 13 Chapter. Staff included a second meeting in the process in the fall of each year to allow PTC 14 another chance to review the status. PTC will be reviewing the Housing Element’s policy and 15 programs at their February review along with the Comprehensive Plan policies and programs. 16 The Implementation Chapter contained 410 programs with the Natural Environment Element 17 housing the majority of those with 109 programs. Staff has added an additional column to the 18 implementation table format that shows the status of each program. For the year 2021, eight 19 Comprehensive Plan programs have been completed, 31 programs were partially complete, 276 20 were ongoing and 95 were pending. Of the 410 programs, 72 have been completed in the last 21 4-years, which equated to roughly 18 percent completion. Many of the programs that were 22 completed in previous years have transitioned into ongoing programs. Next steps included Staff 23 returning to PTC in February of 2022 with any updates or changes that the Commissioners have 24 suggested and then the item will be presented to City Council in March of 2022. 25 Chair Hechtman invited Commissioners to ask clarifying questions of Staff. 26 Commissioner Lauing asked if the City is on track with its accomplishments. 27 Ms. Moitra remarked that the Comprehensive Plan goes to the year 2030 and so 20 percent it is 28 modest progress. 29 Commissioner Chang inquired of the 100 programs that have been designated as short-term 30 programs, how many of those have been completed. 31 Ms. Moitra could not recall the specific number. She mentioned that the programs that have 32 been completed have not followed the specific timing as defined for short-term, medium-term, 33 and long-term. 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Chang appreciated that answer because she wanted to understand why several 1 medium-term programs have been completed before short-term programs. She understood 2 that programs deemed as short-term were higher priority programs. 3 Ms. Moitra explained that programs that receive funding move up the list of priorities. 4 Clare Campbell, Long Range Planning Manager, added that if Commissioners have questions 5 about specific programs. To share those with Staff and Staff can follow up with the different 6 departments. 7 Commissioner Chang mentioned that renter protections were not considered to be a short-8 term item and was started over several other planning-related short-term programs. 9 Ms. Campbell confirmed that the City was able to obtain a Fellow through the Challenge Grant 10 Fellowship who helped Staff with the renter protection program. That additional resource 11 helped Staff move the renter protection program along quickly. 12 Commissioner Alcheck inquired if the spreadsheet in the Staff Report is what is submitted to 13 the various federal departments. 14 Ms. Moitra answered yes. 15 Commissioner Alcheck pointed out the sentence on the bottom of Packet Page 13 that read 16 “the status should include progress in meeting its share of regional housing needs and local 17 efforts to remove governmental constraints”. He requested an explanation of what that 18 sentence means. 19 Ms. Moitra predicted that the sentence is a remnant carried over from the previous year’s 20 report. 21 Commissioner Alcheck restated if the review includes a discussion of meeting the Regional 22 Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA). 23 Ms. Moitra restated that the housing programs will come to PTC in February 2022. 24 Ms. Campbell confirmed that is correct and the housing programs will be incorporated into the 25 full annual reporting. 26 Commissioner Alcheck asked if the report is an opportunity to give Palo Alto leadership an 27 update on how the City is meeting its goals; or if the report is a public relations effort to keep 28 the community aware of the status of the City’s progress. 29 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Ms. Moitra answered that the report covers both aspects because it is a status report and it 1 does show Palo Alto leadership what has been accomplished. 2 Ms. Campbell noted that the primary purpose of the report is to accomplish the annual 3 reporting that is required by April 1st. The information in the report can be viewed as a status 4 report, but that is not Staff’s intent. 5 Commissioner Alcheck commented that when the programs are viewed together broadly, it is 6 easy to become consumed in the details of each program’s success. The report is an 7 opportunity to show Palo Alto leadership truthfully how the City is progressing through the 8 various programs. One of the challenges that folks have is understanding the gap between the 9 Comprehensive Plan statement and the action that has to happen at City Council to empower 10 items to occur. He shared that it would be interesting to understand from Staff what local 11 efforts would be required to remove governmental constraints to meet the RHNA. He 12 encouraged Staff to provide more information on what PTC and Council can do to achieve 13 faster success for each program. 14 Chair Hechtman requested that Commissioner Alcheck hold his comments until the discussion 15 portion of the item. 16 Commissioner Alcheck agreed to hold his comments. 17 Commissioner Summa asked what happens when there is a program that is no longer 18 consistent with how the City wants to proceed. 19 Ms. Campbell confirmed that the City can make amendments to the Comprehensive Plan as 20 needed. 21 Albert Yang, Assistant City Attorney, confirmed that the City did amend the policy of not 22 allowing housing sites on San Antonio, but that change is not reflected in the status report. 23 Commissioner Summa understood that the City had abandoned the program regarding 24 underground utilities. 25 Ms. Campbell disclosed that Staff does not know the status of that particular program. 26 Ms. Moitra indicated that she would follow up with department Staff. 27 Chair Hechtman invited public comment. 28 Madina Klicheva, Administrative Assistant, called on Cindy Chan. 29 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Cindy Chan begins her comments regarding Castilleja School. 1 Chair Hechtman requested that Ms. Chan hold her comments until the Castilleja item is heard. 2 Ms. Chan apologized and confirmed she would hold her comments until later in the meeting. 3 Chair Hechtman closed public comment and brought the item back to the Commission for 4 discussion. 5 Commissioner Alcheck wanted to see a process where the City can take specific actions to 6 empower Staff to be able to move forward with specific programs. Housing is a high priority in 7 the community and it would be helpful to understand the governmental constraints that are 8 holding the various housing programs back. 9 Commissioner Chang commented that there is a self-imposed deadline that the City has to 10 complete short-term items in the first 5-years. As presented, it was hard to understand the big 11 picture status of where the City is and is City on track. If that can be understood, then PTC, 12 Staff, and Council can understand the status and gaps. Many of the short-term programs relate 13 to retail strategy and those programs deserve to be a higher priority because of the COVID-19 14 pandemic. Also, it is hard for the City and PTC to respond to applicants because the City 15 currently does not have an overall retail strategy. 16 Vice-Chair Roohparvar asked if Staff engages in resource planning and provides regular checks 17 in with Council outside of the annual budget process. 18 Ms. Campbell clarified that every department has its own programs, policies, and projects. The 19 City does have a mid-year budget process as well as an annual budget process. During those 20 times is when each department reprioritizes its various goals and purposes for its individual 21 programs, policies, and projects. 22 Ms. Moitra added that Capital Improvement Projects (CIP) also consider budget, resources, 23 planning, etc. 24 Vice-Chair Roohparvar inquired if there are check-ins with City Council or only the formal 25 processes. 26 Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director, noted that if Staff does not have Council authority, Staff 27 cannot do it. That authority can rest in the Comprehensive Plan that is adopted by Council, but 28 if there is no budget. Then Staff cannot move forward with the work. 29 Vice-Chair Roohparvar agreed that it depends upon whether funding is available and resources. 30 Then prioritization is changed based on whether funding and Staff time is available. 31 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Ms. Tanner concurred that major events, such as a pandemic, can drastically shift what 1 programs and projects move forward more quickly. 2 Vice-Chair Roohparvar asked if Council drives the decision on prioritization or does Staff has the 3 ability to operate and act. 4 Ms. Tanner answered that direction is provided to Staff through the Comprehensive Plan and 5 Council may use the Comprehensive Plan to inform their budgeting and priority decisions. 6 Commissioner Summa stated that the City would love to complete all of the programs, but folks 7 have to understand that it cannot all be done or all done at once. She requested that the 8 Housing Element Ad Hoc Committee discuss L2.4.6 and the trio of programs regarding parks 9 under C4. She predicted L6.3.1 would be easy to implement because there are existing 10 standards and best practices around bird-friendly building design. Regarding L7.1.2, that work is 11 long overdue and she encouraged Staff to explore that at a rapid pace. 12 Commissioner Lauing mentioned that L4.2.2 states that the Office of Transportation continues 13 to assess parking in the California Avenue District and he could not see how that comment is 14 related to formula retail. 15 Chair Hechtman inquired if Staff added any new programs. 16 Ms. Campbell answered no. 17 Chair Hechtman commented that the relationship between the ongoing status and completed 18 status is confusing. Some of the completed programs transitioned to ongoing programs. He 19 asked if there is better clarification that can be used to distinguish between the two statuses. 20 Ms. Campbell agreed that Staff also struggles with those determinations. With each year, Staff 21 develops better reporting skills. One component that Staff is working on is better 22 understanding what each status means and making sure that all City departments are using the 23 same approach. 24 Chair Hechtman appreciated Ms. Campbell’s answer and that Staff is aware that the reporting is 25 confusing. He asked why Staff has decided to bring the item to PTC twice a year. 26 Ms. Campbell restated that a prior PTC Member had requested that Staff bring the item to PTC 27 twice a year. This will allow Staff time to implement any changes that are suggested by PTC 28 Members before the April 1st deadline. 29 Ms. Moitra added that what is presented is a huge volume of information and one session is 30 not enough time for PTC Members to provide meaningful comments. 31 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Hechtman remarked that seeing the item twice is not very efficient of time, but he 1 understood Staff’s logic. He recommended that Staff bring the item to PTC in December instead 2 of February and that would allow Staff enough time before their deadline to make any changes 3 recommended by PTC. 4 Ms. Moitra disclosed that the issue of bringing it earlier than February is that the PTC will not 5 receive the full-year accomplishments. 6 Commissioner Summa stated that PTC could try it semi-annually. 7 Commissioner Lauing supported Chair Hechtman’s suggestion to have the item come to PTC in 8 December instead of February. 9 Commissioner Chang supported Chair Hechtman’s proposal, but if the goal is to have PTC 10 review it earlier to help assist with reprioritization, she requested that Staff parse the 11 completions status out department by department or by priority determination as well as 12 provide Staff commentary on which groups of programs have been reprioritized and why. 13 Ms. Tanner emphasized that the document’s intent is not to raise flags to PTC or Council about 14 priorities. Staff cannot do analyses for all 410 programs and the second meeting is to allow 15 Commissioners to ask questions and provide meaningful feedback that Staff can incorporate 16 into the document. 17 Commissioner Alcheck stated that it is never a bad idea to have the PTC interact with 18 Comprehensive Plan topics. In prior years, PTC Members worked in groups of two to edit the 19 Comprehensive Plan and now that process is no longer used. He supported Staff and other 20 Commissioners who want to have two presentations on the topic a year. He restated that it 21 would be helpful if Staff had the authority to flag items for PTC and Council that need higher 22 priority or that have become lost among the other programs. 23 Commissioner Summa asked if the PTC reviews proposed Comprehensive Plan amendments. 24 Mr. Yang answered yes. 25 Vice-Chair Roohparvar agreed that it would be helpful to have the item come to the 26 Commission twice. She agreed with Commissioner Alcheck that it would be helpful if Staff could 27 flag high-priority programs, but confirmed that Ms. Tanner said that Staff does not have the 28 resources to do that. She suggested that Staff flag two or three items, or major alarming 29 overarching issues, that are of concern so that PTC and Council can consider them. 30 Chair Hechtman requested that Staff show in the spreadsheet what items have changed status 31 since the PTC last reviewed it. He was not requesting a progress report on all 410 programs. 32 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 4. PUBLIC HEARING/QUASI JUDICIAL/LEGISLATIVE: Review of the Castilleja School's 1 Requested Conditional Use Permit and Variance per Council Direction March 29, 2 2021, and Review of a Draft Ordinance per Council Direction Amending Section 3 18.04.030 Regarding Definition of Gross Floor Area in the R1 Zone for Below Grade 4 Garages. Zone District: R-1(10,000). Environmental Review: The Final Environmental 5 Impact Report (EIR) was Published July 30, 2020 and the Draft EIR was Published July 6 15, 2019 7 Chair Hechtman read the item into the record. 8 Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director mentioned that there are several members of the public 9 who have decided to have a spokesperson for their comments. 10 Amy French, Chief Planning Official, requested that Commissioners state any disclosures they 11 have for the item. 12 Vice-Chair Roohparvar shared that Preserve Neighborhood Quality of Life (PNQL) contacted her 13 and they provided a binder with all of the published public comments. 14 Commissioner Summa disclosed she also received a binder. 15 Commissioner Chang agreed that she also received a binder and that she had met with several 16 concerned neighbors. 17 Commissioner Lauing confirmed he also received a binder. 18 Commissioner Alcheck noted that he did not receive a binder. 19 Chair Hechtman shared that he had a Zoom meeting with two of the applicant’s attorneys 20 during which they reviewed the elements of the documents that have been presented to the 21 City. He indicated that when Commissioner Templeton arrives at the meeting, he will request 22 that she share any disclosures she has. 23 Ms. French announced that the applicant has prepared a presentation as well and their 24 presentation is focused on the Transportation Demand Management (TDM) Plan. Staff 25 recommended that the Planning and Transportation Commission (PTC) continue the item to a 26 date uncertain. In 2020, PTC recommended approval to City Council for the Conditional Use 27 Permit (CUP) as well as approval of the Variance. PTC supported CUP Finding 1 with a vote of 4-28 2, with the dissenters expressing concerns about enrollment increases, number of events and 29 potential impacts. PTC had a split vote of 3-3 on Finding 2 due to a disagreement regarding 30 Staff’s interpretation of the subterranean parking facility. One PTC Member suggested a Zoning 31 Text Amendment facilitate Staff’s interpretation. City Council discussed the project on March 32 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 15, 2021, and March 29, 2021. Three motions were passed at the March 15, 2021, Council 1 meeting which was later refined on March 29, 2021. Council referred back Items B through E to 2 the Architectural Review Board (ARB) as well as Items C and D. On March 15, 2021, Council 3 motioned that PTC reviews the draft changes to the Gross Floor Area (GFA) definition to count 4 below-grade parking facility for non-residential use in the R-1 zone on a 6-acre parcel 5 containing a historic resource that provides parking spaces beyond 50 percent of code-required 6 spaces toward GFA. On March 29, 2021, Council moved that PTC review Items A, B and H and 7 provide recommendations. Item A pertained to enrollment and allowed Castilleja School to 8 increase students in incremental phases starting at 450 students. Council directed PTC and Staff 9 to identify a procedure to allow Castilleja School to increase enrollment up to 540 students, 10 contingent upon their verified compliance with no net new trips. On March 29, 2021, Council 11 moved that PTC and Staff strengthen existing TDM protections, reporting requirements, and 12 penalties for failure to meet conditions of approval. Also, that PTC review increases the number 13 of students as a percentage of the student population within bicycle distance and restricts 14 student driving and parking on campus. Also, to evaluate a form of a TDM Oversight Committee 15 and consider allowing a reduction of required parking based on a TDM. Item B of Council’s 16 motion pertained to parking reduction. Council directed Staff and PTC to review an 17 underground parking facility that allowed a maximum of 50 percent of required on-site parking 18 to be below grade without counting against the project’s GFA. Per this motion, 52 parking 19 spaces are allowed below grade. The applicant prepared five parking options that complied 20 with Council’s motion as well as requested a Parking Adjustment. ARB reviewed the five parking 21 options and supported Parking Option E that had 52 below parking spaces with a 14.4 percent 22 Parking Adjustment and preserved trees; and Option D, the applicant’s preference, which 23 included 69 spaces below grade with adjusted parking of 9 percent. Contained in the motion for 24 Item B, Council directed Staff to explore a Residential Parking Program (RPP) or alternative 25 strategies for the surrounding neighborhood. Regarding Item H, PTC recommended 74 events 26 and Council directed Staff and PTC to evaluate whether five major events with 50 to 70 smaller 27 events are more appropriate. The Text Amendment would exclude a portion of the garage that 28 contained 50 percent or fewer code-required parking spaces with the understanding that the 29 entire garage would be counted if more than 50 percent of the required spaces are below 30 grade. The Text Amendment would apply only to one other property that resides in the R-1 31 zone that is on 6-acres or more. Regarding enrollment, Staff proposed to allow Castilleja School 32 to enroll 490 after the completion of the parking garage and then have an annual increase of 25 33 students up to 540 students. PTC recommended to Council that there be no enrollment until 34 performance standards of Condition #22 are met for the preceding three reporting periods. 35 Council was concerned that the City would not be able to rectify non-compliance with the 36 proposed processes and recommended that Staff and PTC discuss the topic further. Regarding 37 the TDM Plan, the applicant has provided an updated TDM Plan that addressed the Office of 38 Transportation’s comments and questions. The applicant submitted a parking supply and 39 demand study, but the study did not consider the reduction from the TDM Plan 40 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. implementation. At this time, Staff was not requesting any feedback regarding a potential RPP 1 for the neighborhood and public art. Regarding events, Staff recommended that Castilleja 2 School be allowed 70 events, with five major events and no Sunday events. On December 2, 3 2021, ARB reviewed the academic building's 4,370-square foot reduction and reconsidered the 4 massing and compatibility of the design with the residential neighborhood. Three ARB 5 Members expressed interest in further modifications to the Kellogg-facing façade which two 6 ARB Members opposed. ARB also discussed the construction phasing and the temporary 7 campus. The ARB unanimously supported the 34-month schedule using a temporary campus on 8 Spieker Field. A third party was obtained to laser count the existing buildings' square footage on 9 campus. Based on the volumetric space, the existing campus is larger than the proposed 10 campus. Staff recommended that PTC focus their discussion on the garage GFA definition, 11 enrollment increase procedures, TDM plan measures, RPP versus time-of-day restrictions, 12 special events and any other direction or comments. 13 Chair Hechtman invited the Chair of the ARB to provide any additional comments. 14 Osma Thompson, Chair of the ARB, noted that while ARB unanimously supported Option E for 15 the parking garage. Each Board Member had concerns regarding the fence that comes with 16 Option E and garage truck maneuvering. The ARB would like to explore those two areas more 17 thoroughly. 18 Chair Hechtman invited Commissioners to ask clarifying questions of Staff. 19 Vice-Chair Roohparvar inquired if the word “base” means calculations without parking 20 reductions. She recommended that the definition for “base” be refined because the current 21 definition is too vague. She asked what does Council means in their motion when they say that 22 the parking garage shall be partially excluded from the GFA calculation. 23 Albert Yang, Assistant City Attorney, confirmed that Staff will refine the definition for base 24 parking requirements. Regarding Council’s motion, the Council made motions over two nights 25 and the motions made on March 15, 2021, were later refined on March 29, 2021. 26 Vice-Chair Roohparvar asked if 25 students is a class size at Castilleja School. 27 Ms. French explained that class size varies depending on the class. 28 Vice-Chair Roohparvar asked if the parking reductions will change the analysis for the number 29 of trips to the project. 30 Ms. French clarified that the number of trips is set by the motion and the project cannot do 31 new net trips. 32 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Vice-Chair Roohparvar requested that Staff further explain what volumetric GFA means. 1 Ms. French shared that the PAMC includes in the calculation of GFA volumes of a building 2 where if the first floor exceeds 17-feet above grade it is counted twice towards GFA. The lobby 3 of the existing gym and the main gym area currently exceed 17-feet. Those portions have been 4 counted twice in the current measurements per PAMC. The current Fine Arts Center also 5 exceeds the 17-foot threshold, but that building is proposed to be demolished. The new 6 building will not exceed the 17-foot threshold and will have a smaller footprint than the existing 7 structure. 8 Vice-Chair Roohparvar asked why the existing offsite parking facility located on Cowper Street 9 does not count as satellite parking. 10 Ms. French confirmed that the parking is located on a residential street and Castilleja School 11 has an agreement with the church located there. Council’s motion stated that the satellite 12 parking cannot be in a residential neighborhood and so the existing parking is not in the right 13 location. 14 Vice-Chair Roohparvar requested that Staff explain the penalties if Castilleja School becomes 15 out of compliance. 16 Ms. French explained that for every infraction, the penalties increase, and the penalties will be 17 applied if Castilleja School does not come into compliance through mitigations or TDM 18 measures. 19 Vice-Chair Roohparvar asked if there is a current problem with Castilleja students and faculty 20 parking on the neighborhood streets or is that an anticipated impact. 21 Ms. French added concerning satellite parking, the existing satellite parking is 500-feet away 22 from the campus. Typically, a Parking Adjustment that included satellite parking is not farther 23 than 500-feet away from a project. 24 Philip Kamhi, Chief Transportation Official, shared that residents in the neighborhood have not 25 raised concerns to Staff about Castilleja students and faculty parking on the neighborhood 26 streets. The typical process to determine if an RPP is needed is for residents to express their 27 concerns through a parking survey conducted by Staff. For schools, there are other possible 28 parking solutions and Staff is required to explore those options before implementing an RPP. 29 Vice-Chair Roohparvar wanted to know if there is a non-residential neighborhood within 500-30 feet of the Castilleja campus that could have satellite parking. 31 Ms. French could not recall if there is one within 500-feet of the campus. 32 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Mr. Yang clarified that 500-feet is the limit outlined in the PAMC where satellite parking can be 1 counted towards the parking requirement for the site. Council’s motion directed Staff to 2 explore satellite parking as a Condition of Approval and that it would not replace onsite parking. 3 Vice-Chair Roohparvar asked if that approach would trigger any environmental analyses. 4 Mr. Yang concurred that supplemental analysis may be needed depending on where it is 5 located. 6 Chair Hechtman suggested the Commission take a 10-minute break and then continue with 7 Commissioner questions of Staff. 8 [The Commission took a 10-minute break] 9 Chair Hechtman invited Commissioner Templeton to share any disclosures she may have. 10 Commissioner Templeton answered that she has no disclosures to share. 11 Commissioner Summa understood that satellite parking is parking at a remote location that 12 uses shuttles. Offsite parking that is located within 500-feet of a project would be parking that 13 fulfills part of the parking requirements for a project. 14 Ms. French explained that the satellite parking can only be tied to a Parking Adjustment if it is 15 located within 500-feet of a project. 16 Jonathan Lait, Director of Planning, concurred that Commissioner Summa’s understanding is 17 correct. For Castilleja School, they are meeting the parking requirement through a reduced 18 Parking Adjustment and if there is a need for additional parking. That parking can be located 19 offsite but would not be required parking. 20 Commissioner Summa commented that typically offsite parking is for commercial or multi-21 family zones. 22 Mr. Lait restated that through the CUP, the City can impose a condition for offsite parking. 23 Ms. French confirmed that commercial zones do contain language about having satellite 24 parking 500-feet away to meet parking requirements. In response to Council’s motion, the 25 applicant has submitted a Parking Adjustment request in which various parking tools can be 26 used to fulfill those requirements. 27 Mr. Yang clarified that the applicant is not proposing there be offsite parking. 28 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Summa asked if Council’s motion used the term ‘base requirement’ or ‘parking 1 requirement’. She argued that there is quite a difference between the two terms. 2 Mr. Lait explained that Staff took that direction as using the PAMC required parking that was 3 required at the time Council saw the application and not from a reduced parking 50 percent 4 threshold. 5 Commissioner Summa stated that removing the buildings with the volumetric space does not 6 result in a project with no grandfathers square feet over what would be allowed. 7 Ms. French explained that the gym is the most grandfathered space. The Fine Arts Center that 8 will be demolished, the applicant is not proposing to put that square footage back in the new 9 building. 10 Commissioner Summa shared that she did not understand how the school can build more 11 square footage with the new facility that would otherwise not be allowed on the site. 12 Mr. Lait explained that the CUP process was the vehicle that was used in the past to allow the 13 site to exceed the permitted floor area calculation in the R-1 Zone. A more contemporary 14 reading of the PAMC disclosed that using the CUP process is not the right approach. The 15 applicant then submitted a Variance application. Staff acknowledged that there were errors 16 made in assessing the existing floor area and that the project is over the floor area ratio (FAR) 17 that would be allowed currently. 18 Commissioner Lauing pointed that PTC did not receive information in the Packet for many of 19 the items that Staff outlined is within the PTC purview. He inquired if those materials will be 20 available at the continued hearing. 21 Mr. Lait agreed that all of the information is not in the Packet. The reason is that the feedback 22 received from PTC and ARB will help inform the next step of Staff bringing back more refined 23 information and Conditions of Approval. If there is information that PTC wants to be included in 24 the next Packet, he requested that be shared with Staff. 25 Commissioner Lauing inquired what will the Variance be asking for. 26 Ms. French answered that she would have to find the information and will provide it later in the 27 meeting. 28 Commissioner Lauing clarified that Council has not approved any of PTC’s recommendations 29 except for the starting point of 450 student enrollment. 30 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Ms. French confirmed that Council has not certified the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) or 1 motions to approve the project. 2 Commissioner Chang shared that she reviewed the minutes and understood that Council 3 recommended that PTC consider a no underground garage option. She asked if a no 4 underground parking option was ever presented. 5 Ms. French confirmed that in the Draft EIR there is no underground garage alternative and that 6 was part of the analysis. 7 Commissioner Chang inquired when the EIR was drafted. 8 Ms. French answered that the Draft EIR was prepared in 2019 and the Final EIR to address the 9 comments received on the Draft EIR was prepared in July of 2020. 10 Commissioner Chang reiterated that at the March 2021 Council meeting, they instructed PTC 11 and Staff to review a non-under ground parking facility option and an underground parking 12 facility alternative. She reasked if Staff and PTC ever received a new, no underground 13 alternative since that March 2021 motion. 14 Ms. French answered no, the March 15, 2021, Council motion was later refined on March 29, 15 2021, and Staff completed the work based on the March 29, 2021 motions. 16 Commissioner Chang asked what are the requirements for a Parking Adjustment. 17 Ms. French explained that Parking Adjustments are typically done by the Director of Planning 18 and several code statements must be met to grant those. 19 Commissioner Alcheck asked if the proposed floor area is great too, less than, or equal to 20 existing conditions. 21 Ms. French confirmed that the proposed floor area is less than existing conditions. 22 Commissioner Alcheck inquired what the floor area is if the parking garage is included. 23 Ms. French restated that per Council’s motion, the garage will not be counted toward the floor 24 area. 25 Commissioner Alcheck asked if Staff thinks that it is counter-intuitive to approve a smaller 26 garage when the school is only going to be growing in size. 27 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Ms. French explained that GFA addresses bulk and mass above grade and anything below grade 1 is not adding bulk and mass. The success of the TDM Program will determine if a larger garage 2 should have been approved. 3 Commissioner Alcheck wanted to understand what flaws Council foresaw with PTC’s 4 recommended approach on how to phase in increased enrollment. 5 Ms. Lait mentioned that Council expressed that Council wanted consequences to be applied in a 6 more timely fashion than what was recommended in PTC’s suggested approach. 7 Commissioner Alcheck remarked that maybe Council did not understand PTC’s phased 8 enrollment approach. The Commission had established that the school has to show proof that 9 they have sustained a no net increase for the past increase before a new increase can occur. 10 Mr. Lait agreed that the Commission provided a very thoughtful approach for Council to 11 consider and Council has asked Staff to reevaluate it. 12 Commissioner Alcheck recalled that PTC’s original recommendation was to start enrollment 13 increases in the 420 student range instead of 450 students. He asked if Staff has a visual 14 diagram of how PTC’s original enrollment proposal would work and provided that to the 15 Council. 16 Chair Hechtman could not recall discussing volumetric measurements when PTC discussed the 17 Variance. He asked when the PTC reviews the Variance again, will it include volumetric floor 18 area or GFA, or both. 19 Mr. Yang clarified that the volumetric floor area is part of GFA and both measurements will be 20 included in the presentation for the Variance. 21 Chair Hechtman invited the applicant to present their presentation and disclosed that they will 22 have 15-minutes. 23 Nanci Kauffman, Head of School for Castilleja School, expressed appreciation to Staff and the 24 Commission for their thoughtful guidance on the project. The proposal before the Commission 25 was built on many years of compromise between the school, the neighbors, and the City. The 26 proposal responded to the neighbor’s concerns by reducing the school’s footprint, capping car 27 trips, limiting hours of operation, reducing the number of events, moving parking out of sight, 28 saving and adding trees, and mitigating noise. All of this is achieved while still meeting the 29 project’s objective of building a modern, sustainable campus and educating more girls. 30 Regarding the enrollment increase, educating more girls for a better and more equitable future 31 is one of the core goals of the school. To achieve this goal, Castilleja School needs the City’s 32 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. help to allow for more girls to be enrolled. Castilleja School understands that enrollment 1 increases rely upon the school’s ability to mitigate trips, events, and parking. Regarding parking, 2 with the help of the City, there is a way to responsibly grow enrollment while still meeting all of 3 the parking requirements. They requested that the Commission provide clear actionable steps 4 that Castilleja School can take to move their project forward for approval. 5 Adam Woltag, the applicant’s architect, reminded the Commission that the proposed campus 6 design included a dispersed campus drop-off approach. Council recommended that the project 7 team reduce the parking garage footprint along with other parking recommendations. Parking 8 Options A through E reflected those recommendations by reconfiguring the lot and allowing 9 further protections for trees. ARB supported Option D and Option E because they allowed 10 protections for trees and reduced below-grade parking capacity. Option D accommodated 69 11 parking spaces below grade with 26 spaces remaining above grade. It also reduced the garage’s 12 impact on adjacent trees and allowed loading and deliveries to be located below ground to 13 mitigate noise. Option D did not affect traffic circulation as it pertained to the distributed drop-14 off strategy. Option E accommodated 52 parking spaces below grade with 37 spaces above 15 grade. The parking garage footprint was reduced to reduce or eliminate impacts to adjacent 16 trees and shifted the pool to allow for more protection of trees. Loading and deliveries for 17 Option E are proposed to be at grade level and included an acoustic fence along Emerson to 18 mitigate noise. Option E does not affect the distributed drop-off strategy. 19 Elizabeth Hughes, the applicant’s TDM expert, remarked that Castilleja School already has an 20 excellent TDM Program. All of the additional proposed measures make their plan superior to 21 other TDM Programs. TDM is a synergistic grouping of elements and is not a single element. 22 The synergist grouping creates a TDM measure that is significantly more enhanced. Castilleja 23 School’s proposed TDM Program incorporated the existing measures that included enhanced 24 measures and added additional measures to make the plan more robust. The TDM Program will 25 accomplish no net new trips and cover the parking shortfalls. 26 Chair Hechtman suggested that the Commission hear from the public speakers, hear the 27 applicant’s rebuttal and then decide either to ask questions of the applicant or move to 28 continue the hearing to a date uncertain. He announced that each speaker will have 2-minutes 29 to speak. 30 Alan Cooper shared that his home is located across the street from Castilleja School. He 31 appreciated that the City continues to work with the school and the neighbors to come to a 32 compromised agreement. Per his letter sent to the Commission, the letter outlined seven 33 concerns in which he provided simple solutions and he requested that the Commission consider 34 those recommendations. He strongly encouraged Castilleja School to move to an offsite 35 temporary campus during construction. 36 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Ms. Tanner remarked that the PTC’s Procedural Rules indicate that the Chair can only limit 1 public speaker comments to 3-minutes and that the language in the agenda contains an error. 2 She requested that the Chair allow 3-minutes per speaker and allow Mr. Cooper an additional 3 minute for his comments. 4 Mr. Yang supported Ms. Tanner’s understanding of the PTC’s Procedural Rules. 5 Chair Hechtman apologized and requested that Mr. Cooper take an additional minute to 6 provide any other comments. 7 Mr. Cooper announced that he has no further comments. 8 Anu Priyadarshi asked that the Commission support Castilleja School’s modernization plan. The 9 proposal reduces the school’s impact on the neighborhood and the environment. She 10 requested that the Commission support Option D for the parking garage so it can house more 11 cars if the school ever decided to expand in the future. 12 Eduardo Llach encouraged PTC to move the project forward to City Council for approval. He 13 acknowledged that Palo Alto High School has constructed many buildings over the years on 14 their campus while Castilleja has remained the same size. He commented that the proposed 15 improvements to protect more trees are fantastic. He stated that he has always supported 16 Castilleja’s project and will continue until it is approved. 17 Madina Klicheva, Administrative Assistant, called on J. Fleming. Due to J. Fleming having 18 technical difficulties, she called upon Jochen Profit. 19 Jochen Profit seconded Mr. Llach’s comments and encouraged the Commission to recommend 20 approval to the City Council. He seconded Commissioner Alcheck’s comment of having the City 21 approve a larger garage to allow the school to expand in the future. 22 Julia Ishiyama expressed that the proposed enrollment increase plan that is based on no net 23 new trips already creates an incentive structure that guarantees compliance. She remarked that 24 the small group of residents who oppose the project may never support the project. The City 25 should not continue to accommodate their unrealistic enrollment concerns. She emphasized 26 that the City needs to approve the project so that the school can continue to educate more 27 girls. She did not support limiting enrollment to Palo Alto residents only. 28 Ms. Klicheva called on LFB, but after LFB had technical difficulties, she moved to Lian. 29 Lian stated that after the last PTC hearing on Castilleja, it was understood that the garage will 30 not bring more cars to the neighborhood. She encouraged other organizations in Palo Alto to 31 follow Castilleja’s lead regarding their TDM Program. She strongly supported the underground 32 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. garage and found it to be a wise, long-term investment. She requested that PTC recommend 1 approval of the project to Council. 2 Mary Sylvester spoke on behalf of five residents and Keith Bennett with Save Palo Alto’s 3 Groundwater. Underground construction, along with climate change and population growth, 4 impacts the community’s groundwater. She encouraged any decisions made on underground 5 construction to be made based upon an up-to-date Geotechnical Study. Also, that the EIR be 6 project-design specific and include accurate and current ground conditions. The Draft EIR was 7 prepared in 2017, the Geotechnical Study had a clearly-stated expiration date of early 2020 and 8 the Draft EIR did not consider the excavation of the proposed swimming pool. The water table 9 at the pool location was 25-feet below grade in autumn and raised to 18-feet below grade 10 during winter storms. Contractors are required per the Building Code to dewater 2-feet below 11 the deepest excavation, but oftentimes they go deeper. Palo Alto’s Dewatering Ordinance does 12 not impose any restrictions on the rate or total amount of groundwater that is pumped. Also, 13 unless it is specifically required as a Condition of Approval, cut-off walls are not required. Based 14 on projects located in Old Palo Alto, which has similar soils, groundwater could be lowered by 15 5-feet or more for many months and likely over an area that extends 500-feet from the 16 construction site. The school is located on a parcel that is near an area of high recharge for the 17 deep aquifer and the City relied on that aquifer for emergency portable water supply. 18 Groundwater also provides water for vegetation as the soils above the water are moist. An 19 often overlooked impact of underground construction in high groundwater areas was 20 greenhouse emissions from the concrete used. The manufacturing of concrete releases 400-21 pounds of CO2 per ton of concrete and the CO2 emissions for the underground construction for 22 the project equated to 1,340,000 pounds. Underground construction will also increase the load 23 on the City’s Stormwater Management System. In conclusion, she recommended that a new 24 Geotechnical report and updated Draft EIR be complete as well as the applicant consider design 25 alternatives that do not require underground construction. 26 Maya Blumenfeld supported Castilleja’s modernization plan. Castilleja is one of the finest all-girl 27 schools in the country and she encouraged PTC to recommend again that Council approve the 28 project. The improved proposal fulfilled many of the concerns the City and neighbors had while 29 allowing the school to grow. 30 Rebecca Sanders announced that she is Co-Chair of Palo Alto Neighborhoods (PAN) and spoke 31 on their behalf. PAN believed that none of the proposed parking options complied with the law 32 because they all add more floor area to the site than is allowed. PAN explained that if Castilleja 33 adopted a TDM that earns Castilleja a 20 percent parking reduction. Then Castilleja can meet 34 the City’s parking requirements with their existing 89 spaces. This option would not require an 35 underground garage which benefits the neighbors, the City, Castilleja and the environment. 36 PAN encouraged PTC to recommend that Castilleja returns with a parking proposal that does 37 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. not include an underground garage. She concluded by thanking Ms. Sylvester for expressing her 1 concerns regarding underground construction and groundwater. 2 Ms. Klicheva called on Andie Reed and requested she provide her comments to the 3 Commission. 4 After Ms. Reed had technical difficulties, Chair Hechtman suggested that the Commission hear 5 the next speaker in line and then return to Ms. Reed. 6 Barbara Gross thanked the Commission for recommending approval to Council at their last 7 meeting. Per Council direction, Castilleja made improvements to their project, and she stated 8 those improvements should allow the Commission to again recommend approval. She 9 supported having deliveries off of Emerson Street and more isolated on the campus. She agreed 10 that the folks who oppose the project continue to be unsatisfied with any changes the school 11 proposes. 12 Ms. Reed spoke on behalf of a group of five residents. She appreciated that Council 13 recommended that Dudek, a third-party, measure the existing square footage of the campus. 14 Dudek released their assessment regarding square footage on November 17, 2021. The report 15 mentioned that the existing GFA was substantially more than what was allowed by the Code. 16 This report proved that the square footage being requested in the Variance will also make the 17 campus exceed GFA. In the PTC Packet, there was no mention of the report. Regarding the 18 Variance, she explained that the findings that the PTC considered at their November 2, 2020 19 meeting did not list the number of square feet that was being asked for. The Variance 20 requested that the floor area ratio be .48 and the Code only allowed .30. Dudek was hired to 21 the calculation of GFA analyzed in reference to the current Code. The two buildings with extra 22 volumetric space were built after the Code was in effect. She argued that just because the 23 proper square footage was not reported. That does not make those buildings compliant with 24 Code. Neighbors have been saying since the beginning that the proposed block-long building 25 was too massive for the neighborhood. The proposed plans showed that 7,100-square feet was 26 not being counted toward GFA and she requested that the Planning Department reevaluate 27 that. She mentioned that the Fehr and Peers parking report from July 2021 identified that there 28 were 89 existing surface parking spaces and this was not mentioned in the Staff report. 29 Castilleja proposed to move their pool to allow for more parking underground but this action 30 reduced surface parking by 60 spaces. Regarding a potential RPP, neighbors would be required 31 to pay for parking that was currently free and an RPP would not cover nights and weekends. 32 Regarding events, the schedule provided in the Staff report was indecipherable. She requested 33 that Staff provide a legible list to the public and allow neighbors to opine on the list of events 34 before the CUP is finalized. Regarding the TDM, she acknowledged that the program is very 35 robust but neighbors are concerned about enforcement. In conclusion, she reported that 36 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. neighbors are amendable to an enrollment increase of 450 students, rebuilding the campus 1 with less volume and mass, retaining current surface parking spaces, and lowering the number 2 of events on nights and weekends. 3 The Commission took a short break before continuing with public comment. 4 Bill Burch spoke on behalf of five residents and shared that they support Castilleja and its 5 modernization plans. He acknowledged that the Palo Alto process can be arduous at times but 6 the results were wonderful projects that benefit the community. Castilleja presented their 7 modernization plans 10-years ago and through those 10-years Castilleja has shown good faith in 8 listening and agreeing to compromises presented by the City and neighbors. Regarding the 9 TDM Program, the program has grown and become a way of life for students and faculty. The 10 school advocates for internal carpools and encourages bicycling and walking to and from 11 campus. The campus design has changed to accommodate neighbor and City concerns. The 12 process for approval has been prolonged and over that time Castilleja has not been allowed to 13 increase enrollment. The project has received unprecedented scrutiny for 10-years. He 14 addressed residents’ opinions about keeping Castilleja a Palo Alto-only school. This type of 15 action would not allow underserved populations to receive a world-class education and he did 16 not support that. He stated that many residents are concerned about growth. He argued that 17 the proposed project is not an expansion because the campus will have a smaller footprint and 18 car trips will be capped. Castilleja has already limited the number of events to the City’s 19 recommended amount and has reduced the parking garage to preserve trees. Castilleja has 20 vowed to keep car trips level so that they can increase enrollment and educate more girls. He 21 strongly encouraged PTC to move the project forward to Council for approval. 22 Cindy Chen remarked that she is a neighbor who lives on Emerson Street and she greatly 23 appreciated the parking garage options that Castilleja has proposed. She encouraged PTC to 24 approve Parking Option D with the 69 parking spaces in the underground garage which will 25 remove more cars from neighborhood streets and prevent parking on Spieker Field. 26 Hank Sousa requested that PTC not approve any additional enrollment increases after 450 27 students have been reached. He requested that the school stay at 450 students for 10-years so 28 that the neighbors have time to assess the impact. The existing 89 parking spaces are adequate 29 for a cap of 450 students. He recommended that Castilleja encourage students not to drive to 30 school and use shuttles instead. He did not support the proposal to move the existing 31 swimming pool. Neighbors have expressed these minor changes for years, but Staff has not 32 acknowledged them. 33 Jason Stinson recommended approval of Option D for the underground parking garage and the 34 modified pool. Option D protects trees and moves more cars below grade. Modifying the 35 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. location of the pool will further protect existing trees. He strongly supported Castilleja’s 1 proposal to plant 100 more trees on campus. 2 Jim Fitzgerald supported Castilleja and their proposal. He found it unfortunate that Council sent 3 the proposal back to PTC after PTC recommended approval of the project. The new plan 4 preserved more trees, reduced traffic and car trips to campus, reduced hours of operations, 5 reduced events, and had enhanced aesthetics to campus buildings. Castilleja continued to be a 6 quality neighbor and is committed to making the changes work. 7 Kathleen Foley-Hughes thanked PTC for voting to recommend the project to Council at their last 8 discussion regarding Castilleja. She remarked Castilleja is a gem, an asset to the City and she 9 expressed frustration that the project has been drug out for so long. She predicted that the 10 proposed improvements to the project will allow PTC to recommend approval again to Council. 11 Lesley King spoke for five other residents who supported the Castilleja renovation project. 12 Regarding the CUP, the application already outlined a starting enrollment of 450 students and 13 the school can only add more students when they successfully meet the no net new trips 14 threshold. The TDM Program is well developed and shows the compromise that Castilleja has 15 demonstrated throughout the process. The school has been running a successful TDM Program 16 for years which shows great promise that the newly proposed TDM Program will be successful. 17 She acknowledged that over a decade ago the school was over-enrolled. Since this discovery, 18 the school has been closely monitored and has worked towards regaining the trust of the 19 community through various actions. Regarding the parking garage, she appreciated 20 Commissioner Alcheck’s questioning if the City should approve a larger garage. ARB supported 21 Option E because it complied with Council’s mandate but all five Board Members also 22 supported Option D because it protected just as many trees and maximized underground space. 23 She agreed with the comments that when Council recommended that 52 parking spaces be 24 below ground, the number seemed arbitrary and had no supporting data. She pointed out that 25 the Staff report admitted that even though the chart showed a shortfall of 30 parking spaces if 26 the school enrolls 540 students. That chart and the Parking Demand Study did not include the 27 TDM Program. She stated that this flawed data should not have been present in the Staff 28 report. Regarding the Text Amendment, she did not know where the threshold of 50 percent of 29 the amount of parking capacity that can be allowed below ground came from. 30 Neva Yarkin announced that she is an adjacent neighbor to Castilleja. She expressed that 31 allowing an increased enrollment will only lead to more traffic and congestion in the 32 neighborhood. She recommended that Castilleja use a school-wide shuttling service to help 33 mitigate traffic. She stated that the underground parking garage will require tons of cement 34 and does not help the City reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. She shared concerns about the 35 temporary campus that will be housed on-site while construction is underway. Requiring 36 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. students, faculty, parents and residents to navigate around construction equipment is a huge 1 safety concern. She argued that Stanford University, Palo Alto High School and train crossings 2 will also be impacted by the project. 3 Rita Vrhel spoke for five other residents who opposed Castilleja’s project. She stated that the 4 proposed project is not a question of having girls uneducated versus they must go to Castilleja. 5 She strongly did not support other speakers who disrespected folks who opposed the project. 6 She acknowledged the Fehr and Peers’ July 2021 Parking Study and Dudek’s November 17, 7 2021, GFA assessment. She confirmed that neither report was included in the ARB Packet or 8 PTC’s Packet. She believed that the two reports showed amply evidence that Castilleja should 9 reevaluate and redesign their proposed project. Fehr and Peers’ study indicated that a parking 10 garage is not necessary which made the proposed Text Amendment unnecessary. The report 11 noted that there are 330 available parking spaces around the school and so an underground 12 garage is not necessary. Castilleja has financially benefited greatly by ignoring their current CUP 13 and Use Permit. When Castilleja received their Use Permit in 2000, the then Planning Director 14 reported that at no time did Castilleja School indicate that they intended to increase 15 enrollment. Also, that any application to increase enrollment would not be favorably looked 16 upon by the City. Use Permit Number 99-UP-48 did not allow for increased floor area or an 17 increase in students. She encouraged PTC to review the documents and recommend denial of 18 the project to Council. 19 Roger McCarthy spoke for five other residents who requested that the PTC expeditiously 20 approve the project. He emphasized that he has no association with Castilleja School and his 21 interest in the project stemmed solely from having more women in the STEM fields. Through 22 his technological leadership positions, he witnessed firsthand the acute shortage of women in 23 the STEM fields. For generations, the country’s co-education system has failed to educate 24 female secondary students for STEM careers. The percentage of women in the STEM fields in 25 the United States is predicted to shrink to 22 percent by 2025. He acknowledged that Silicon 26 Valley is dominated by men from entry-level positions to the highest leadership roles. He 27 encouraged PTC to begin to address the problem and promote change by allowing Castilleja, an 28 all-girls, non-sectarian school, to increase their enrollment. A study showed that girls who 29 graduate from secondary all-girls schools are far more likely to enter STEM fields than co-30 education schools. He found it frustrating that folks continued to use the R-1 zoning 31 requirements as a reason to hold up the school’s plans. R-1 zoning was developed to use 32 economics to achieve racial segregation which has since been repealed. He restated that the 33 PTC should stop the goalposts from moving and approve the proposed plans. 34 Roy Maydan wanted to see City leaders make decisions that will positively impact property 35 values and quality of life in the community. He strongly supported PTC’s prior recommendation 36 to approve the project and was disappointed that Council sent the recommendation back to 37 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. PTC for further review. He supported any parking garage proposal that removed as many cars 1 from the street while protecting trees. 2 Stewart Raphael confirmed that Castilleja’s existing TDM Program has reduced traffic in the 3 neighborhood by 30 percent. The school continued to demonstrate its willingness to commit to 4 a robust TDM Program and have it be successful. He pointed out that the Draft EIR states that 5 the underground parking garage will not bring additional car trips to the campus. He 6 recommended that PTC recommend approval of the project to Council. 7 Tony Hughes expressed that the proposal should be one that can be easily recommended for 8 approval to Council. He stated that he has spoken in support of the project many times and will 9 continue to support the project until it is approved. He asked why Castilleja was under such 10 scrutiny when the other high schools around the City have been allowed to grow and expand. 11 Vania Fang shared that her home is across from Castilleja School on Kellogg Street. She fully 12 supported the project and was excited to be able to look out at an updated campus with more 13 trees and green space. She strongly encouraged PTC to again recommend approval of the 14 project to City Council. 15 Yair Blumenfeld echoed all of the previous speaker's comments who support the project. He 16 stated that there are no other schools within the City that are committed to improving traffic 17 and have included environmental aspects to their remodeling projects. 18 Rob Levitsky mentioned that his property adjoins Castilleja’s property. He stated it took 5 1/2-19 years of residents commenting before Staff applied the Tree Ordinance to the project, 4 ½-20 years to protect the homes located on the site, and 4 ½-years for Staff to listen that the 21 underground garage is not a basement. The applicant and Staff continue to miscalculate the 22 square footage that is allowed. He encouraged PTC to thoroughly review and deny the Variance 23 for square footage. The underground garage will require permanent encroachments into the 24 Melville Avenue public utility easement as well include a tunnel under the sewer line. He stated 25 that the underground garage is unnecessary and should be removed from the proposed design. 26 Deborah Goldeen confirmed that Castilleja is an incredibly important part of the value of the 27 community and they desire the City’s support. The delay after delay for the project she stated is 28 obstructionism. The City does not hold residents to the standards that are applied to Castilleja 29 and does not require residents to protect trees. In a dream world, she wished that Stanford 30 University would lease property to Castilleja, and then they could sell the property which then 31 could be made into housing. 32 Jeff Levinsky supported Council’s adoption that the underground garage must be counted as a 33 floor area. The PTC should not recommend that the underground garage be exempt from floor 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. area because it has been shown that the underground garage is not needed. Castilleja has 1 enough surface parking spaces to adequately park the project. 2 Mr. Levinsky’s audio cut off. Ms. Tanner suggested that the Commission move to the next 3 public speaker and then return to Mr. Levinsky. 4 Terry Holzemer stated that the expansion of the school has never been about women’s 5 education or its wonderful merits. Neighbors have never commented on the education that the 6 school provides to girls. Neighbors want a reasonable expansion that fits in with the 7 neighborhood. He remarked that it is time to stop demonizing the neighbors. He supported an 8 enrollment increase of 450 students and then allowed a reasonable amount of time for 9 neighbors to access the impacts. He restated that the reports have shown that an underground 10 garage is not needed. He wanted to understand why Castilleja was receiving exceptional 11 treatment to having to count for GFA that already exceeded the current code. He wanted to 12 know if all non-profits and churches located in an R-1 Zone be allowed the extra floor space and 13 will underground garages be allowed without counting the square footage. He agreed that 50 14 to 70 events a year are a lot of events for the neighborhood to have to deal with. 15 Ms. Klicheva invited Mr. Levinsky to proceed with his comments. She suggested that Mr. 16 Levinsky call in and provide his comments. 17 Chair Hechtman requested that Ms. Levinsky submit his comments in writing to the 18 Commission. He invited the applicant to present their rebuttal comments. After the rebuttal, he 19 suggested that the Commission move to continue the item and then begin the item at their 20 next meeting with questions of the applicant. 21 Mindie Romanowsky, lands use counsel for Castilleja School, clarified that the refined Council 22 motion of March 29, 2021 did not require a Text Amendment to effectuate the Council’s 23 underground parking goals. There is no Council mandate nor a legal requirement that PTC 24 considers or recommends a Text Amendment. She encouraged PTC to provide feedback on the 25 proposed parking options and continue the meeting to a date certain. If PTC does consider the 26 Text Amendment, she requested that PTC allow Castilleja the ability to park more than 50 27 percent of cars below grade in a way where the entire parking garage does not count towards 28 FAR. She strongly requested that PTC approve Option D for the underground parking garage. 29 The underground construction of the garage was thoroughly analyzed by third-party 30 professionals and found to have insignificant impacts. Regarding the square foot and Variance 31 request, Dudek’s report was linked to the Packet and has been uploaded to the City’s webpage 32 under Castilleja. Regarding Option D and Option E for the parking garage, Option D housed 149 33 parking spaces and Option E housed 143. During peak parking demand at an enrollment of 540 34 students, Option D had a 19 parking space shortfall and Option E had a 25 parking space 35 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. shortfall. The parking study did not take into account any TDM measures and so the parking 1 shortfalls will be mitigated through TDM. 2 Commissioner Lauing stated that the agenda for the next meeting already has several items on 3 it. 4 Ms. Tanner remarked that the wireless item would be moved to a future meeting and that it is 5 important that the Commission review Castilleja in the next meeting. 6 Commissioner Alcheck supported Chair Hechtman’s suggestion that the item be continued to 7 December 15, 2021, and that the Commission begins the item with clarifying questions of the 8 applicant. 9 Commissioner Summa recalled that Staff stated that they would be bringing additional 10 information to the Commission for consideration for the Castilleja project. 11 Ms. Tanner suggested that new information not be included in the December 15, 2021 meeting 12 Packet and that the hearing picks up where it is left off. She suggested that any motion of 13 continuation state whether public comment will be open or closed. 14 Commissioner Summa commented that any commenters who had technical difficulties should 15 be allowed to speak at the next meeting. 16 Chair Hechtman clarified that the public had the opportunity to comment on the project. The 17 next step will be for PTC to discuss the items that Staff has presented and give direction at the 18 December 15, 2021 meeting. The public will not be allowed to comment at the December 15, 19 2021 meeting, but will have another opportunity to comment when the item returns at a 20 subsequent meeting. 21 Commissioner Chang requested that all of the applicant’s presenters be present at the 22 December 15, 2021 meeting. 23 Commissioner Lauing asked if there is a timeframe in which the item must go to Council. 24 Ms. Tanner answered no, there is no set time on when the item will be presented to Council. 25 Chair Hechtman clarified that Staff will return to PTC before going to Council. 26 Ms. Tanner pointed out that PTC and ARB will hold hearings on the item before it goes to 27 Council. 28 MOTION 29 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Alcheck moved that the item be continued to December 15th, 2021. At such time, 1 PTC will pick up exactly where they left off with the close of public comment and begin with 2 questions of the applicant and its representatives. Then begin deliberation amongst themselves 3 to give direction to Staff. So, that Staff may come back with some fleshed-out options for PTC to 4 then recommend to City Council at a date uncertain. 5 SECOND 6 Commissioner Lauing seconded. 7 Commissioner Alcheck supported the approach of having the item fresh in the Commissioner’s 8 minds and that the process continues on the current track. 9 VOTE 10 Ms. Klicheva called a roll call vote. The motion passed 6-0 with Commissioner Templeton 11 absent. 12 MOTION PASSED 6(Ayes: Alcheck, Chang, Lauing, Hechtman, Summa, Roohparvar) -0 with 13 Commissioner Templeton absent 14 Chair Hechtman appreciated that public commenters banded together and provided their 15 comments through one spokesperson. 16 Commission Action: Motion by Alcheck, seconded by Lauing. Pass 6-0-1 (Templeton absent) 17 Approval of Minutes 18 Public Comment is Permitted. Five (5) minutes per speaker.2,3 19 5. October 13, 2021 Draft PTC Meeting Minutes 20 MOTION 21 Commissioner Alcheck moved approval of the draft minutes as revised. 22 SECOND 23 Vice-Chair Roohparvar seconded. 24 Ms. Klicheva called a roll call vote. 25 Commissioner Summa abstained for she was absent for the October 13, 2021 meeting. 26 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Ms. Klicheva announced that the motion passed 5-0-1 with Commissioner Summa abstaining 1 and Commissioner Templeton absent. 2 MOTION PASSED 5(Ayes: Alcheck, Chang, Lauing, Hechtman, Roohparvar) -0-1(Summa abstain) 3 with Commissioner Templeton absent 4 Commission Action: Motion by Alcheck, seconded by Roohparvar. Pass 5-0-1 (Summa abstain, 5 Templeton absent) 6 6. October 27, 2021 Draft PTC Meeting Minutes 7 MOTION 8 Commissioner Alcheck moved to approve the minutes as revised. 9 SECOND 10 Chair Hechtman announced that Commissioner Lauing seconded. 11 Ms. Klicheva called a roll call vote. 12 Commissioner Summa abstained for she was absent for the October 27, 2021 meeting. 13 Ms. Klicheva announced that the motion passed 5-0-1 with Commissioner Summa abstaining 14 and Commissioner Templeton absent. 15 MOTION PASSED 5(Alcheck, Chang, Lauing, Hechtman, Roohparvar) -0-1(Summa abstain) with 16 Commissioner Templeton absent 17 Commission Action: Motion by Alcheck, seconded by Lauing. Pass 5-0-1 (Templeton absent, 18 Summa abstain) 19 Committee Items 20 Chair Hechtman called for Committee items; seeing none he moved to Commissioner 21 questions, comments, and announcements. 22 Commissioner Questions, Comments or Announcements 23 Commissioner Summa stated that at the October 27, 2021 meeting the Commission discussed 24 electrification issues. She inquired when that would come back to the Commission and would 25 all the items be brought back together. 26 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director, predicted that they would come back in the first quarter of 1 2022 and that they would come back separately. 2 Commissioner Alcheck inquired when the Emergency Ordinance that was recently passed that 3 responded to SB9 would come before the Commission. 4 Ms. Tanner agreed that Staff barely had enough time to draft the Emergency Ordinance due to 5 the time that the law passed and the time that it goes into effect. The Emergency Ordinance 6 went into effect right away whereas a regular ordinance requires two readings. 7 Commissioner Alcheck asked if the framework of the ordinance was influenced by PTC’s 8 discussion of objective standards. 9 Ms. Tanner explained that the Emergency Ordinance addressed objective standards that are 10 based on the Individual Review Guidelines which apply to two-story homes. PTC’s discussion 11 focused on multi-family and objective standards for those types of projects. 12 Chair Hechtman shared that the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the pedestrian and bike bridge 13 over San Antonio Road was well attended. 14 Commissioner Alcheck shared that in 2013 the PTC voted to start a process for designing the 15 pedestrian and bike bridge. He was happy to see that the bridge was finally complete. 16 Adjournment 17 12:00 am 18 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Planning & Transportation Commission 1 Action Agenda: December 8, 2021 2 Virtual Meeting 3 6:00 PM 4 5 Call to Order / Roll Call 6 Approximately 6:02 pm 7 Chair Hechtman: Thank you. Ms. Klicheva, please conduct the roll call? 8 9 Ms. Madina Klicheva, Administrative Assistant: Chair Hechtman? 10 11 Chair Hechtman: Present. 12 13 Ms. Klicheva: Vice-Chair Roohparvar? 14 15 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Present. 16 17 Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Alcheck? 18 19 Commissioner Alcheck: Present. 20 21 Commissioner Alcheck: Commissioner Chang? 22 23 Commissioner Chang: Present. 24 25 Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Lauing? 26 27 Commissioner Lauing: Present. 28 29 Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Summa? 30 31 Commissioner Summa: Present. 32 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . 1 Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Templeton? 2 3 Commissioner Templeton: Present. 4 5 Ms. Klicheva: Thank you. We have a quorum. 6 7 Chair Hechtman: Thank you. 8 1. Adoption of a Resolution Authorizing Use of Teleconferencing for Planning and 9 Transportation Commission Meetings During Covid-19 State of Emergency 10 MOTION 11 12 Chair Hechtman: Item Number One tonight is… on our agenda is adoption of a resolution 13 authorizing use of teleconferencing for Planning and Transportation Commission meetings 14 during COVID-19 State of Emergency. This is a resolution we will need to adopt monthly until 15 we no longer need to adopt it. So, I move adoption of the resolution. 16 17 SECOND 18 19 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: I’ll second. 20 21 VOTE 22 23 Chair Hechtman: Second from the Vice-Chair. Any discussion from Commissioners on this item? 24 Seeing none, may we have a roll call vote? 25 26 Ms. Madina Klicheva, Administrative Assistant: Yes. Commissioner Alcheck? 27 28 Commissioner Alcheck: Aye. 29 30 Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Chang? 31 32 Commissioner Chang: Yes. 33 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . 1 Ms. Klicheva: Chair Hechtman? 2 3 Chair Hechtman: Yes. 4 5 Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Lauing? 6 7 Chair Hechtman: Muted. Commissioner Lauing you’re muted still. 8 9 Commissioner Lauing: Sorry. Yes. 10 11 Ms. Klicheva: Thank you. Vice-Chair Roohparvar? 12 13 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Yes. 14 15 Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Summa? 16 17 Commissioner Summa: Yes. 18 19 Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Templeton? 20 21 Ms. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director: She’s present but I don’t know if she can unmute at the 22 moment. There we go. 23 24 Commissioner Templeton: Sorry, Zoom pick a fun time to restart. I support this resolution, 25 thank you. 26 27 Ms. Klicheva: Thank you. The motion carries 7-0. 28 29 MOTION PASSED 7-0 (Ayes: Alcheck, Chang, Lauing, Hechtman, Roohparvar, Summa, 30 Templeton) 31 32 Chair Hechtman: Thank you. We will now move to oral communications. 33 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Commission Action: Motion by Hechtman, seconded by Roohparvar. Pass 7-0. 1 Oral Communications 2 The public may speak to any item not on the agenda. Three (3) minutes per speaker.1 3 Chair Hechtman: So, this section is for the public to speak on items not on tonight’s agenda. So, 4 for example, if you’d like to speak on the Castilleja item, we’d love to hear from you, but please 5 don’t raise your hand yet. Wait for that item to be called. If you do wish to speak during this 6 oral communication section, please raise your hand. On the Zoom App, there’s a raise hand 7 button on the bottom of your screen. If you’re dialing in from a phone, please press *9. Do we 8 have any public speakers for oral communication? 9 10 Ms. Madina Klicheva, Administrative Assistant: No, I don’t see any raised hands. 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: Well, then we will move next to agenda changes, additions, and deletions. I 15 have none. Fellow Commissioners, do any of you have any, or Staff, that you’d like to bring up? 16 Very well (interrupted) 17 18 Ms. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Planner: There are no changes from Staff. 19 20 Chair Hechtman: Thank you, Ms. Tanner. Let’s move… let’s stay with Ms. Tanner and move to 21 City official reports. 22 City Official Reports 23 2. Directors Report, Meeting Schedule and Assignments 24 Ms. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director: Thank you very much. Good evening Commissioners. 25 Good to see you all today or this evening rather. Just a few updates for you. 26 27 This last Monday at the City Council meeting, the City did adopt an Interim Urgency Ordinance 28 to integrate Senate Bill 9 into our local Municipal Code. And then they also took action to make 29 a Motion of Intent in some ways to adopt an Interim Ordinance that has the same content but 30 has additional updates to integrate SB 478; which adjusts FAR requirements for developments 31 with 3- to 10-unites to certain FAR requirements. And also, to adjust a little bit of your back… a 32 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . couple years ago we had adjusted part of our code related to deconstruction to move from 1 demolition to deconstruction as part of our waste reduction efforts. That part or that change, 2 which is not in the Planning Code, inadvertently invalidated part of the Planning Code because 3 we had both demolition and deconstruction. And deconstruction use to be something that was 4 incentivized, now it’s mandated, and so there’s no more demolition technically. Everything is 5 deconstruction and so we wanted to make sure that we were aligning ourselves with that and 6 also relates to our no net loss provision. 7 8 It probably sounds a little complicated but I’m saying all this to you because they were both 9 adopted on the interim basis which means they’re going to be coming back to your next year. 10 Both to look at SB 9 perhaps a little bit more slowly as you know it passed and was signed by 11 the Governor in September I believe. And so, we had just a few months to try to figure out how 12 we would adopt that locally and integrate that into our local planning processes and code. 13 14 So, next year we’ll be working with the PTC, but also the ARB, on Objective Design Standards, 15 lot split standards, and other kind of policy questions regarding that what is now the Interim 16 Urgency and Interim Ordinances. So, we will expect to start that work early next year in 2022 17 and we also will likely be involving the HRB as well pending Council… further Council discussion 18 of how to treat our historic resources and possibly working to have more of our historic 19 resources that have been identified become listed locally or at the state register of historic 20 places. So, more to come on that but definitely a very good robust discussion at Council and we 21 expect the same will happen here at the PTC. 22 23 We also look forward next week, the Council will be appointing members to this body and so 24 we will let you know as soon as we do what their decisions are members of the PTC. And then 25 our next members would be joining us in 2022. So, that will be something to look forward to. 26 27 Also, Council at the end of November, but we haven’t met since then, will also be… also took up 28 the Tenant Protection Item. I think you may remember, they took this up three times. We had 29 one night with a presentation, it was continued. One night with a little bit of discussion and 30 then continued and finally on the third night were able to finish the discussion. Council did 31 direct Staff to I think really work on probably I think all of the topics that we had recommended 32 and that the PTC had recommended for the most part. A little bit of difference between the PTC 33 and HRC recommendations and further refinements at Council. But I think the headline would 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . probably be that they’re advancing most of the protections to varying degrees. Some will be 1 more immediate. We’ll be coming back to you all with ordinances in the next year. So, for 2 example, the tenant relocation assistance, Council directed us to draft an ordinance that would 3 reduce that to the 10-units being the threshold when that would kick in. And so, we’ll bring that 4 to the PTC we expect in January at your second meeting. Some of the other items like the rental 5 survey and others were directed to go to P&S, Policy and Services Committee, for further 6 refinement at that Council body. So, more work to come and likely will come to you at some 7 point but expect a couple of those ordinances to come to your next year. 8 9 And then lastly, as we just voted on, and you all passed, the resolution to continue to meet 10 remotely for meetings in December. We have today and we have next week. We’ll also be 11 taking that up in January and just for information. Council is still trying to consider when to 12 have Boards and Commissions come back. That could be in January, it could be in February, but 13 we will certainly keep you aware and if we are meeting in person whenever that happens. We’ll 14 certainly work to give you as much notice as possible so you can arrange yourselves and be 15 prepared. And if you have questions in the lead up to that once we do know the date, please 16 don’t hesitate to reach out and ask me; or other Staff can get you the answers to the questions 17 just regarding how to meet together safely and what it will be like to be back together. I will say 18 I’ve watched at least via… watched and participated myself in a couple hybrid Council meetings. 19 And at least from my perspective it’s gone fairly smoothly and haven’t had any issues being 20 heard by Council Members and members of the public as well. So, I think that when we do 21 reconvene in person, I think for ourselves and for members of the public hopefully will be a 22 pretty smooth process. At least it looks like it from again from my little window into the 23 meeting. 24 25 So, with that, I have one more announcement which is tomorrow the Sustainability and Climate 26 Action Planning, S/CAP, ad hoc committee, which is Council Member Cormack and Vice Mayor 27 Burt, will be convening at 9:00 am to 11:30. The topic is going to be land use and 28 transportation, so very relevant to our work, and we’ll be talking a little bit about how land use 29 and transportation can be avenues to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. You’ll probably 30 recall that the goal for the S/CAP is to reduce our emissions by 2030 to 80 percent of what they 31 were in 20… 80 by 30. I think it’s to 2000. Sylvia, what year is it that the S/CAP? See I was trying 32 to be slick and then I realized I forgot one of the numbers. 33 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Ms. Sylvia Star-Lack, Transportation Manager: 1990 level. 1 2 Ms. Tanner: 1990. 3 4 Ms. Star-Lack: 80 percent of 1990 level. 5 6 Ms. Tanner: 80 percent of 1990 level. I was like 80 of what is it? Okay, 1990. That’s how we can 7 remember it, 80, 90, 30. So, we’ll be participating in that myself and Ms. Star-Lack will be giving 8 a presentation and having a discussion with the Council Members. And also, any members of 9 the public who chose to tune in and ask questions. So, with that, I am available for questions if 10 there are any from the Commissioners. 11 12 Chair Hechtman: Thank you, Ms. Tanner. I see Commissioner Summa’s hand. 13 14 Commissioner Summa: Thank you very much. I actually meant to bring this up under agenda 15 changes but I lost my picture for a minute. I don’t know what happened but I got back on. I just 16 wanted to remind everyone that action items at the… are 5-minutes which can be reduced to 3-17 minutes, not 3-minutes. It’s only oral communications that are 3-minutes and this keeps 18 popping up as a boo-boo on our agendas. So, at the bottom of the first page of our agenda 19 under action item that’s incorrect. So (interrupted) 20 21 Ms. Tanner: Thank you for that note and I will note that and see if (interrupted) 22 23 Commissioner Summa: I think it’s a [unintelligible](interrupted) 24 25 Ms. Tanner: [unintelligible] the template. 26 27 Commissioner Summa: Yeah, a cut and paste problem or something. 28 29 Ms. Tanner: Yeah. 30 31 Commissioner Summa: That’s all, thank you. 32 33 Ms. Tanner: Thank you. 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . 1 Chair Hechtman: Vice-Chair Roohparvar. 2 3 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Thank you. Ms. Tanner, I had a quick question. How do our ‘90s goals 4 compare to right now in terms of greenhouse gases? 5 6 Ms. Tanner: I would have to say (interrupted) 7 8 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Because I know we (interrupted) 9 10 Ms. Tanner: I don’t know. Ms. Star-Lack, if you know off the top of your head how much 11 [unintelligible](interrupted) 12 13 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Not specific [unintelligible]. I would think we are less or are we 14 (interrupted) 15 16 Ms. Star-Lack: We’re at less. Yes, we’re at less and a lot of that has to do with the fact that our 17 utility went with green cleaning power at a certain point. So, that leaves transportation as the 18 largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. 19 20 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Got it. That’s helpful, thank you. 21 22 Chair Hechtman: Alright, any further questions of Staff? Seeing none, we will move into our 23 action items and we will start with Item number 3. 24 25 Action Items 26 Public Comment is Permitted. Applicants/Appellant Teams: Fifteen (15) minutes, plus three (3) minutes rebuttal. 27 All others: Five (5) minutes per speaker.2,3 28 29 3. Review Programs of the Implementation Chapter of the Comprehensive Plan and 30 Recommend Modifications or Additions 31 Chair Hechtman: Review program of the Implementation Chapter of the Comprehensive Plan 32 and recommend modifications or additions. May we have a Staff report, please? 33 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . 1 Ms. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director: Great, thank you. So, I’m going to hand this over to 2 Clare Campbell and to Chitra Moitra who will be doing the presentation this evening. 3 4 Ms. Clare Campbell, Long Range Planning Manager: Yes, thank you. So, I’m going to run the 5 presentation. I’m sorry, I couldn’t find my button for the video. There it is. Good evening, 6 everyone, and I will turn over the presentation to Chitra to do that overview for everyone this 7 evening. Thank you so much. 8 9 Ms. Chitra Moitra, Planner: Good Evening, Commissioners. I am Chitra, Chitra Moitra, 10 Planning… long-range planning section. Tonight, we are meeting… and next slide, please. So, 11 tonight we have two meeting goals. First one is to… for the Commissioners to review the status 12 of the individual Comprehensive Plan Implementation Programs and second is to suggest any 13 additional changes or anything which they feel might be missing or any modifications they 14 might consider and make these necessary additions to for Council consideration. Next slide. 15 16 So, these two… this report is required by the Government Code Section 65400 which makes 17 every jurisdiction report on the achievement of the Comp Plan Implementation Programs. In 18 April 1st of every year, we have to do the reporting to Office of Planning and Research which is 19 OPR, and to HCD also for the Housing Element programs. So, by 1st of April of this year we have 20 to do the reporting and we go through the PTC in February and in March we go to the Planning 21 or we go to the City Council. And the other requirement… there’s also another requirement, the 22 Palo Alto Municipal Code 19.04.30…030 requires the Planning Commission to review the 23 implementation program yearly. And again, suggest any changes or any additions required to 24 the Implementation Programs. Next slide. 25 26 So, this year, as you can see, we have changed a little bit in the review process, and we have 27 introduced a meeting in fall of this year which would be mainly in October/November this year. 28 This time it got pushed back, but anyway it would be in October/November. And this additional 29 meeting gives the Commissioners another chance to look into the programs and review the 30 statute and see if there is any additional required or if anything is missing. So, this gives one 31 more chance and the rest of the process remains the same. We come to you again in February 32 and then to Council in March and do the reporting to HCD and OPR in April. So, I should 33 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . mention one thing, that you will review the Housing Element policy and programs in your 1 February review and for this, along with the Comp Plan policies and programs. Next slide. 2 3 So, the next slide shows the distribution of the Implementation Program by Comprehensive 4 Plan Elements, and as we can see that the Natural Environment Element has the highest 5 number of implemented programs. In total, we have 410 programs. Okay, next slide. 6 7 So, if you open up the Implementation Chapter you will see that the chapter contains… it’s a 8 matrix, it’s a table, and it contains the actual program language, what element it comes from 9 and then, in addition, it tells you which is the lead departmental agency; which is who is 10 responsible for conducting the program or implementing the program. The time it will take to 11 finish the program. It might be long-term or short-term. There might be some routine programs 12 and then the other field is the anticipated level of effort required for each of these programs. 13 And this includes the magnitude of the complexity of the programs and sometimes we also 14 consider the anticipatory cost for the… required for the programs. So, that’s how you see those 15 stars in your program… I’m sorry the dollar signs in your programs. And the last field which you 16 see in your… in the report is the last field is called the status of the programs. Staff has added 17 this field and it’s basically telling you the status of each program, whether it is complete or 18 whether it is partially complete. It’s an ongoing program or it has… it’s pending. Next slide. 19 20 So, as you can see, this is the snap shot for 2021 and we can see that there are eight programs 21 which are completed. Partially completed at 31 programs, ongoing which is the bulk is 276 22 programs, and pending is 95 programs. Next slide. 23 24 So, over the years I have had this question from Commissioners that can I give full picture? 25 Meaning how many programs have been completed since we are doing this process? So, we 26 started this process in 2018 and I have complied all the completed programs reported to you in 27 all these years. And as we can see that there are 72 programs which we have completed in all, 28 but… and it is about 18 percent of the… of all the programs and in 4-years we have done that. 29 But as I can say that as I have seen that a lot of the reported completed programs in previous 30 years have transitioned into ongoing programs. So, you know, when I… when you… I am 31 planning to develop a matrix which will show you yearly how we have done or which programs 32 were completed and which is the next year. What that program has transitioned into and you’ll 33 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . get that information next in February meeting but this is the status right now; 72 programs 1 completed out of 410. 2 3 So, and this is… well, I talk about the next steps again. That we come to you with all the changes 4 you are recommending tonight and we come to you on February… we take that information to 5 the City Staff. We work with them and then we… if there are changes we will bring it to you in 6 February and in March we’ll have the City Council review. And then again, the submission to 7 OPR by… and HCD by April 1st. So, this would be the next step. So, I think this is the… yeah, this 8 is the end of the presentation and now I’ll be happy to answer any questions you have. Thank 9 you. 10 11 Chair Hechtman: Thank you for the presentation, Ms. Moitra. Before we go to public comment, 12 are there any questions of Staff by the Commissioners? Alright, seeing none… oh, 13 Commissioner Lauing. Thank you and Commissioner Chang following. 14 15 Commissioner Lauing: I just wanted to ask Ms. Moitra, how do we feel in terms of the 16 accomplishments? Are we on track? A little bit behind? A little bit ahead? Just kind of a 17 [unintelligible]. 18 19 Ms. Moitra: Judging for the last 2-years that a lot of ongoing programs turned into pending 20 because of the COVID and its effects. So, I mean I would say it’s okay, close to 20 percent in 4-21 years, and the life of Comp Plan is till 2030. So, it’s a modest progress. 22 23 Commissioner Lauing: That’s all, thanks. 24 25 Chair Hechtman: Sorry Commissioner Lauing to cut you off. Commissioner Chang. 26 27 Commissioner Chang: I had a similar question but a little bit more specific. So, I read that the 28 short-term programs are intended to done approximately in the first 5-years. And so, we’re 4-29 years in and I was wondering out of the 100 programs that are designated as short terms since 30 the start of this process. How many of those have been done, do you know? 31 32 Ms. Moitra: Not off the… no, not right now. I don’t know but I think most of… I mean the 33 completion distribution… the program completed didn’t follow that short-term, medium-term 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . because it’s… I think it’s the program and the intensity of the project and the timing. That was 1 the main attention Staff gave to when completing or implementation program. 2 3 Commissioner Chang: Thank you for that because that was my second question which is why is 4 it that some medium-term projects are done before short-term projects? When I thought that 5 the prioritization was supposed to be short-term is supposed to be higher priority essentially. 6 7 Ms. Moitra: Yes, I don’t have a good answer for that because most of the time what we see is 8 projects which have funding goes forward. Projects which are needed more goes forward so if 9 something was designated as a short-term project might not have been started on time. So, or 10 City departments are thinking that maybe that project should be done later or something like 11 that so. 12 13 Commissioner Chang: Alright, thank you. 14 15 Ms. Campbell: To offer, if there are any specific questions that you have about a certain 16 program. You can certainly share with us what those ones might be and we can follow up with 17 the different department Staff to get a better understanding of why things happened when 18 they happened. If that’s something that you’re interested in knowing. 19 20 Commissioner Chang: I actually do have a specific one regarding planning only because it came 21 before the Commission and so I was like oh, I know that one. So, it was the renter protection 22 which is a long… you know it takes a long time. So, I understand why we needed to start but 23 then there’s other short-term ones also assigned to planning that we haven’t started as much. 24 And so, I was wondering was that a funding issue for renter protection? Is that why that one 25 was able to get so much more traction than say retail strategy? 26 27 Ms. Campbell: I think specifically for the Renter Protection Program, we did get a Fellow to help 28 Staff. So, that was definitely a critical piece for our success of moving something forward. So, 29 we actually were given a resource to help Staff move something ahead and she’s with us for 30 approximately 2-years. It will end in February but because we’ve had that additional resource 31 available to us. We’ve been able to really get some focus and traction going in getting the 32 renter protections moved forward. So, that was a great benefit for us. 33 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Commissioner Chang: Makes sense and I don’t think I understood. How is she funded? Is it a 1 (interrupted) 2 3 Ms. Campbell: It’s a grant. 4 5 Commissioner Chang: Fantastic, so it is funding-related then in a sense. 6 7 Ms. Campbell: Yeah. 8 9 Commissioner Chang: Okay, thank you. 10 11 Ms. Campbell: Thanks. 12 13 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Alcheck. 14 15 Commissioner Alcheck: So, I… let me ask this question because maybe this is obvious, but is the 16 spread sheet that’s attached. Is that the sort of what gets created to provide the status? 17 18 Ms. Moitra: Yes, yes, the status column is updated every year. So, what you see was the 19 accomplishments for 2021. 20 21 Commissioner Alcheck: On the bottom page of Packet Page 13, the very last sentence says the 22 status should include progress in meeting its share of regional housing needs and local efforts 23 to remove governmental constraints. What does that mean? 24 25 Ms. Moitra: It’s… I’m just trying to open up the Packet. 26 27 Commissioner Alcheck: Is that like a cheeky reference that the local government is the 28 constraint to meeting our regional housing allocation? 29 30 Ms. Moitra: Let me check, which page did you say? 31 32 Commissioner Alcheck: Bottom of Page… Packet Page 13. 33 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Ms. Moitra: I think it’s a leftover from last year’s comments I guess. 1 2 Commissioner Alcheck: So, does the… does this review include a discussion of progress in 3 meeting the regional housing needs? 4 5 Ms. Moitra: Those are the… those housing programs will come to you in February. So, housing 6 programs are not included in this. So, review of housing programs are not included. 7 8 Ms. Campbell: In this report. Yeah, it will come back in February. 9 10 Commissioner Alcheck: As its own separate report? 11 12 Ms. Moitra: Yes. 13 14 Ms. Campbell: It will be incorporated into the full annual reporting. We just didn’t include it 15 with this particular Packet because as everyone knows. We’re underway with our Housing 16 Element Update and there are things happening there. So, we are saving it for the February 17 meeting to give you that update on the programs. 18 19 Ms. Moitra: Yes. 20 21 Commissioner Alcheck: So, let me ask just a 40,000-foot question which is does Staff sort of 22 approach this report making as an opportunity to give Palo Alto leadership a report card on 23 how it’s meeting its stated goals? Or is this sort of a public relations effort to keep the 24 community aware of the status of the City’s progress in meeting what the Palo Alto leadership 25 has envisioned for them? So, it’s sort of two different things, is this an opportunity for Staff to 26 say here is why we haven’t reached these… achieved these goals? Or is it here’s where we are 27 in the merit of programs that we’re supposed to be implementing? 28 29 Ms. Moitra: I think it’s kind of both because it is a status report on what we have achieved in 30 terms of the Implementation Programs and it does show the leadership that this has been 31 accomplished so. 32 33 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Ms. Campbell: So, the primary purpose of the report is to facilitate the annual reporting that we 1 have to do in April. But certainly, the information that we provide in the reports definitely could 2 be viewed as how are we progressing and how are we doing with our accomplishments? So, it 3 can be used for both purposes. That’s certainly not Staff’s intent. Right now, we’re focused on 4 meeting our requirements for our submittal. 5 6 Ms. Moitra: And the reason for adding this meeting, the six… another meeting for in this 7 process is giving the Commission an opportunity to say or review and find out if something is 8 missing or they need something. Some changes if they wish to make in the existing 9 Implementation Program languages or anything. 10 11 Commissioner Alcheck: I mean I guess what I would say is that I think when you review the 12 status of 410 Implementation Programs broadly. It’s easy to get caught in the details of each 13 and every program and how they’re succeeding. Like, take… I’ll… let’s just… well, let me just 14 pick one out of… there’s a program with… let’s see, Chamber of Commerce related to vibrance 15 in our retail and commercial zone. So, I guess what I’m trying to say is in a perfect world, this is 16 an opportunity for radical candor with Palo Alto leadership, and so I guess specifically with 17 respect to regional housing needs. Right so I know we’ve spent a great deal of money. I know 18 the Planning Department has been part of the process in for example appealing the Regional 19 Housing Needs Allocation and whatnot. I think there’s an opportunity in this report for… I think 20 one of the things that people struggle with a lot is what is the gap between the Comprehensive 21 Plan statement and the action that really has to happen at the City Council level to maybe 22 sometimes empower items to occur. And so, I know there’s 410 Implementation Programs and 23 that the Housing Programs will come in a different Packet, but they’re… it’s broader than that. 24 The concepts are more vague and it’s opaque. You know, we talk about achieving a goal but we 25 don’t really frequently get an opportunity to have our executives, which I would say is the City 26 Hall Staff. Planning Department etc., the opportunity to tell us what’s standing in the way. And 27 so, when I read that last sentence on Page 13, I thought it would be really interesting to hear 28 from the Staff of the City what local efforts would be required to removed governmental 29 constraints in meeting the regional housing needs and maybe that also applies to other topics 30 that are covered in this program. 31 32 And so, my feedback to the Staff would be that there might be opportunities to put pen to 33 paper outside of this… the format of the spread sheet that help connect the dots between what 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . the… what PTC or what City Council can do to achieve a faster success or realization of some of 1 the programs. And it’s more than that because when we design this some of the programs 2 (interrupted) 3 4 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Alcheck? 5 6 Commissioner Alcheck: Maybe… yeah? 7 8 Chair Hechtman: Sorry to interrupt but it feels like you’ve got really excellent points for the 9 discussion phase of this item. 10 11 Commissioner Alcheck: Yeah, you’re right, you’re right. 12 13 Chair Hechtman: Rather than… and I know you started with a question but then it’s kind of 14 rolled into discussion. 15 16 Commissioner Alcheck: Yeah, you’re right, you’re right, my apologies. 17 18 Chair Hechtman: So, I’d like to… no problem but I’d like to see if there any other Commissioner 19 questions. Then go through public comment and (interrupted) 20 21 Commissioner Alcheck: I forgot that there’s a whole process here. 22 23 Chair Hechtman: Yeah, okay, so thank you. Commissioner Summa, I see your hand. 24 25 Commissioner Summa: Thank you. I have a question about the Comp Plan when there’s 26 program or goal… a program that is no longer consistent with how we want to proceed. I don’t 27 think we change the Comp Plan at all until the next Comp Plan is made and but is there any way 28 to… and an example of this would be L-2.4.1. Which is amend the Housing Element to eliminate 29 housing sites of along San Antonio and increase downtown and Cal Ave. Which of course, we 30 don’t anymore… any longer want to eliminate housing sites on San Antonio. In the very short 31 time since that was when I was on the Comp Plan group and that was written we realized we 32 are increasing housing sites on San Antonio. But we don’t change the Comp Plan, right? 33 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Ms. Campbell: You can definitely make Comp Plan amendments as needed. So, you know, I 1 think that’s something (interrupted) 2 3 Mr. Albert Yang, Assistant City Attorney: [unintelligible] 4 5 Ms. Campbell: Oh, I’m sorry Albert, sorry. 6 7 Mr. Yang: I was just going to say, we actually did amend that policy and it’s just not reflected in 8 this table. 9 10 Commissioner Summa: Oh, okay. 11 12 Mr. Yang: So, this table… that part of the table is outdated but the Comp Plan was updated to 13 say encourage housing sites along San Antonio. 14 15 Commissioner Summa: Okay, great. I wasn’t sure how that was handled. And I have another 16 question that might be related and that is underground City utilities. I thought we had 17 abandoned that program because of the expense and that would be L-9.10.1 or we’re… maybe I 18 just am wrong about that. 19 20 Ms. Campbell: I don’t know if planning Staff has an update on that. Chitra, do you happen to 21 know any of that detail? 22 23 Ms. Moitra: No, no, but I can get back to you. I can find out. 24 25 Commissioner Summa: Alright, thank you. 26 27 Chair Hechtman: Let’s move then to public comment on this item. We’re going to open the 28 floor for that purpose. Please raise your hand if you wish to speak on this item. On the Zoom 29 App, there’s a raise hand button on the bottom of your screen. If you’re dialing in from a 30 phone, please press *9. Are there any public speakers for this item? 31 32 Ms. Madina Klicheva, Administrative Assistant: I see one raised hand from Beth Rosenthal. 33 Beth, we can… we should be able to hear you know. 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . 1 Mr. [note – male speaker, no first name] Rosenthal: That’s an error. I’ll sign up for another 2 conversation. 3 4 Ms. Klicheva: Thank you. 5 6 Chair Hechtman: Alright, so we have no speakers for this item? 7 8 Ms. Klicheva: We do not. 9 10 Chair Hechtman: Alright. 11 12 Mr. Klicheva: I… sorry, one… I see one raised hand right now at the moment. Cindy Chan, from 13 Cindy Chan. Ms. Chan, you can unmute yourself and you have 3-minutes. 14 15 Ms. Cindy Chan: Thank you so much. Thank you, Commissioners, for this opportunity to speak. I 16 live on Emerson Street very close to the Castilleja campus and I want to express my 17 appreciation for the garage options presented to you this evening. 18 19 Chair Hechtman: Ms. Chan, excuse me? It sounds like you are wanting to speak about Castilleja 20 rather than the Comprehensive Plan review. If I have that right then you’re just a little early. 21 That’s our next agenda item. 22 23 Ms. Chan: Great. I lowered my hand barely… it didn’t come off your list. Sorry about that. 24 25 Chair Hechtman: No problem. Make sure you raise your hand when we call for the public 26 comment on the Castilleja item. Thank you. Alright, another members of the public want to 27 speak to us on this Comprehensive Plan item? I expect many of you are here for the Castilleja 28 item which is coming up next and will want to speak then. So, I’m not seeing any other hands 29 from members of the public. So, let me conclude the public comment opportunity and bring it 30 back to the Commission for discussion. So, I see hands from Commissioner Alcheck and 31 Commissioner Summa. Commissioner Summa’s hand is down. Commissioner Alcheck, is that a 32 ghost hand? 33 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Commissioner Alcheck: Yeah, I can just finish my thought quickly which was I think that some of 1 the… first, I’ll give you a perfect example. We have this program to encourage contact with the 2 Chamber of Commerce to better understand needs for increasing vibrancy in our commercial 3 retail sector. And it would be interesting to understand whether there was an action the City 4 could take to empower the Staff to be able to succeed at that Implementation Program further. 5 That may be a bad example but maybe it’s like if this is a high enough priority and Staff is 6 struggling to really succeed here. We could really use resources to… maybe a specific 7 authorization for X, right? 8 9 So, I guess I’m using that example in place of housing but I do think that it would be… I think 10 because housing sort of rises to such a high priority in our community consistently. I think this is 11 an opportunity to say okay, here are the governmental constraints that are really impacting us 12 and to give us the feedback. Because I think we do a lot of work on getting these programs 13 drafted and then it’s really unclear whether the Staff is really equipped or I guess better word 14 to use would be armed to achieve success. And it would be interesting to understand that 15 perspective so that’s all I have to say on the topic. 16 17 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Chang. 18 19 Commissioner Chang: Thank you. So, I echo some of Commissioner Alcheck’s thoughts but as I 20 was looking through this. I was thinking about the sort of self-imposed deadline that we have to 21 attempt to approximately finish some of the short-term items in 5-years. And so, I scanned the 22 spread sheet and said what are we doing or what have we not started that doesn’t have a 23 reason for not starting right because some of them are obvious. For example, the pandemics 24 of… if needs to be a pending item and so it was hard to do that and hard to… so I guess the first 25 comment is that it was hard to get a sense of the big picture status of where we are and are we 26 on track. Which is why I think Commissioner Lauing and I asked that question because as 27 presented. I had to do a bunch of digestion to kind of zero but then the reason I wanted to 28 understand that is to figure out where the gaps are and to say oh, is that an intentional? Make 29 some comment on is that an intentional reprioritization, either high or lower priority, or not? 30 And so, because it was hard to see the status and the gaps. I’m not sure I’m giving the best 31 comments that I could. 32 33 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . One of the thoughts I did have was as I looked at some of the short-term things where we 1 haven’t started or we’ve just started. A lot of them did center around retail strategy and I 2 thought that I would just put my two cents in for saying that that’s actually I think something 3 that might deserve to have a little increased priority. Primarily because of the situation that we 4 find ourselves in because of the pandemic. So, some of the work that we have done thus far is 5 around uplift local, but that was kind of reactionary, right? That was done because of the 6 situation and yet we know when applicants have come before the PTC for example. That it’s 7 been hard for the PTC to respond or hard for the City to respond because we don’t have an 8 overall retail strategy. And I know that’s something that the City has talked about wanting. 9 Now, maybe the funds to do that aren’t there yet but I would say that in that case, we need to 10 tell City Council like if this is… if this really does remain a high priority for you. Then you’ve got 11 to put something towards it because we simply don’t have that expertise in the City based on 12 some of the discussion that we had when an applicant came before us. And I think that again, it 13 is particularly timely because of the dramatic change that has happened. That it is an 14 opportunity, so that’s my two cents. Thank you. 15 16 Chair Hechtman: Vice-Chair Roohparvar. 17 18 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: I just had just a basic question to understand processes and it’s for City 19 Staff. Is there… do you guys engage in resource planning upfront and regular check-ins with City 20 Council to let them know and prioritization like you would see in a corporate environment? I 21 mean how does that work I guess behind the scenes? I mean I know we do the budget but do 22 you have opportunities to… does my question make sense? Ms. Moitra or? 23 24 Ms. Campbell: So, I think for every… so every department has its own set of programs and 25 policies and projects. So, I think it’s going to… I couldn’t speak for every department. So, based 26 on each department’s priorities and budgets. They’re going to work to see what can be 27 adjusted and reprioritize different goals and purposes. So, I don’t believe… I mean and we’ve 28 got mid-year budget process, we’ve got the annual budget process. But I think primarily those 29 are the things that we… that’s the process we use to find the money and reprioritize things as 30 needs change with each department and our projects. 31 32 Ms. Moitra: [unintelligible](interrupted) 33 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Vice-Chair Roohparvar: And [unintelligible]… sorry go ahead. 1 2 Ms. Moitra: And I can add that when the different departments decide on the different CIPs. 3 That’s taken into consideration. The budget, the resources, the timing, etc. 4 5 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: And then do you guys have opportunities to give feedback to City 6 Council so that your… you know if something hits or so you can be agile or is it only through 7 these formal processes? I’m not… I’m just curious as to how it… how much dialog is there and 8 how much feedback and efficiencies and adapting exist? 9 10 Ms. Tanner: So, maybe I could just add, I mean I think… it may be not what you’re asking but if 11 we don’t have Council authority to do something. We can’t do it. Now that authority could rest 12 in the Comp Plan that’s adopted by the Council and is set as policy. But also, if we don’t budget, 13 we can’t do something so it kind of depends. If it’s… you know some times things require 14 existing Staff resources and so, for example, let’s take tenant protections since we’re talking 15 about it. If we had had Staff available, maybe we could have looked at our work plan and said 16 okay. We have this year we have some Staff available to do that. Let’s assign it but we didn’t 17 have that until we got the grant that was specifically for that. And then we say well we’ve got 18 both Colleagues Memoranda and we’ve got Comp Plan saying that we should work on this. 19 Let’s… and we’ve got this opportunity to for funding, everything aligned, but even again there 20 with those grants. We do need Council approval to get the grant to go pursue the money to 21 receive the money. 22 23 So, I think it is flexible to some degree but what… we cannot act unilaterally unless there is 24 direction from Council to carry out a project. And that authority can rest in different documents 25 and can come through different channels depending on what the project is and what level of 26 authority would be needed to carry that out. 27 28 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Yeah, I know, completely, and then it depends on whether you get 29 funding and whether you have resources. And then prioritization changes based on is the 30 funding… is the Staff time available and then you know that’s a go or not. 31 32 Ms. Tanner: And then of course things like pandemic and other things that over take all of our 33 plans come to the floor and may be something that needs to get addressed more immediately. 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Even if perhaps to Commissioner Chang’s point, something in 2017 when the Comp Plan 1 adopted seemed like it was the thing to address immediately. As time goes by, other things may 2 rise to the forefront of the Council’s agenda and then thus to the forefront of our agenda. 3 4 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: o they drive the decision on prioritization or does Staff have ability to 5 operate and act depending upon (interrupted) 6 7 Ms. Tanner: Well, I think if we’re talking about specifically about the Comprehensive Plan. You 8 know, we’re really taking it from that Comp Plan and so certainly, Council may take the Comp 9 Plan to inform their budgeting and priority decision. But each year they also do their own 10 prioritization of their top four priorities and so I don’t know if that’s a specific answer to your 11 question but. 12 13 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: No, that’s makes sense. They set the overarching and you guys do the 14 details. Okay, thank you so much. 15 16 Chair Hechtman: Let’s see, Commissioner Alcheck can I have lower… have you lower your hand 17 if you’re not wanting to speak again. Then let me call on Commissioner Summa. 18 19 Commissioner Summa: Thank you very much. So, I’ll preface my comments with saying I’m sure 20 we would all like to do all of this, or we have but understanding that it can’t all be done and 21 can’t all be done at once and it depends on funding and resources. But I thought there were a 22 few things in here that hadn’t been started that would be interesting to look at with regards to 23 housing issues that we’re working on. And a lot of housing-related items in the Staff comments 24 have been incorporated into the Housing Element discussion. But L-2 4.6, which is explore 25 changing the transfer of development rights for… so they can only be used for residential 26 capacity was something that would be interesting for the Housing Element to discuss in the 27 pursuit of more housing in downtown. 28 29 And there also seemed like a tri sort of, of parks, dedicating parks, and finding more money for 30 parks and… by In-Lieu Fees. And basically, under Community-4 that I think are also very related 31 to housing and development issues since we already are under-served by parks. And that was 32 such a big topic that everyone really agreed upon in the NVCAP and a couple other specific ones 33 I wanted to mention. 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . 1 There is L-6 3.1 which is bird guidelines for design-friendly building. I mean bird-friendly 2 building design and I thought that one, which is slated to begin in 3-years. I thought that one 3 might be a relatively quick one because I know that a lot of standards and best practices for 4 that already exists. So, that could be one I thought could be knocked off quickly, and then 5 another one that I think is important and should be done in a more timely fashion would be L-7 6 1.2 which is reassess Historic Preservation Ordinance, etc. That has not commenced and I know 7 that is long overdue. And I also think that has a lot to do with some of the development that 8 we’re going to be seeing in downtown in terms of identifying buildings that the… that are 9 historic assets. 10 11 So, but I know that we can’t do everything we want to do but those were my general 12 observations unless we’re going to be going through this page by page, the matrix. Thank you. 13 14 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Lauing. 15 16 Commissioner Lauing: I just had one quick thing to add. There’s overlap between a couple of 17 the other Commissioners. I [unintelligible] 2.2 talked about evaluating [unintelligible] 18 (interrupted) 19 20 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Lauing, sorry, when you turn away we have a hard time hearing 21 on your microphone. 22 23 Commissioner Lauing: So, L4 2.2, which is (interrupted) 24 25 Chair Hechtman: Did you say 2-2? L4 2-2? Can’t hear you. 26 27 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Yeah, it’s cutting out for me too. 28 29 Commissioner Lauing: L4 2.2. 30 31 Chair Hechtman: Okay, L4 2.2. 32 33 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Commissioner Lauing: Yeah. The only thing I wanted to mention is that the comment section 1 says the Office of Transportation continues to assess parking in the California Avenue District. 2 Which I don’t know how that relates to formula retail so I just thought you ought to check that 3 out Chitra. 4 5 Ms. Moitra: Okay, I will do. 6 7 Chair Hechtman: That’s all, thank you. 8 9 Chair Hechtman: Other Commissioners? Thank you, Commissioner Lauing. I have a few 10 questions. The first one, of the 410, are any of them new for 2021? 11 12 Ms. Moitra: Yes, few are… some are… eight of them are new. The completed programs you are 13 asking? 14 15 Chair Hechtman: No, new. In other words, that last year when or in February we saw a list like 16 this and I’m asking now here we are in December, are there items on that list that weren’t 17 there in earlier in the year? 18 19 Ms. Campbell: No, the 410 programs haven’t changes. So, they’re the same programs that were 20 in the original adoption of the Comprehensive Plan. 21 22 Chair Hechtman: Okay, right, and then this is more of I guess a comment than a question. I find 23 the relationship between ongoing and completed confusing because it seems like some of 24 these programs you get them started, and so, they’re I think on-going or maybe they’re 25 partially completed, but it’s after they’re completed then they’re… they don’t just stay 26 completed. Some of them become ongoing and I’m wondering if they’re… is that nomenclature 27 somewhere required or is that our choice and can we do better to help people understand 28 where things are in this arc? 29 30 Ms. Campbell: I’ll try and respond to that. I think Chitra might have had some technical 31 difficulties. So, you’re absolutely right, I think we struggle because one day it’s complete and 32 then it turns into ongoing but wait a minute, it should be complete. And so, we’ve kind of 33 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . struggled with this too and I think as we’re… with each year of doing these reports we’re 1 learning more and more about how to better report out on things. 2 3 So, I think one of the things that we need to do is we need to have a better understanding of 4 what each of these statuses mean and to make sure all of the different departments involved 5 are consistently using the same approach. Because we’ve noticed… Chitra’s noticed this that 6 different departments are calling it one thing when… and they don’t quite get it. So, I think 7 that’s something that we’re working on as we refine this process. So, I totally understand why it 8 can be confusing how we change it from pending, to complete, and then it becomes ongoing or 9 then it’s partially complete. 10 11 I think one of the situations that Chitra mentioned for one of these programs is that its funding 12 had changed for a program. So, initially, it was ongoing but then it became pending because the 13 department… you know they had budget issues and they put it on hold. So, I think that’s… these 14 are the nuances that make it pretty tricky for us to report out with absolute clarity. Like this is 15 the status of each program and it’s basically going to keep changing every year. So, you just 16 have to kind of… and we call it a snap shot and that’s how I think we’re going to look at it for 17 each year that we do something to show what’s happening currently. I hope that explains it a 18 little bit. 19 20 Chair Hechtman: Yeah, thank you, thank you. 21 22 Ms. Moitra: Sorry, I was disconnected. 23 24 Chair Hechtman: Did you want to add something? Did you hear the question? Do you want to 25 add something? 26 27 Ms. Moitra: No, I didn’t hear the question. I was (interrupted) 28 29 Ms. Campbell: I think I got it. 30 31 Ms. Moitra: Okay, Okay. 32 33 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Chair Hechtman: Yeah, I think we got a good answer from Ms. Campbell and I appreciate that 1 you’re sensitized to this. It is a newish and evolving process and so (interrupted) 2 3 Ms. Moitra: Yes. 4 5 Chair Hechtman: It sounds like you’ll keep working to refine the language as we move forward. 6 7 Ms. Moitra: Yes. 8 9 Chair Hechtman: Alright, the next question I have is this is now a semi-annual process. You’re 10 going to bring it to us twice a year rather than annual process and I was curious why is that so? 11 Why have we made that change? Who’s idea was it? Was it PTC? I didn’t remember it but it 12 might have been. 13 14 Ms. Campbell: So, I think I’ll speak to that. So, it is meant to be an annual process and what 15 we’ve done is we’ve just added an additional step in that process. And this was based on a 16 request that was made early on by the Planning Commission. I don’t know which specific year it 17 was but there was a request made by the Planning Commission to say that hey, we want to 18 have a better opportunity to take a look at these policies and be able to provide more impact. I 19 mean not impact, more feedback on these different programs because when you do it in 20 February and you go to Council in March. There’s no opportunity really for us to do anything 21 with that and we have to meet our April deadline. So, the idea this year is we took the time to 22 incorporate this additional kind of meeting… pre-meeting we’re going to maybe call it or 23 something like that where we can get your feedback. Take your feedback, talk to the different 24 departments to see what we can do to address those comments, come back in February to see 25 what we’ve changed, and then carry that forward into the Council meeting. So, that the overall 26 reasoning behind why we changed it or why we added this additional step. 27 28 Ms. Moitra: And we do understand it’s a huge volume of information and one session is not 29 enough to go through that so. 30 31 Chair Hechtman: Thank you for the explanation. So, and I suspect the… and maybe one of the 32 Commissioners who's been here on the PTC longer than me might remember the origin of this. 33 But I guess I find myself questioning the efficiency of dealing with this twice a year. I definitely 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . appreciate the problem of bringing it to us in February and Staff not really having time to react 1 before it has to go to Council and get approved. One possible… an alternate way to handle that 2 is to basically back us up. Instead of bringing it to the PTC in February, bring it earlier, December 3 or so. Whatever but what strikes me is first of all, because there’s not really a lot of action here 4 for the PTC. There’s not a lot we can do and… but it takes a lot of time for the Staff to put this 5 presentation together, the public who’s listening to it, and of course, you’ve got seven 6 Commissioners who are reading or studying 410 items. And we’re doing it twice and so I’m 7 interested if any of my fellow Commissioners have any thoughts about whether we should… 8 again, this is an evolving process. whether we should try this twice a year for a couple years or 9 maybe do something different. Just back off the February by a month or two. 10 11 Ms. Moitra: The only issue is this is a yearly snap shot, so it’s from January to December. Mostly 12 the snapshot so if we go in earlier than February, we might not capture the whole year’s 13 accomplishment. 14 15 Chair Hechtman: So, what snapshot have you given us now? Is this from last January? 16 17 Ms. Moitra: No, no, no. This is… Staff worked on it in November… October and November. This 18 is what you are seeing in the attachment. 19 20 Ms. Campbell: And it is from January. 21 22 Ms. Moitra: Yes. 23 24 Ms. Campbell: It is from January to like October/November and so we would need to just do 25 our finalization of the status for the next report. And we’re not really anticipating it to really 26 change because it’s probably not going to. 27 28 Chair Hechtman: Again, I’m just curious if there’s any Commission feedback on whether they 29 like the twice a year or we should look at something different. Commissioner Summa. 30 31 Commissioner Summa: Well, I guess I don’t mind trying it twice a year because that’s not the 32 way we’ve done it in the past and I don’t recall which Commissioner it was or which… how 33 many Commissioners. But I do sort of remember that we felt like we were rubber-stamping 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . something instead of really contributing. So, I appreciate that Staff responded to that and I’m 1 happy to give it a go. 2 3 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Lauing. 4 5 Commissioner Lauing: That’s actually correct. It was requested by a Commissioner, I can’t recall 6 which one either. I think your plan could work fine Chair Hechtman, in the December timeframe 7 as we’re getting it right now, so I’d be down with that too. 8 9 Chair Hechtman: Any other Commission comments on that particular idea? Commissioner 10 Chang. 11 12 Commissioner Chang: I would say that if the information present to us stays in this format. Then 13 because it is so difficult to digest all those items. It's fine… I think that your proposal Chair 14 Hechtman is fine. If the goal was to have us look at it earlier so that we could assist with any 15 reprioritization. I don’t know… I think I need the data digested one step further or something. 16 You know like may by department, this is the status or by sort of my initial question for the 17 short-term ones. How many have we done in combination with kind of some Staff commentary 18 about these are the buckets of things that have been reprioritized. These are the buckets of 19 things that or these are the things that have not actively been deprioritized but we haven’t 20 been able to do because of X, Y, Z. So, that then we could say well that’s bad. We need to raise 21 that to City Council right now and get you some funding or something like that. But as… which I 22 recognize would be significantly more work. 23 24 So, unless we’re given something a little bit more information about whoa, this is where we 25 need to help or this is where we see things going off the rails. It’s hard for us to react to it. 26 27 Ms. Tanner: I would just offer that I don’t think that this is where Staff are going to be… and I 28 mean Staff as in the entire City Staff are not using this document to raise flags to the PTC or to 29 Council about priorities. So, really this is question if you, as Commissioners, have questions or 30 want to know more about specific programs. You’ll have to direct us, we can get that 31 information to you at the next hearing. There’s not possible for us to look at 400 plus programs 32 and do analysis on all of them. So, really, I think to Commissioner Summa’s point, the reason we 33 broke this up is because before it was essentially was kind of a rubber stamp hearing. There was 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . not an opportunity for question, there’s no second bite at the apple, we’re under a deadline. 1 We just got to approve it and that didn’t feel fair or really robust. So, if from today, like you 2 made some suggestion Commissioner Chang about suggesting that Council prioritize the retail 3 items. That’s something and then other Commissioners made comments. That’s something we 4 both include in our Staff report that we bring back to you to reflect what your fellow 5 Commissioners heard. So, you can think about oh yeah, I want to support what Commissioner 6 Chang said and then that would go forward to City Council further in the report to them. So, 7 we’d report on here’s the spread sheet and also the PTC would recommend that Council 8 prioritize these retail items in the coming year. Prioritize some of these other items in the 9 coming year or likewise, at that second hearing that we have in February. If there are some 10 items that you want to dig a little deeper in with the Staff of those departments. We can have 11 them here, but we could also take the questions today or after. You could write them in an 12 email to us and have those questions answered in that Staff report. 13 14 So, that’s kind of why we wanted to bring it here to get that generated, so that when we come 15 again. It doesn’t feel like just well, oh well we got to say yes to it and feel not so kind of robust 16 as we would want the discussion to be. Hopefully, that’s helpful. 17 18 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Chang, do you have more? Okay, thank you Ms. Tanner for 19 responding to that. Commissioner Alcheck? 20 21 Commissioner Alcheck: I would add that I think… so my view is that it’s never a bad thing for 22 the Planning Commission to interact with the with Comprehensive Plan topics. And I think, 23 especially now that the PTC isn’t as involved in the drafting of the Comprehensive Plan. I think 24 because it was… it’s being taken on by Committees as opposed to the first time that I joined this 25 Commission. We broke into pairs of two and we all worked with Staff to draft the… Chitra 26 remembers that. So, we drafted… we… I should say we… we edited really the drafts of the 27 Comprehensive Plan and I think that when we use to do this and it would come before us. For 28 some people, it was like the first time they really appreciated the merit of programs that where 29 intended to be implemented and I think we realized two things. That number one, the nature of 30 the PTC is to be really a close advising body to the City Council. And so, to the extent that there 31 are programs that you can spend a little more time understanding and looking into and asking 32 questions about, and then that might inform how you communicate with the City Council I 33 think helps. 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . 1 So, I concur here with Commissioner Summa here that I think that if we had done the inverse. If 2 we had met in April or February, whatnot, and there’s just been this whole thing and we were 3 asked to indicate our satisfaction with the report. I think a number of you would have been like 4 well what… we don’t even know what… I mean how does this work? And so maybe when this… 5 maybe the appropriate setup here is… and this is what I said in the beginning which is I really 6 think that there’s an opportunity here for Staff to indicate to the Commission where they think 7 things are not just we are 40 percent complete on this program. But where they think the 8 program is working or not working to the extent that they are empowered to achieve the result 9 that was desired in the vision; sort of a different concept. It’s not… maybe the program is being 10 executed as intended but it doesn’t serve the vision as it has evolved maybe. And then PTC 11 Member can say okay that’s really interesting. Can you give us more of this or that and then 12 when the meeting comes back the follow-up meeting. PTC could say you know I would 13 encourage City Council to consider how to better achieve this vision goal etc. because maybe 14 this program really isn’t the best tool. And that way it’s not like a document that really doesn’t 15 adapt over time but it becomes more evolutionary. Anyways, that’s the thought. 16 17 Chair Hechtman: Thank you, Commissioner Alcheck. So, this… again, this is a… Staff is trying 18 sometime… oh, let me finish the comment and then I’ll go to you, Commissioner Summa. So, 19 Staff’s trying something new in response to one or more prior Commissioners suggesting it and 20 so I think we’ve had some good feedback here. I don’t think we have to, as a Commission, make 21 a decision. I think what we’re doing is helping Staff, in the long run, develop the best process. 22 23 So, I wasn’t really wanting a prolonged conversation on this. I don’t want this to hijack the 24 meeting so Commissioners, you’re welcome to add more on this topic but what I was trying to 25 achieve, get some thoughts going to Staff, I’m really happy with. So, Commissioner Alcheck, if 26 you can put your hand down if you’re done and I’ll call on Commissioner Summa. 27 28 Commissioner Summa: Quick question for Staff and I think it was our attorney who answered 29 my question about housing sites on San Antonio saying oh, that’s already been amended. Do 30 those amendments… when those amendments occur in between big cycles of the 31 Comprehensive Plan. Do they come to the Planning Commission? 32 33 Mr. Yang: Yes, they do. 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . 1 Commissioner Summa: They do, okay. So, I should of known that then I guess but thanks. I was 2 just want to check on that. 3 4 Chair Hechtman: Vice-Chair Roohparvar. 5 6 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Super quick and I don’t think you were here Commissioner Hechtman 7 [note – Chair Hechtman] but I recall when it only came before us once. It really did feel like a 8 rubber stamp and Commissioners raised questions and they were basically told by Staff like 9 thanks, that’s great context. We can’t do this so I… because of that I think it makes sense or if 10 we could pull it forward and have one meeting or if it’s practical to do that. That way we can 11 give input and with respect to what Commissioner Alcheck said about Staff being empowered 12 to comment on the specific projects and prioritization. Well, it sounded like Ms. Tanner was 13 saying they’re not resourced to be able to do that in this process but maybe a compromise 14 could be overarching like two or three couple bold points like by the way, guys. I know that 15 climate change was a priority for you but we’re kind of off track here. You might want to think 16 about that if possible and if there are major alarming overarching issues to flag to solve the 17 resource issue Ms. Tanner raised as well as the issues both Commissioner Alcheck and 18 Commissioner Chang raised. That’s it, thank you. 19 20 Chair Hechtman: Thank you, Vice-Chair, and then I have one other request of Staff when you do 21 bring this back to us in February and then thereafter whether it’s annually or something else. It 22 would be really useful to me if I could see in this long spread sheet what’s changed from the 23 last time we looked at it. Because then I can really… at least that can be one of my focuses is to 24 understand just what’s different from the last time we studied this. So, I don’t know how easy 25 or difficult that is and I’m not looking for anything elaborate. But just some way to help us see 26 because to me that… what’s changes is I’m hoping will show me what’s progressed and that 27 would be useful information. 28 29 Ms. Campbell: So, Chair, could I just get a little bit of clarity on that. So, you’re saying maybe 30 regards to the status like what’s changed and why or something like that? 31 32 Chair Hechtman: Yeah, yeah, that simple because what I’m not looking for is a progress report 33 on all whichever of the 410 are ongoing, and here’s what we did this year. I’m not looking for 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . that. I’m particularly if the status has changed, I think that’s a very high-level easy change. 1 You’re going to change the document to do it and so do that in a redline form or highlight it or 2 something. 3 4 Ms. Campbell: Got it. 5 6 Chair Hechtman: So, that we can just see it when we read through. 7 8 Ms. Campbell: Okay, thank you. 9 10 Chair Hechtman: Alright, anything further from the Commission or Staff on this item? If not 11 then I’m going to thank Ms. Moitra and Ms. Campbell for a thorough report and for a lot of 12 effort to maintain this list and update it. And to my fellow Commissioners for a robust 13 discussion of it and I am going to… so that’s going to concluded Agenda Item Three. We will 14 now move to Agenda Item Four which is a public hearing/ quasi-judicial/legislative review of 15 the Castilleja School’s conditional use permit and variance per council direction March 29, 16 2021, and review of a draft ordinance per council direction amending Section 18.04.030 17 regarding definition of gross floor area in the R1 zone for below-grade garages. The Zone 18 District: R-1(10,000). Environmental Review: the Final Environmental Impact Report (EIR) was 19 published July 30, 2020, and the draft EIR was published July 15, 2019. 20 21 Commission Action: Motion by Summa, seconded by Templeton. Pass 7-0 22 Commission Action: Motion by Lauing, seconded by Summa. Pass 7-0 23 Commission Action: Motion by Chang, seconded by Summa. Pass 4-3 (Noes: Alcheck, 24 Hechtman, Roohparvar) 25 Commission Action: Motion by Lauing, seconded by Chang. Pass 7-0 26 4. PUBLIC HEARING/QUASI JUDICIAL/LEGISLATIVE: Review of the Castilleja School's 27 Requested Conditional Use Permit and Variance per Council Direction March 29, 28 2021, and Review of a Draft Ordinance per Council Direction Amending Section 29 18.04.030 Regarding Definition of Gross Floor Area in the R1 Zone for Below Grade 30 Garages. Zone District: R-1(10,000). Environmental Review: The Final Environmental 31 Impact Report (EIR) was Published July 30, 2020 and the Draft EIR was Published July 32 15, 2019 33 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Chair Hechtman: May we have a Staff report? 1 2 Ms. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director: Thank you very much Chair (interrupted) 3 4 Ms. Amy French, Chief Planning Official: Yes. 5 6 Ms. Tanner: Hechtman. We’re going to have Amy French here who is our Chief Planning Official. 7 We’re also joined by a host of other Staff as well and as well as consultants and as you know we 8 also have the project applicant here who will have time for a presentation. When we do get to 9 public comment, we do have some organized groups that will be speaking in groups and so we 10 can help to organize that when that’s ready. But for now, I will hand it over to Ms. French. 11 12 Ms. French: Sure, good evening. This is Amy French, Chief Planning Official. Thank you, Rachael 13 and I wanted to maybe before I upload and share my screen which is a PowerPoint 14 presentation. If there are disclosures of any kind that need to be done, is that part of the 15 proceeding? 16 17 Chair Hechtman: Yes, thank you, Ms. French. We can do that now. Commissioners, ex parte 18 contacts with people regarding this agenda item? Does anyone have something to disclose? 19 Vice-Chair Roohparvar. 20 21 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: I was contacted by somebody from PNQL, Andie Reed and she had just 22 prepared a binder for me and all the documents were already public comments. I don’t know if 23 that’s something to disclose but and I think that she gave that to everybody. Thanks. 24 25 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Summa. 26 27 Commissioner Summa: I had a similar contact. I received a binder and spoke to a member of 28 the public who’s part of that neighborhood group. 29 30 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Chang. 1 2 Commissioner Chang: Yes, I also received the binder from PNQL but in addition, a group of 3 concerned neighbors met with me. 4 5 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Lauing. 6 7 Commissioner Lauing: I received that binder on my doorstep but didn’t have any meetings. 8 9 Chair Hechtman: And Commissioner Alcheck. 10 11 Commissioner Alcheck: Just for the sake of clarity, I did not receive a binder on my doorstep or 12 otherwise. So, in case the impression is that all of us got it I am really unaffected. 13 14 Chair Hechtman: Thank you, Commissioner Alcheck. I had a Zoom meeting with the attorneys… 15 two attorneys for the applicant during which we… they reviewed with me elements of the 16 documents that had been presented to the City. The parking garage plan and the TDM 17 program. So, they didn’t provide any information to me during that meeting outside the scope 18 of the information that they have presented now or in the past to the City. Any other 19 disclosures? Did we hear from all Commissioners? 20 21 Ms. French if I forget, I do believe that Ms.… Commissioner Templeton will join us in progress 22 sometime after 8:00. And so, it would help if I do forget to ask her for her disclosure somebody 23 please remind me. 24 25 Alright, with that let us move into your Staff report, Ms. French. 26 27 Ms. French: I’m going to share my screen. Give me a moment. Is everyone seeing this? Could I 28 get a confirmation? 29 30 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Yes. 31 32 Ms. Tanner: Yes. 33 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Ms. French: Okay, thank you. 1 2 Commissioner Lauing: Yes. 3 4 Ms. French: I want to avoid technical difficulties. So, it’s December 8th, we’re back. Most of you 5 were here back in 2020. I think we have one new member, Commissioner Chang. So, tonight’s 6 presentation looks like this. We will do an overview of what the Planning and Transportation 7 Commission did in 2020, what the Council moved and directed in March of 2021, and we’ll 8 cover a few of the discussion topics in the report. We’ll get a little update about last week’s ARB 9 meeting and overview of a couple of these parking options, two among the five, and talk a little 10 bit about Gross Floor Area and the temporary campus alternatives. The applicant will be 11 presenting and include focused comments on the Transportation Demand Management Plan 12 and the community of course will have the opportunity to give testimony. We’ll ask the 13 Commission to provide input and then we’ll get a continuance to a date uncertain. 14 15 So now for an overview of 2020. These are the Planning and Transportation Commission’s 16 recommendations on the Conditional Use Permit and Variance. There were the findings were 17 split on Finding Two and a majority vote on Finding One for the Conditional Use Permit. The 18 Variance did receive four members recommendation for approval of the Variance. There were 19 discussions with both of those regarding the subterranean parking facility or garage and 20 discussion about the interpretation relating to that. 21 22 Then in March the City Council met and provided motions at two of their meetings. One on 23 March 15th and another set on the 29th. On March 15th, there were three motions, A through C. 24 On March 29th, A through I and these were noted in the Staff reports to the Planning 25 Commission and ARB. The ARB really was addressing Item E which was adjustment to the 26 building as well as some other items, B through E, that have ARB over sight. And then the 27 Council did initiate a Text Amendment regarding the concept of counting below-grade parking 28 facility as Gross Floor Area towards the Gross Floor Area for a project in the R-1 Zone that is 29 non-residential on a large parcel such as this. So, and also, to count parking garages that 30 provide more than 50 percent of the Gross Floor Area. And then there are some other items, A, 31 B, and H that were directed to the Planning Commission and we’ll talk about these in the 32 coming slides. 33 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . So, Item A was about enrollment and basically, the increase would start at 450 students and 1 move up from there and just noting that the 2020 school year, the enrollment was 426 students 2 as verified. The Planning and Transportation Commission is asked to identify a procedure to 3 allow Castilleja to further increase enrollment up to the requested 540 students in phases. So, 4 there’s some items here that relate to the Mitigation Measure 7a from the Environmental 5 Impact Report and based on the Transportation Demand Management Plan. So, there is some… 6 the key thing is no new… net new trips. That’s a Condition of Approval and something that 7 Planning and Transportation Commission initiated in its review. 8 9 So, these are some of the other items. The related items to Motion A regarding TDM, regarding 10 reviewing the increases as a percentage, regarding evaluating forming a TDM Oversight 11 Committee, and the fourth one about the reduction of required parking based on a robust 12 TDM. 13 14 So, the Item B about parking reduction was to direct the Staff and the Planning and 15 Transportation Commission to review an underground facility that allows a maximum of 50 16 percent of the required onsite parking to be below grade without counting against the project’s 17 Gross Floor Area. And then a further motion to not have more than 50 percent of the required 18 parking below grade. So, in the case of Castilleja with 104 spaces required per code based on 19 the number of classrooms, 52 is the 50 percent number that would be allowed below grade per 20 Council’s motion. So, the applicant did respond to this with five parking options and as well a 21 parking adjustment request. The two options ARB looked at last week and found favor with 22 where Parking Option E which has tree preservation advantages and that comes with it a 14.4 23 percent parking adjustment. And then Parking Option D, which is the applicant’s preference, 24 would include 69 spaces below grade and then adjust parking by 9 percent. 25 26 Here's another motion, the rest of Item B, which again relates to Item B but is about a potential 27 for Residential Parking Program or alternative parking strategies and enforcing the parking 28 restrictions. 29 30 Then Item H was about events. Again, the Planning and Transportation Commission 31 recommended the 74 events I believe and this is to look hard at those and see if there’s a way 32 to reduce those to between 50 and 70 events. And then with no Sunday events which is already 33 part of the project and the five major events stay. 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . So, this is just briefly what the ARB purview included was again the building modifications. They 1 looked at the two parking schemes or they looked at five parking schemes and ended up 2 supporting two of those. And they also looked at the additional tree protection measures the 3 applicant responded with. Urban Forestry became quite involved and we got a third-party 4 arborist that the City retained to study and work on this trees. Then also the construction 5 phasing was a motion that the applicant responded with alternatives to the placement of the 6 temporary campus on Spieker Field. 7 8 So, the Text Amendment, the Text Amendment is the Attachment A to your Staff report and it 9 responds to the motion by excluding the portion of the garage… a garage with 50 percent of the 10 Code required parking spaces. And then if the garage were to have more than 50 percent of the 11 spaces then the entire garage would count. That’s how the ordinance is set up currently and 12 then it’s... and then specific to 50 percent below-grade parking. It was narrowly drafted so it 13 only applies to two properties. The other property is a large property on Cowper that… I should 14 say the other R-1 property that is 6-acres or more is along Cowper Street and contains a church 15 and a school and a non-profit. So, it would affect that property as well except for the drafting of 16 this which talks about a historic resource and that other property does not have a historic 17 resource. So, the PTC could further refine or look at the wording of that ordinance. 18 19 So, then we come to our second discussion topic enrollment and when we went to the City 20 Council we had a package that said 490 students could be enrolled at the completion of the 21 garage. And then going up from there by 25 student increments until the… all of the buildings 22 area constructed, the temporary buildings are removed, and then still going by 25 students a 23 year until 540 students. Noted here is what the Planning and Transportation Commission 24 recommended. This was this 4.e Condition that talked about no enrollment increase until the 25 Performance Standards of Condition 22 are met and three prior reporting periods so and it gave 26 an example about how that could happen. So, this is a very dense slide, I apologize, but tried to 27 capture here the Condition 22 with its reporting periods that precede the year and what that 28 would mean if the applicant was successful in meeting the criteria; which is no new net trips for 29 the am peak, 440, and no exceeding the average daily trip totals of 1,294. So, really with this 30 one, the Council motion said to make the first increase to 450 students and it wasn’t tied to the 31 parking garage construction. So, then the question asked is, is this reporting structure 32 appropriate? The Planning and Transportation Commission had discussed mechanisms, phased 33 enrollment increases, and these were tied to the milestones of construction. And there were… 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . the Mitigation Measure from the… 7a from the EIR had some measurements there, 1 Performance Standards, and had quite a list of TDM measures that would be placed if the trips 2 were not met. And there were other conditions such as public hearings required for persistent 3 violations and then reducing enrollment of course as a hammer there. So, Council didn’t seem 4 satisfied with these approaches and asked us to continue to sort out this system. I think the 5 concern was that it was just once it was found that there were some violations or infractions. It 6 would be too late to reduce enrollment because students are given a heads-up about their 7 enrollment for the coming school year. So, the concern is that the City would not be able to 8 cure the whole year and reduce the number of students. So, this is a topic we can return at the 9 end. 10 11 Moving on, the TDM plan, we had quite a number of measures. We had the Condition 22 again 12 and there were a number of elements of the TDM Plan and then we also received an updated 13 TDM Plan with the applicant addressing the Office of Transportation’s comments and 14 questions. And also, the applicant submitted this parking supply and demand study that didn’t 15 consider the reduction from the TDM Plan implementation. So, this is just a chart from that. So, 16 the TDM Plan did include all elements of the current plan at the school. And then included the 17 mitigation measures, the 7a, as appropriate, and then other enhanced programs to achieve no 18 new net trips. This is a lot to read, I’ll let it linger here. We can come back to this if anyone 19 would like. 20 21 The next piece of it was motions regarding the Residential Permit Parking and how the 22 applicant might provide the public art via on-site and funds. There’s really no need to give 23 feedback at this point or a recommendation. Especially not on the public art, the applicant has 24 addressed willingness to do that half and half for the art. 25 26 Then the next item was special events. Again, I covered that at the beginning. We’re at five 27 events for major, here they are. There are no Sunday events. This reconsideration of 50 to 70 28 events, Castilleja did submit a list of events that they were looking hard at, considering. Could 29 they be eliminated? This kind of thing but they note that it’s going to be impactful to 30 academics, social and programing needs. The applicant also provided a list of comparison 31 schools. We don’t really have time to get into that tonight but that was looking exhaustedly at 32 conditions and hours of operations etc. The Staff recommendation is based on Staff’s earlier 33 analysis that 70 events along with the five major events and no Sundays. So, we’re looking to 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . try to draft Conditions that are responsive to Council and minimize the event-related impacts to 1 the neighborhood but also balance Castilleja’s interest. So, these just briefly were the I think 10 2 here events that Castilleja consider for elimination. As you can see they’re pretty seemingly 3 important to the program. The applicant can speak better to this and they have in their 4 submittal. 5 6 Then just briefly to cover the ARB. We do have Chair Thompson here. I’ll just briefly go over this 7 as she might want to elaborate further or if you have questions for her she’s attending the 8 meeting. So, this was last week the ARB was directed by Council to review an academic building 9 that reduced by 4,000 and change square feet and reconsider the massing and compatibility of 10 the design with the neighborhood. And so, the ARB did review the changes that were made. 11 There were changes to improve the tree protections as well as the Parking Option E and the 12 applicant’s preferred Option D for the parking alternatives. So, quite a few things were done. It 13 was a successful meeting as far as, you know, we did receive feedback from the public and the 14 ARB had their chance to weigh in at their first meeting on this [unintelligible]. There were three 15 out of two members supported making further modifications as the Council has asked for that 16 effort on the Kellogg side. 17 18 So, and briefly the ARB discussed the construction phasing. There was an alternative to put a 19 temporary campus on the circle instead but that was a much longer 58-month schedule 20 opposed to the 34 months by using Spieker Field. As far as an offsite alternative, there was no 21 offsite location proposed or studied. Just an idea but that’s up to the applicant to if that’s to be 22 explored further. 23 24 Briefly again, we have this consultant report. We had a third party to laser count all of the 25 existing buildings on the campus and it came out that the existing campus is larger based on 26 the… primarily on the volumetric space which is second and third-floor equivalent space. And 27 this is present in the fine arts building and the gym. So, when the fine arts building is removed 28 and the new building would be constructed. The… it turns out that the result is less than the 29 square footage on… to be removed. 30 31 So, then again, the parking options I was talking about earlier. This is Option D that shows the 32 69 spaces below grade and the same number as in the original or in the Project Alternative Four 33 which is 26 at the surface. That comes with a 9 percent parking adjustment and then this is the 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Option E where there are 11 added spaces at the surface to the 26 that were previously 1 proposed. And then meeting the Council’s directive to only place half below grade and that 2 comes with a 14 percent parking adjustment. 3 4 This is just basically shows why tree… why Option E is on the table. In addition to these 11 5 spaces, there’s the saving of this tree, 155, that’s in a planter, and some other trees improving 6 on their tree protection zones. 7 8 So, this was the final bit which was again, this is the Spieker Field temporary campus. The ARB’s 9 purview is to look at phasing of construction. The Conditional Use Permit relates to the project 10 as a whole so this is within both purview of the Planning Commission and ARB. 11 12 Here is a slide that provides the areas that we, Staff, would suggest that Planning Commission 13 focus. So, again we have the draft ordinance and we’ve taken an approach, and there are other 14 approaches. As far as the enrollment, guide us, any guidance how to go from 450 to 550. We 15 don’t have increases tied to construction milestones. Is all about meeting the trip limits but is 16 there anything else possible that we’re not thinking of? The TDM Plan measures, are there 17 additional measures that aren’t in the updated TDM Plan that we should be thinking about? 18 How about the RPP, if there’s thoughts about that versus the time of day restrictions? The 19 special events, again it’s going to be Council’s call. Is there anything the Planning Commission 20 wishes to add there and same goes for other items if you have other items? So, I can bring this 21 back up at some point. I am concluding however and I would like to stop sharing my screen. 22 Was I successful? 23 24 Chair Hechtman: Alright (interrupted) 25 26 Ms. Tanner: Yes, thank you, Amy. I think now we’ll hand it back to the Chair and he may call up 27 the applicant I believe. 28 29 Chair Hechtman: Actually, I was going to first ask the Chair of the ARB, Ms. Thompson, who’s 30 here, if she has anything that she would like to add in augmentation of the Staff report. You 31 don’t have to but you’re welcome to. Now would be a good time for that if you’d like to. 32 33 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Ms. Osma Thompson, Chair of the ARB: Sure. I thought Amy’s was pretty comprehensive. The 1 only thing that I want to add was while we all did support Option E for the garage. I have in my 2 notes that each member had some concern about the long fence that comes with Option E. So, 3 we’d like to look at that façade again as well as garage truck maneuvering over there. So, that’s 4 the only thing I’ll add. We were in support of the option general, just that there were some 5 details that we’d like to review once that option is more fleshed out. Yeah, that was the only 6 thing I believe I wanted to add. 7 8 Chair Hechtman: Thank you and our appreciation to the ARB to do the heavy lifting on a lot of 9 architectural issues that are associated with this redesigned campus. So, what I’d like to do next 10 is actually questions of Staff before we hear from the applicant and then move to public 11 comment. So, and I do want us to focus on questions… clarifying questions of Staff. We’ll have 12 ample opportunity for discussion as this item progresses. So, let me start with Vice-Chair 13 Roohparvar. 14 15 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Thank you. I have a number of questions. So, first going to the 16 amendment… the ordinance, two kinds of issues I wanted to ask you about. Where it says 17 base… 50 percent of the base required on-site vehicle parking shall be excluded etc. I think your 18 intention is for that to mean that it… base being calculated pre reductions, is that correct? And 19 if that’s the case I would either define that because I think base is a little bit vague unless it’s 20 already defined somewhere in the Code. I don’t know, I just wanted to flag that, and I don’t 21 know if you have comments on that if I’m mistaken or misinterpreting, but that. 22 23 And then the second question that I had that was confusing for me with respect to the 24 ordinance was in your Staff report it says that City Council directed that the garage either be 25 fully or partially excluded from the Gross Floor Area calculation and it says it multiple times. 26 And what I’m struggling with is what do they mean by partial because if it’s under 50 percent 27 then it’s completely excluded. So, and anything under 50 percent of the total parking 28 requirements is always going to be fully excluded. So, what is meant by partial? Did that mean… 29 And I mean I can’t imagine they were thinking more than 50 percent. If you can have 64 and 30 you’re at 70, the 64 gets excluded but the extra six get included because they say no more than 31 50 percent. That 50 percent is your max so there’s a disconnect for me from… and it's directly 32 like Council said exclude fully or partially. And then subsequently on Packet Page, it’s 107 and 33 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . 108 it says the same thing. Do you have any thoughts on that? Why are they saying full and 1 partial when it clearly just means you can’t interpret it except full? 2 3 Mr. Albert Yang, Assistant City Attorney: Right so it’s a good suggestion on the… on defining 4 base parking requirements. We’ll make sure that’s clear and then on the Council’s motion. I 5 think you’re encountering some confusion created by the fact that Council made motions over 6 two nights on this. And the first night, March 8, 2021, is when they made the motions directing 7 Staff to put together an ordinance dealing with Gross Floor Area for underground garages. And 8 they told us to do an ordinance where everything counts, where nothing counts, and where 9 some of it counts. And then on March 21st, I believe it was their second meeting where they 10 made a motion on this issue they gave more specificity and that’s where the 50 percent came 11 from. So, that’s what we drafted based on the more specific motion. If Council or if the 12 Commission wants to see an example of what it would look like for all of it to count or none of 13 it to count. That’s fairly simple to put together. 14 15 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: No, that’s fine. I was just confused but your explanation just cleared it 16 up for me. I had another question for you. 17 18 Ms. Madina Klicheva, Administrative Assistant: Hi, I apologize to bother you. 19 20 Chair Hechtman: Ms. Klicheva, are we okay to continue? 21 22 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Can we continue? 23 24 Ms. Tanner: Madina, is there something you need to tell us? 25 26 Ms. Klicheva: Oh, sorry, sorry, no, I apologize, I have a problem with the laptop. So, I wanted to 27 see if right now Dean can help me out and substitute me for a short amount of time while I 28 restart. 29 30 Ms. Tanner: Okay, well I’ll chat with you to handle that. 31 32 Ms. Madina: I apologize, I didn’t want to unmute myself. It’s just my laptop right now is acting 33 up. 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . 1 Ms. Tanner: Okay, thanks. 2 3 Ms. Madina: Thank you, sorry. 4 5 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Yeah, no problem. Okay and then when we did the… and I don’t know if 6 Staff knows this but the phasing of 25 students. Is 25 students a class size at Castilleja? 7 8 Ms. French: It varies depending on the class. I’m sure the applicant can provide more color to 9 that but with the Environmental Impact Report, I believe we were looking at 25 or 27 and it 10 came down to a condition and we said 25. So, that was the increment of additional enrollment 11 increase that we were all working from over the past several years. 12 13 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Got it and then so with respect to the find parking options where it’s 14 between 9 to 20 percent potential reduction. Is that going to change our analysis of a number 15 of trips? It would, right? If we’re having less or am I off on that? 16 17 Ms. French: No, I mean the number of trips is set by the motion. 18 19 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Oh, and then they can’t (interrupted) 20 21 Ms. French: [unintelligible] no new net trips. They can’t exceed and then there’s consequences 22 if they do. 23 24 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Okay, that’s… so that makes sense and then so another question I had is 25 on that slide you had regarding Gross Floor Area. The comparing it, the 130, 140. What do you 26 mean by volumetric? I’m a little bit… can you explain that to me? Yeah, I just… are we going to 27 have… is it going to be a smaller campus? Is it’s because it’s two stories? 28 29 Ms. French: No. 30 31 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Can you flesh that out a bit more for me and explain that? 32 33 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Ms. French: Sure. So, volumetric floor area is a fancy way of saying our Code includes in the 1 calculation of Gross Floor Area volumes of a building that exceed 17-feet above grade. That 2 represents a first floor, so when you have from the first floor up to a roof height above 17-feet. 3 That’s one space like that, it counts twice towards Gross Floor Area. A portion of the gym, the 4 lobby of the gym, is 17 ½-feet tall as we learned in the measurement this the laser counter and 5 so that portion actually counts twice. And then the gym itself, that is a very tall basketball court 6 and that counts three times because it exceeds 26-feet from first floor from the basketball 7 court up to the roof, not the ceiling. And so those kind of inflate the numbers of the existing 8 campus Gross Floor Area. The fine arts center also was found to have taller than 17-feet 9 between the floor and the roof above. And so that is being demolished as part of this proposal 10 and so what that means is there’s more being removed based on removing that building than is 11 being put back. The applicant has always maintained they will not put back more than they’re 12 removing and now it seems with this exercise with counting everything. They’re going to put 13 back less than what’s existing because of that volumetric space. 14 15 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Got it. That’s really helpful because I was like is this a stupid question? 16 I’m just going to ask it because I have no idea. Okay and then there’s a line on Packet Page 112 17 that says the existing offsite parking facility used on Cowper. A month-to-month arrangement 18 with First Presbyterian Church doesn’t count as satellite parking. Why? It sounds like it’s 19 satellite on a non-residential street. 20 21 Ms. French: It’s a residential street. There is a church there but it’s in a residential 22 neighborhood and that is a month-to-month situation. And the Council’s motion appears to 23 suggest that the satellite parking would not be in a residential neighborhood. So, that would 24 not be the right spot for any satellite parking. 25 26 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Oh, so, okay, so non-residential neighborhood. I was thinking they’re 27 going to use the church as parking lot so that’s not on a street. Okay, so that’s helpful and then I 28 had a question regarding the penalties for missing the TDM. So, if Castilleja misses… when it 29 goes over what they’re required and their penalty is… is their penalty that they miss the next 30 phase so they have to wait an extra year? Or is it that the total of 540 students is now 525 31 because that’s a much harsher… what’s the impact? 32 33 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Ms. French: I think we talked about in there… there’s not a sliding scale but an increasing 1 penalties and increasing mitigation measures that would happen. And then the combination 2 would be this idea of clawing back five students at a time. And the concern about how that 3 would be put in place if the infractions were not corrected through these additional mitigation 4 or sorry, TDM measures. 5 6 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Got it, so a claw back, okay. And then one final question for you and it 7 goes to thinking about the RPP program. Is there currently an issue with affiliated parking on 8 the neighborhood streets, or is it currently a problem, and are you guys tracking that? Or is 9 there any insight with respect to that or is the concern like once they go up to 540 they 10 anticipate it to become a problem? Is it existing or is it anticipated? 11 12 Ms. French: It… well we… I think Philip is showing his camera and he can give us more detail 13 about whether that’s supported in the neighborhood. I wanted to mention one more thing 14 about that satellite parking though. That particular site is more than 500-feet from the Castilleja 15 campus and typically a parking adjustment includes satellite parking it’s not farther than 500-16 feet from the location. 17 18 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: So, it has to be within 500-feet of Castilleja in order to count as 19 satellite? 20 21 Ms. French: No, I think it could be. It’s just that normally what our Code says is no more than 22 500-feet away in any case. I’ll let Philip move with his (interrupted) 23 24 Mr. Philip Kamhi, Chief Transportation Official: Yeah, sorry, she’s restless (interrupted) 25 26 Ms. French: He’s busy. 27 28 Mr. Kamhi: Right now. 29 30 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Ah, so cute. 31 32 Mr. Kamhi: Just to speak to the RPP as a possible solution. First, I just want to note that I don’t 33 believe that there’s an impact immediately. That would be something that residents in the 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . neighborhood would need to say or tell us. I haven’t heard that there is. It’s not something that 1 we… so typically what happens is what we do is we do counts. We do surveys to determine 2 what the impacts of if we hear typically through a petition of residents and through a certain 3 threshold that needs to be achieved through the residence. We would determine that a study 4 needs to be determined to determine what the occupancy of parking is occurring on the 5 streets. And that would inform us whether an RPP would be a possible remedy to the solution. 6 7 But just noting for schools there are other possible solutions and we do utilize other ones. And 8 actually, that’s one of the things that’s required of us before creating an RPP is to look at other 9 possible solutions. And around schools, one of those possibilities is just a time restriction in the 10 middle of the day. That would make it very hard for somebody who’s parking at a school all day 11 to not exceed, but might be less of an issue for somebody that as… if you’re a resident in an 12 RPP program. You have to go through a permit process, you have to purchase a permit, you 13 have to renew your permit, you have to deal with guests that come, and it can be quite a 14 process. So just kind of giving you some of the input on that. 15 16 Finally, it’s not known whether it would really cause a parking impact that would require or 17 constitute an RPP. Thank you, Lilla, I’m sorry. 18 19 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: So cute, she’s so cute. That’s it for questions. 20 21 Ms. French: Yeah mom. 22 23 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Wait actually, Ms. French can I ask you one more question? 24 25 Ms. French: Yes. 26 27 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: On the satellite parking? So, if it needs to be within 500-feet and in a 28 non-residential neighborhood. Is there a non-residential neighborhood within 500-feet of 29 Castilleja? 30 31 Ms. French: Well, we haven’t done that analysis but Castilleja is a residential neighborhood and 32 that stretches for quite some distance. I would say the closest non-residential neighborhood is 33 when you get to Palo Alto High School and the Trader Joes over there the Town and Country. I 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . don’t know if there is a closer non-residential neighborhood than that and I believe that’s more 1 than 500-feet. 2 3 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Yeah, that’s kind of what I was thinking. 4 5 Mr. Yang: Just to clarify, 500-feet is the limit in our code where we could accept satellite 6 parking as something counting towards the parking requirement for the site. But the Council’s 7 motion included direction to explore satellite parking in a non-residential neighborhood as a 8 Condition of Approval. And understanding that it wouldn’t replace onsite parking but it would 9 just be something additional to alleviate some… any parking issues. 10 11 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Got it. Could that trigger an EIR and other environmental… CEQA or 12 does any of that trigger CEQA or? 13 14 Mr. Yang: Depending on where it was, potentially it’s something that we would have to do 15 some supplemental analysis. 16 17 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Got it, okay. Thank you. 18 19 Chair Hechtman: Alright, I have three Commissioners wanting to ask questions of Staff before 20 we move to the public… the applicant comments and it’s 8 o’clock. It’s 8:02 so before we have 21 those additional Commission comments, we’re going to take a 10-minute break. Let’s see, yeah, 22 so we’ll try to reconvene at 8:12 and when we do, Commissioner Templeton may be joining us. 23 24 [The Commission took a 10-minute break] 25 26 Chair Hechtman: We are back from our break and before we resume Commissioner questions 27 of Staff. I’m going to ask Commissioner Templeton if she has any disclosures to make on this 28 item for Castilleja. 29 30 Commissioner Templeton: No, I do not. 31 32 Chair Hechtman: Alright, thank you. We will start with Commissioner Summa and your 33 questions of Staff. 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . 1 Commissioner Summa: Thank you very much and to circle back to the question about satellite 2 parking. I just wanted to get a little further clarification. I’m think that satellite parking is 3 parking at a remote location that would ease traffic through the use of shuttling. And that it 4 wouldn’t be satellite parking… offsite parking for the building… for the project that was within 5 500-feet that would be used for parking. That would actually affect their parking requirement. 6 Am I think about that correctly? 7 8 Ms. French: Sorry, I wasn’t sure who you directed that to. Is that to Staff? 9 10 Commissioner Summa: Yes, yes. You or anyone on Staff. 11 12 Ms. French: So, sure, satellite parking could be farther away than 500-feet. It just would not be 13 part of the TDM… it could be a part of a TDM program but as far as that parking adjustment 14 goes. That’s typically tied in with that 500-feet distance where people could walk easily to the 15 location where the parking is not provided. 16 17 Commissioner Summa: Okay so (interrupted) 18 19 Ms. French: I think… oh, Jonathan is here to talk further about this. Hi Jon. 20 21 Commissioner Summa: Oh, thank you. 22 23 Mr. Jonathan Lait, Director of Planning: Well and I’m sorry. I think a few of us are doing double 24 duty tonight with youngsters. But is the question about (interrupted) 25 26 Commissioner Summa: I’ll restate it. 27 28 Mr. Lait: Thank you. 29 30 Commissioner Summa: For the purposes of this project and others, I typically think of satellite 31 parking as at a remote location. And specifically, in the discussions about Castilleja, there’s 32 been some talk about having parking at a remote location and shuttling people in. I think of 33 that as satellite parking which has to do with traffic and TDMs. And I think of offsite parking 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . within 500-feet, that that would be parking that would fulfill park of the parking requirement 1 for the project. [unintelligible] (interrupted) 2 3 Mr. Lait: Yeah, I think that’s a (interrupted) 4 5 Commissioner Summa: I was thinking about that correctly. 6 7 Mr. Lait: Yeah, I think that’s about right. The Code provides that if you can’t put all your parking 8 on site. That you can put it within 500-feet subject to certain criteria. That’s not what’s being 9 contemplated here. Applicant is proposing to park the site… put all the required parking on site, 10 except that now we have this Council direction with the garage and consideration of the 11 reduced parking allowance. And so, they’re meeting their parking requirements through a 12 reduced parking reduction and then the balance of that, if there’s a need for additional parking. 13 That could be offsite and but it wouldn’t be required parking. It would be a Condition of 14 Approval as I think Albert was intimating earlier. 15 16 Commissioner Summa: Okay and typically offsite parking is for commercial or multi-family 17 zones, isn’t that right? 18 19 Mr. Lait: I’ll look to Amy maybe to help me out with the provisions that specifically relate to it 20 but again, it’s not something that is precluded. As… through the CUP, you have the ability to 21 impose that condition. 22 23 Commissioner Summa: Okay. 24 25 Ms. French: I would just add to that to answer. Commercial zones are the ones that have that 26 language about parking 500-feet away to meet the parking requirements. Because we have a 27 parking adjustment request filed by the applicant in response to the Council motion. We have 28 the range of items that can be utilized. Including up to 20 percent with a robust TDM program 29 to grant that parking adjustment or reduction request so. 30 31 Commissioner Summa: But we wouldn’t have in this case offsite parking that fulfilled the 32 parking requirement. 33 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Mr. Yang: So, that’s not being proposed in this cause, but it is technically an option if something 1 existed [unintelligible]. It’s available in the Zoning Code but it’s not being proposed here. 2 3 Commissioner Summa: Okay and then another question is did the Council motion use the term 4 base requirement or just parking requirement? Because there’s quite a difference between… 5 potentially between base requirement… what was introduced as a base requirement. That’s 6 where it starts but then after the reductions. I mean there’s quite a difference so I was 7 wondering where… if there was a notion, I don’t know if the exact word baseline requirement 8 was even used by Council, but I didn’t feel that there was… that was expressed in the Council 9 motion. Could Staff clarify how that was expressed in the Council motion? It just said parking 10 requirement which is the requirement is whatever you end with I would think. 11 12 Mr. Lait: Well, so, thank you for that question Commissioner. From our perspective, we’re 13 taking that from the Code required parking that was required at the time that the Council saw 14 the application and not from a reduced parking 50 percent threshold. So, that’s been our 15 perspective based on the Council motion. 16 17 Commissioner Summa: So, that was based on the Council’s motion, okay. 18 19 Mr. Lait: That was… yeah again, based on our understanding of the Council motion is that is 20 from the project code parking requirement, 50 percent from that threshold. 21 22 Commissioner Summa: Thank you and then second question is since the volumetric space 23 existed, which we know wasn’t counted until recently. Since that will not be rebuilt, does that 24 mean that they will… did all of the excess over what would be allowed there which is 81 and 25 some change. Did that exist in the volumetric space and so they will… where is the other square 26 footage because removing those buildings with the volumetric space wasn’t counted still 27 doesn’t get us a project with no grandfathered square feet over the… what would be allowed. Is 28 that… so could (interrupted) 29 30 Ms. French: I can try to answer that with by saying the gym is the by far the most grandfathered 31 of grandfathered space. The counting three times and the counting two times, those are 32 staying. The fine arts building that is being removed, that floor area that’s being removed times 33 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . two because of the second-floor equivalency. The applicant is not asking to put that back in the 1 building. That is being removed and not being put back. I don’t know if that answers it. 2 3 Commissioner Summa: I guess… there’s been so much confusion about square footage and I 4 guess I don’t understand… I understand that the volumetric counting was overlooked and… 5 until recently. But I still don’t understand how they’re grandfathering… how they get to build so 6 much more than was allowed… would have been allowed on a site? At what point did they 7 build things that they didn’t have a permit for because you wouldn’t have let them build 8 something over what was allowed on the site in terms of the FAR anyhow. So, I’m just 9 struggling to understand how to reconcile all these numbers about what’s allowed, what they 10 want to build, what was their… what was newly counted? It’s (interrupted) 11 12 Mr. Lait: Yeah, a lot of numbers, so maybe I can take a stab at this. So, a lot of this we kind of 13 when over the first time and I appreciate that has been several months since we have been 14 back before you on this topic. But again, it use to be based on our understanding of the past 15 entitlements that have gone forward. The CUP process, Conditional Use Permit, was the vehicle 16 that was used in the past to allow the site to exceed what otherwise would be the permitted 17 floor area calculations in the R-1 Zone. And a more contemporary review of the code and 18 looking at the plain reading got us to the moment in processing this application where we 19 didn’t see that that was a path forward. And once we alerted the applicant to that effect, that’s 20 where the Variance application was filed. So, that they can restore floor area that had 21 previously been approved via CUP and then allow that to be demolished and rebuilt. 22 23 And then the floor area, there were some questions when we went to Council about floor area 24 and that’s why… there were some errors that were made in assessing the existing floor area. 25 And that’s why we had that really comprehensive analysis that was recently taken place. I’ll 26 note that in our ARB Staff report which I think we linked to the PTC report. We have a much 27 more expanded conversation about the ARB about the floor area to the ARB report. But, you 28 know, I hope that provides some more information. I understand that it is over the FAR that 29 would be allowed today but again, I believe that’s from the prior processing of previous CUPs. 30 31 Commissioner Summa: Okay, thank you. 32 33 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Lauing. 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . 1 Commissioner Lauing: Yes, thanks. I have a couple questions that I want to bunch together. On 2 Packet Page 105, you articulate all the areas that PTC has some purview over. Conditional Use 3 Permit, comprehensive review of TDM, the Variance, parking adjustment, etc. But we didn’t get 4 a lot of those items in this Packet. We got nothing on the FAR Variance except that link or the 5 CUP. So… and we’re going to already walking into this know we’re going to do a continued 6 meeting. Is the continued meeting going to have different content that isn’t here tonight? 7 Because we’re also… and the other on 107… sorry 105 and 6 [note – 106] articulate A, B, and H 8 as the primary area for our focus. Which is fine but there are some other things that aren’t on 9 there and as a foot note. It would be great for us to know, at least on an FYI basis, this G and I 10 on Conditional Use Permits from other private schools and the legalities of having a maximum 11 build-out. But it seems like we’re not, tonight at least, covering everything that’s in our full 12 purview. So, I’m just wondering what the process issue was there? 13 14 Mr. Lait: Thank you. Maybe I’ll start and Amy you can help fill in any gaps that I leave out. So, 15 thank you, I appreciate that question and you’re right. We don’t have all the information that 16 has been detailed in that Council motion. One of those items that you mentioned was the CUP 17 conditions from the other schools. We have some data on that but we’re not… we’re going to 18 come back with that when we come back with the Conditions of Approval which is not included 19 in your Packet. 20 21 But the reason for that is we know that there’s going to be a couple of meetings as we go 22 through this and what we wanted to do was present to the Commission information that we 23 had at this point. So, that we… because the direction that we get from the ARB and the 24 direction that we get this evening, to the extent that we get any from the PTC, is going to help 25 inform the next step of bringing you some more refined information and Conditions of 26 Approval. We’ve not made any changes to the Conditions of Approval since it was presented to 27 the City Council and we don’t want to draft something in advance of having this opportunity for 28 the public to weigh in on the revised application materials and for the Commission to weigh in 29 as well. So, we see this is a bit of an iterative process and if there is some information that 30 you’re looking for that we haven’t included tonight. Certainly, flag that for us because we want 31 to make sure that we bring that back to you when we come back. 32 33 Commissioner Lauing: Great, that answers my question. I appreciate that. 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . 1 Mr. Lait: Thank you. 2 3 Commissioner Lauing: Could we just know at this point what we think the Variance would be 4 asking for in terms of square footage or is that not really calculated yet? Whoever wants to 5 answer that. 6 7 Mr. Lait: I’ll look to Amy for that. 8 9 Ms. French: Sure, and if it would help I could put that table up from the PowerPoint that shows 10 if there’s more than a few of you (interrupted) 11 12 Commissioner Lauing: Just give us one number. 13 14 Ms. French: Sorry? 15 16 Commissioner Lauing: For efficiency, just give us one number. How much is the Variance right 17 now? 18 19 Ms. French: Well, the Variance is not asking for more than it was asking before. It’s asking for to 20 reduce what… I don’t have a number at my fingertips but I can get it if I upload that table. 21 22 Commissioner Lauing: Okay or we can address it later when you find the number. 23 24 Ms. French: I can (interrupted) 25 26 Commissioner Lauing: So, I just want to make sure we’re all clear on the fact that at this point, 27 Council has not sort of approved anything that we sent them. And in fact, as I understand it, the 28 only thing that they’ve actually approved is that they’re okay with 450 student enrollment. 29 Everything else is back to us or ARB for consideration, is that correct basically? 30 31 Ms. French: There’s been no Certification of the EIR, there’s been no motions to approve the 32 project. So, that’s (interrupted) 33 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Commissioner Lauing: Yeah, I just wanted to clarify that for the discussion here and amongst 1 the public because the Councils only indicated a willingness to do 450. And that’s as close as I 2 think they’ve come to an actual decision and they’re asking for more feedback from us and ARB 3 and others. So, thank you, that’s what I needed to know, that’s all. 4 5 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Summa your hand is still up. I’m going to go to Commissioner 6 Chang. 7 8 Commissioner Chang: Thank you, Chair. Because I wasn’t here for some of… well, for all of the 9 old meetings. I wanted some clarification because I went back and looked at minutes from 10 March 29th and my understanding was that City Council asked PTC to consider a no 11 underground garage option. And I wanted to… so I wanted to ask Staff was a no underground 12 parking option ever presented in this round? 13 14 Ms. French: The… oh, I can answer that. In the Draft Environmental Impact Report, there were 15 several alternatives to the project. The project started off with a larger garage than what the 16 Council received. It was whittled down during that review process but yes, in the Environmental 17 Impact Report there’s the no garage… no below-grade garage alternative. That’s part of the 18 analysis. It’s a big document. 19 20 Commissioner Chang: Right but to clarify, that EIR or Draft EIR was done after March 29th 21 correct? 22 23 Ms. French: No, the Draft EIR (interrupted) 24 25 Commissioner Chang: I mean sorry (interrupted) 26 27 Ms. French: Was prepared (interrupted) 28 29 Commissioner Chang: Before March 29th. 30 31 Ms. French: Yeah, prepared in 2019, and the Final EIR to address the comments received on the 32 Draft EIR was prepared in July of 2020. 33 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Commissioner Chang: Right, so it was done before the March 29th meeting. And so, I was 1 reading through City Council minutes and there’s… a sentence I have here that says direct Staff 2 and the PTC to review both a non-underground facility option and an underground parking 3 facility alternative that allows a maximum of 50 percent, etc., etc., etc. But we didn’t receive a 4 new non-underground parking option, right? 5 6 Ms. French: Correct, the March 15th motion that you’re talking about, I believe Mr. Yang was 7 addressing earlier saying that that motion was further refined on March 29th. So, that’s the 8 motion that we took to be the refined motion. 9 10 Commissioner Chang: Okay and I think either you or Mr. Yang had clarified this, but can you 11 give me more explanation review of why we are looking at a parking reduction? In other words, 12 what are the findings that are required or what’s the community benefit from… that’s provided 13 that allows us to reduce the parking or what are the requirements for a parking reduction? 14 15 Ms. French: Well, the parking adjustment is typically a Director’s adjustment associated with 16 the development project and there are a number of code statements about granting those. And 17 basically, up to 20 percent reduction can be granted if it’s found that the parking spaces will not 18 be needed because of a say robust TDM program or other aspects. So, that’s a finding that 19 would have to be made to approve that parking adjustment. 20 21 Commissioner Chang: Okay, thank you. That’s it. 22 23 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Alcheck, questions of Staff? 24 25 Commissioner Alcheck: So, it would help to have a little clarity here. Is Staff’s perspective is the 26 floor area of the project greater, equal to, or less than what’s currently there? 27 28 Ms. French: The proposed floor area is less than what’s currently there because the demolition 29 is going to remove more than is going to be put back above grade Gross Floor Area. The 30 basement [unintelligible] (interrupted) 31 32 Commissioner Alcheck: No, I get it, I get it. So, this project is smaller above grade… I mean I 33 don’t… when I… we don’t count below grade square footage anywhere in the R-1 in general. So, 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . if we’re excluding… if you include the garage, what is the distinction just so that I can appreciate 1 it? 2 3 Ms. French: We haven’t done the calculation of the square footage of the five options for the… 4 so, basically as long as the applicant proceeds with a 50 percent of the required. In other words, 5 52 space garage, we don’t… under our understanding of the motion, we wouldn’t be counting 6 that garage. 7 8 Commissioner Alcheck: Right, okay, so (interrupted) 9 10 Ms. French: Once they go over 53 spaces (interrupted) 11 12 Commissioner Alcheck: That makes perfect sense. 13 14 Ms. French: Then we would count that. 15 16 Commissioner Alcheck: Why go through that process if it makes absolutely no difference 17 because we are not counting below-grade floor area unless it exceeds this new framework that 18 you’re… that’s under consideration. 19 20 Ms. French: Correct. 21 22 Commissioner Alcheck: Is… has this… has it come up at the Staff level… okay, let me provide 23 context here. So, I understand how the concept of the garage came about in the first place 24 because I was here back when and how it was even brought into the discussion and when the 25 applicant decided to pursue that concept. It is… it was larger than it is today. Has it come up at 26 the Staff level that the size of the garage getting smaller seems to be counterintuitive to 27 minimizing… the size of the below-grade garage getting smaller sort of counterintuitively 28 probably likely make impacts greater locally? Has that… I guess what I’m trying to say is it’s like I 29 understand how we got from there wasn’t a garage below grade. It seemed like it was an 30 interest on behalf of the community. The applicant met that interest. The community has 31 apparently changed their opinion on. In the timeline here, does it seem to you like maybe this is 32 going to bite us in the rear when we look at this project in the future and go why did we make a 33 big deal out of this minor difference in underground parking? 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . 1 Ms. French: Well just conceptually I’ll just address that as Gross Floor Area, the whole concept 2 of that is bulk and mass above grade. So, from the get-go, something that’s below grade is not 3 adding bulk and mass. So, that would be the first conceptual debate about whether below-4 grade parking is Gross Floor Area when there’s no walls above grade to count the Gross Floor 5 Area too. So, that’s the first piece of it. The second piece really is, is this going to bite us, or is or 6 down the road are we going to wish we had more parking spaces for people to not use the 7 street parking for events or what have you. I mean I think we get into the TDM program then 8 and how successful is that? Hopefully, it’s all… it all goes well and (interrupted) 9 10 Commissioner Alcheck: Okay, so maybe the better question is in your planning experience, have 11 you ever heard of a garage where they were like oh we never wished we had more space. It 12 seems to me like that the… I wonder if this effort is so… I guess what I’m trying to figure out is if 13 Staff has come… has had… if there’s a conversation happening at the Staff level where it’s like 14 this is what they want. So, we’re going to go with it but this doesn’t seem like a prudent way to 15 cover our parking needs. I mean… okay, I won’t… okay let me ask you a different question. Is 16 the… when you were talking about enrollment steps. I thought I heard sort of a suggestion… 17 sort of subtle suggestion that you didn’t really… I guess my question is what was flawed about 18 our approach to staggering enrollment? Let’s agree that we can resolve the connection… we 19 can disconnect enrollment and construction phases. That’s fine. Was there, in your mind, 20 something that didn’t work in terms of the staggering of the enrollment increases with the 21 performance… the opportunities to evaluate performance metrics that didn’t create an 22 opportunity to solve that issue about backtracking? I thought when we went through it last 23 time we kind of created a timeline that put us in a position where you wouldn’t have to go oh 24 well we didn’t properly evaluate this and you have five more kids than you’re supposed to 25 have. 26 27 Mr. Lait: Maybe I’ll start on that one. Commissioner, is your question from the perspective of 28 the Council’s feedback when they reviewed the project? 29 30 Commissioner Alcheck: Yeah, so in the presentation (interrupted) 31 32 Mr. Lait: Okay, now I understand. I see (interrupted) 33 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Commissioner Alcheck: I got the impression that we were looking for a new solution and I don’t 1 understand why the one that we came up with wasn’t good at that. 2 3 Mr. Lait: No, fair question. You know we heard all kinds of comments from the Council and I 4 think the Commission put a lot of thought into the process that Amy went over in the 5 presentation and that you recall from your previous review. The one area where I think the 6 Council expressed some concern was the… related to enrollment increases, finding out about 7 the applicant’s ability to meet the no net new trip requirements, and then the eventual 8 consequence for that. There seemed to be an extended period of time and I think the 9 Commission actually spoke about this too. Between the applicant gets enrollment but it could 10 be a year or a year and a half down the line before the consequence of reducing the enrollment 11 came into effect. And so, I think there’s… I think that’s one reason why the Council is saying 12 let’s take a look at the phased enrollment increase. To have it align in some way with a more 13 timely consequence or corrective action that can take place that’s not so distant in the future. 14 And one way that we’ve attempted to do that with the revised TDM is to shift that 15 responsibility of when you add new TDM measures. That’s now a decision, at least in the draft 16 TDM Plan that’s being contemplated, that myself and Office of… the Chief Transportation 17 Official Philip Kamhi would have a conversation about what addition TDM measures might be 18 needed to ensure compliance with ADT, average daily trips, in the am peak. So, I think that’s 19 the best we can give you at this time and I think we’re just looking for some options on that. 20 21 Commissioner Alcheck: So, if I could just get one more point of clarification. So, it’s your 22 suggestion… so your impression was that our discussion didn’t address the lead time issue and 23 that… I’m trying to understand if the concern on the part of City Council was legitimate or not. 24 So, maybe they didn’t understand what we had set up, or is there an issue with we didn’t 25 provide enough… because I was under the impression that we left that last meeting with you 26 have to actually demonstrate that you had sustained a not net increase for the past increase 27 before a new… I thought we staggered it with enough of a gap. And so, my impression of the 28 City Council meeting was that they actually did not understand what we had recommended. 29 And what I’m trying to understand is does the Staff feel like that issue is addressed by our 30 previous concept or is the concern accurate and we need to go through the exercise of 31 timelining this. So, that we can demonstrate exactly why the increases don’t get ahead of their 32 deserving… you know their moment of proper allocation. 33 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Mr. Lait: Well, I think the way I would answer that question is I think the Commission put a very 1 thoughtful program together and the Council has asked us to take another look at that based 2 on their motion. 3 4 Commissioner Alcheck: And let me ask one more question, if the Commission essentially… 5 because the Council began their… they shifted the conversation to starting at 450 and our 6 original recommendation was to start at I think, was it 4 something in the 20s. 7 8 Mr. Lait: Yep. 9 10 Commissioner Alcheck: So, if the work we did last time, if we reviewed that and came to the 11 conclusion that okay if you go to 450 right away. Then increases beyond 450 wouldn’t occur 12 based on our previous timeline for either three or four years. I’d have to look at it. What I’m 13 trying to do is I’m wondering if Staff has a version of our plan that’s visual that we can look at as 14 a group to make this easier and I would suggest that if we don’t have something like that. The 15 next time we go to City Council, it might be helpful to have some sort of visual graph to help 16 demonstrate why we felt strongly that no one was going to get ahead of what they deserved. 17 And I thought it was interesting that they struggled with that and yet started at 450 because it 18 demonstrated maybe a disconnect with what we were… it demonstrated a second disconnect 19 with what we were suggesting. Okay, alright, I will… that’s the… those are my questions for pre-20 comments. 21 22 Ms. French: Commissioner Alcheck, I would be happy to put that slide up that I showed earlier. 23 My concern though is that I know that there’s an applicant presentation and that includes 24 something on the TDM that might help as far as the updated TDM as well as the public. I don’t 25 know if there’s other questions but (interrupted) 26 27 Commissioner Alcheck: We can wait. We can wait. 28 29 Chair Hechtman: Ms. Tanner, I saw your hand go up and down a couple of times. Is there 30 something you would like to add or did we pass the moment? 31 32 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Ms. Tanner: I only wanted to add to something that you’re all aware of, it’s just the time and to 1 just to suggest that at the Chair’s pleasure we might go to the applicant presentation soon just 2 given the hour. 3 4 Chair Hechtman: Yep, thank you and I was getting ready to do that after I ask one what I think is 5 a pretty simple question. So, the size of the campus, the Variance, isn’t really one of the issues 6 that Staff is looking for input on tonight. If we read through the Staff report, there are a number 7 of places where Staff is looking for direction but the Variance isn’t one of them. We will take 8 that up again at a later time. What was a curiosity to me, last year when we addressed… dealt 9 with the Variance, my memory is we were dealing with square footage? This is what the square 10 footage would be under the Code if this were a new build. This is what they have, the Gross 11 Floor Area today, and this is what they’re proposing. This is what it would be. It’s less than 12 today but more than what a new build would allow and hence the need for the Variance. But I 13 don’t remember from last year this concept of volumetric floor area and so I’m wondering 14 when we see the Variance again, are… is the Variance going to be from the Gross Floor Area like 15 we saw last time or from volumetric gross… volumetric floor area or both? 16 17 Mr. Yang: So, volumetric floor area is part of our definition of Gross Floor Area and it’s just 18 something that we missed last time around. The Variance will include volumetric floor area but 19 I think it will also, for clarity sake, include the floor area not… speak to both numbers, including 20 and excluding volumetrics. 21 22 Chair Hechtman: Thank you for that. I’ll look forward to when we get to tackle that issue again. 23 Alright, as Ms. Tanner recognized, the clock is ticking and we do want to hear from the 24 applicant and the public tonight. And we will invite the applicant to speak and Ms. French, it’s 25 my understanding that the applicant is requesting 15-minutes. Is that accurate? 26 27 Ms. French: Yes, that was a request, but I do… the presentation includes a Transportation 28 Demand Management which is highly technical. 29 30 Chair Hechtman: Yeah, yeah, thank you. So, our… the Chair has discretion on this item and 31 normally we allow an applicant 10-minutes. But here, the applicant was asked by the Council to 32 prepare this robust TDM program, which they’ve done, and I think it’s 74 pages. I read through 33 it and we’re going to… and it’s my understanding as part of their presentation we’re going to 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . hear from the applicant and maybe the consultant on the TDM program. So, I think in this 1 particular instance, it’s really warranted to fulfill the Council’s desire to not only get a TDM 2 program written but also have it explained to us well enough that we can make some informed 3 decisions. So, let’s use the 15-minute timer tonight and Ms. French do you want to introduce 4 the applicant? Whoever is going to speak first. 5 6 Ms. French: Sorry, yes, I don’t know who of the applicant team will speak first. I do… okay, I’m 7 seeing now. I got the camera on you. Nanci Kauffman, are you unmuted though? 8 9 Ms. Nanci Kauffman: I think so. Can you hear me okay? 10 11 Ms. French: Yes. 12 13 Ms. Kauffman: Great, great. Thank you, Amy. Well, I do want to thank you Chair Hechtman for 14 this time and all the Commissioners for the opportunity to discuss our project with you. We 15 really look forward to gaining the benefit of your expertise but I do want to give a shout-out to 16 the Staff because I do know how complicated this project is. And I know you have been so 17 persistent in trying to make it clear to everyone so thank you. 18 19 Tonight, we’re going to use our time to provide the information that the PTC needs to respond 20 to City Council’s request that you revisit certain elements of our project. The proposal you have 21 before you is built on many years of compromise. Like the earlier version of our project that 22 you approved last year, this version addresses the needs of neighbors, the City, and the school. 23 24 First, this project responds to calls from neighbors to improve their quality of life by reducing 25 our footprint, capping our car trips, limiting our hours of operation, reducing the number of 26 events, moving parking out of sight, saving and adding trees, and mitigating noise. And we 27 achieve all of this for the neighborhood by… while also meeting our project objectives to build a 28 modern and sustainable campus and to educate more girls. 29 30 A crucial element of our application is a request to increase enrollment. To highlight this 31 imperative, I would like to offer some context that puts a spotlight on the importance of this 32 project to Palo Alto’s educational landscape and to the empowerment of girls and young 33 women. Since the onset of COVID, all of us have come to appreciate the unique role that 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . schools play in our communities. Even those of us that don’t have young children, see schools 1 as the path to a better future. When schools thrive, we all thrive and it’s easier to believe we 2 will pass through hard times when we can see children around us learning and growing 3 together. Castilleja School plays a leadership role in that effort. In fact, educating more girls for 4 a better and more equitable future is a vision that has been at the core of our mission since 5 1907 and it remains our top priority today. 6 7 Since March of 2020, as women have been forced out of the workplace at far greater rate than 8 men. Decades of progress along gender equity lines have been washed away. That is why now 9 more than ever we must meet the needs of girls for whom the single-sex environment Castilleja 10 provides is critical to developing and strengthening their voices. With our application, we seek 11 the City’s support to make it possible for more of those girls to thrive as students and future 12 leaders. And we need your help to find a path forward so that Castilleja’s increased enrollment 13 and new academic buildings become the foundation for a sustainable future. 14 15 We need your support to ensure that Castilleja’s place in Palo Alto is preserved in a sustainable 16 way. Contributing to the prominence of our City as a community that has invested in what 17 matters most about the future. The education of the next generation. 18 19 Through this iterative planning process, we have come to understand that increasing our 20 enrollment hinges on our ability to minimize impact as measured in trips, events, and parking. 21 That is why our plan proposes gradual enrollment increases contingent upon maintaining your 22 clearly stated cap on trips and upon adhering to your specific set of guidelines on the number 23 and type of events we can hold. 24 25 Tonight, we are relying on your expertise to provide the City Council with your guidance on 26 parking in response to their motion. Critical to deciding our parking requirements at each 27 enrollment level is a deeper understanding of the TDM program that we will present tonight. 28 Through your analysis of how TDM serves to actually reduce the need for parking, you are in 29 the best position to recommend to Council a workable parking solution that preserves our 30 fields, parks our project, and allows us to enroll 540 students. 31 32 We were gratified that during our recent hearing with the ARB, a straw poll supported two 33 garage options. Option D with 69 below-grade spaces and Option E with 52 below-grade 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . spaces. As you will hear from our team and as is contained in their reports. There is a pathway 1 to responsibly grow our enrollment to 540 students. Tonight, we are eager to get your direction 2 on that pathway so that we can move gradually and responsibility to an enrollment of 540. 3 That’s 90 more girls who will benefit from a Castilleja education. Including the many who 4 benefit from our tuition assistance program. 5 6 As I stated at the start, our plan now checks all the boxes. We take cars off the street. We save 7 and add trees. We reduce our footprint. We exceed Palo Alto suitability goals and we educate 8 more girls. In meeting with you again, we seek clear direction on actionable steps we can take 9 to further improve our proposal and move toward approval. We appreciate the specific 10 guidance we received from the ARB last week and we’ve already begun work to further reduce 11 the massing along Kellogg. We look to you for similar guidance on our TDM and parking plans. 12 13 Now, I would like to introduce Adam Woltag of WRNS Studio, a member of our architecture 14 team, to share the parking options for your consideration. He will be followed by our land use 15 attorney Mindie Romanowsky who will discuss the proposed Text Amendment and our TDM 16 expert Elizabeth Hughes who will talk about our TDM and its impact on traffic and parking. 17 Thank you all so much and on to you Adam. 18 19 Mr. Adam Woltag: Thank you, Nanci. I appreciate that and thank you Council Members and 20 Commissioners for staying so late here. We appreciate your time and consideration. We’re 21 going to be looking at these three items in this presentation. 22 23 Starting with the overview and an aerial view of the proposed campus design and a reminder 24 that the design does incorporate a dispersed campus drop-off, pick-up approach that utilizes 25 the full breadth of the campus opportunities. We’ve received great input from the ARB and 26 from this Committee about these key spaces. How they balance the needs of the school and the 27 neighborhood context. Like the second… like the screened porch with its tiled accents off the 28 existing mid-block Kellogg Street driveway that also sponsors a break in the even and massing 29 of the building. And at the driveway entry near Kellogg and Emerson intersection where the 30 second-floor trellis setback softens the corner of the building and marks its entrance to campus. 31 These are considered design highlights and we appreciate the comments and we feel they’ve 32 made the project much better. 33 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Now moving on to the tree protection and parking options A and E. The City Council has asked 1 out team to reduce the garage footprint. An effort to reduce the number of below-grade 2 parking space to 50 percent below the total required and to further reduce impacts of the 3 garage on the surrounding trees. We have looked at several ways to do this and these are 4 reflected in the Options A and E. All of these options pull back the garage footprint even further 5 away from the trees located at the southwest corner of the playing fields. Option E builds off of 6 this even further away from the trees located at the southwest corner of the playing fields. 7 Option E builds off of this even further to save an additional tree. In our original design, the 8 pool egress stair and transformer were partial located within the tree protection zone shown in 9 the dashed red line. Option A through E propose redesigning the stair to fall outside of the 10 protection zone and relocate the transform and switch gear shown in yellow to the landscaped 11 area along the Emerson Street façade adjacent to the surface parking lot. 12 13 Now moving on to item three. At our most recent ARB meeting last week, members had a 14 chance to review the revised parking options and voted in favor of either Option D or E. Both 15 options further protect existing trees and reduce below-grade parking capacity. But there’s 16 some key difference that need to be highlighted for this Committee’s review. Looking closely at 17 Option D, below-grade pan on the left and the side plan on the right, highlights of the plan are 18 the reduced below-grade parking structure with 60 spaces. Note, this is more than what the 19 Council has asked but we still believe that it supports Council’s request by significantly reducing 20 the extent of below-grade construction and protection of surrounding trees. Loading, 21 deliveries, and trash program are located below grade and towards the center of campus and 22 are accessed by a driveway off of Emerson. Here are the site and circulation plan of Option D. 23 Key to note, this change does not affect our circulation approach that incorporates a distributed 24 drop-off strategy as I mentioned earlier. 25 26 Upon further request from Staff to protect additional trees, we’ve developed Option E. Option 27 E incorporated the same tree protection measures along the southwest corner of the athletic 28 fields and tree 89 as Options A and D but takes further measures to save tree 155. A tree 29 located on the campus interior and one not in the best shape according to our arborist report. 30 In order to do that, we’ve had to revise our loading, trash, and delivery strategy which I’ll touch 31 on in the following slides but first parking. Looking closely at Option, the plan highlights are 32 reduced below-grade parking structure with 52 spaces and in order to meet the requirements. 33 This option proposes surfaces parking shown in red on the right. Now, in order to achieve this 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . with the objective of Option E and protect tree 155. This design poses shifting below grade pool 1 20-feet to the east and relocates the below-grade program such as trash, recycling, loading, and 2 deliveries and the driveway that accesses them up to grade shown in the yellow hatched area. 3 In order to help reduce the impact of any noise, we would need to provide an acoustic wall 4 along Emerson that stretches west from Kellogg Street corner to the pool wall. Here’s a site 5 circulation plan showing Option E. Key to note, like D, this option does not affect our prior 6 circulation approach. Once again, deliveries, trash, and loading are now done at grade off the 7 Emerson driveway as you can see on the right portion of the slide. 8 9 On behalf of the entire time, I’d like to thank you for your prior critique and your vote of 10 support. State early, it made a better build, one that we believe will serve the Castilleja 11 community, the neighborhood, and the City of Palo Alto. With that, I’m going to hand this over 12 to our land use attorney Mindie Romanowsky. 13 14 Ms. Mindie Romanowsky: Good evening. I just wanted to… I was going to make some 15 comments about the proposed Text Amendment before you but in the interest of time, I will 16 save those. If there’s an opportunity for some rebuttal later after hear the comments on the 17 Text Amendment and let Elizabeth Hughes, a TDM specialist who drafted the TDM report, take 18 the rest of our time as I know it’s very important that hear from her and we appreciate the time 19 that you’ve given here. So, I will hand it over to her and check back in with you later. 20 21 Ms. Elizabeth Hughes: Well, thank you very much for the introduction. It is a pleasure to be 22 speaking to the Commission about TDM and how to make it a simplified presentation. So, I’m 23 going to try to be respectful of my time limit and just give you a brief overview of how TDM can 24 make the solution happen and how that works. 25 26 Castilleja School already has a really excellent TDM program and the planning work and manual 27 work and all of the additional measures that were presented actually make their TDM plan 28 superior and how do I know this? I’ll tell you straight up, I’ve been doing this work for more 29 than 20 years and I’m not just a planner of TDM but I actually implement the programs. I 30 manage the programs. They become commuter programs and that gives me really unique 31 perspective into what works. So, when I write a plan, I need for it to be successful because my 32 reputation. So, wanting to give a very brief two-slide overview of what happens with TDM. It’s 33 my favorite topic. 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . 1 Can I understand if everyone can see the slides on screen which I can’t hear anyone? 2 3 Ms. Tanner: Ms. Hughes, we’re going to wait, we’re going to pause your time because your 4 screen is not sharing. 5 6 Ms. Hughes: Ah. 7 8 Ms. Tanner: So, oh there it goes. Do you want to put it into… try it again. It just came up a little 9 bit delayed I think. 10 11 Ms. Hughes: Okay. 12 13 Ms. Tanner: If you want to try that again and you have about 2-minutes. So (interrupted) 14 15 Ms. Hughes: Okay. 16 17 Ms. Tanner: I will probably cut you off before you’re done and the Commissioners can ask 18 questions if they have any afterward. 19 20 Ms. Hughes: Oh, that sounds great. Alright, thanks so much. Alright, so TDM in a very simplified 21 example is a synergistic grouping of elements. It isn’t just one element say carpool matching 22 that makes the difference. It’s carpool matching with the incentives and with a carpool 23 preferential spot and maybe with a parking permit. All of those things grouped together creates 24 a TDM measure that gets significantly more enhanced. We do the same example with transit. If 25 you offer employees transit subsidy, they’re going to be more interested in the option to take 26 transit. If pre-tax benefits are a part of that, it just makes the enticement a little bit better. 27 Providing a free Caltrain bus that gets them to and from the station further solidifies that 28 option. Guarantee ride home and again, you can see in this slide, a TDM is that grouping of 29 measures and that’s why when we put together the most recent manual. We looked all the 30 existing measures, we looked at ways to enhance those existing measures, and then we added 31 additional TDM measures to make this plan very, very robust. The TDM plan that was prepared 32 really is serving a duel benefit and that is to maintain a no net new trips and parking shortfalls. 33 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . So, the Staff report did show a sample graphic that was not Option D or E and I just wanted to 1 give the example. If we’re looking at Option D, when all is said and done, the peak parking 2 demand shortfall at an enrollment of 540 students is about 19. And it’s really not a number that 3 is super large but it’s actually a number that is taking into account all the other functions of 4 TDM and the sustainable programs at Castilleja and the parking management programs. 5 6 Ms. Tanner: That’s the time, Chair. So, you need to stop the presentation and perhaps if we can 7 have questions if they want to hear more from Ms. Hughes. 8 9 Ms. Hughes: Sure. 10 11 Chair Hechtman: Okay, I would just want to know if there’s a… if Ms. Hughes has sort of a wrap-12 up sentence and then we can see if there are questions of you. 13 14 Ms. Hughes: Sure, yeah, I would be happy too. Basically, we are looking at a successful program 15 that has every advantage to perform and every element was reviewed. Bicycle, walking, transit, 16 carpool, the outreach, the monitoring, and the penalty aspects. So, this plan is quite 17 appropriate for the sustainability mobility not just for the school but for the City of Palo Alto. 18 19 Chair Hechtman: Thank you. Thank you and thank you for the applicant… to the applicant for 20 the presentation of all of the presenters. Commissioners, here’s how I want to proceed. Often, 21 we might ask for questions of the applicant at this point but it’s ten after 9:00. We have 75 22 members of the public, 36 of whom have already raised their hand and there could be more. 23 And my desire… my intention is to be able to hear all of the public comment. The members of 24 the public who want to speak, I want to give them the opportunity to do that tonight. So, what I 25 intend to do in my discretion is we’re going to… I’d like to move to the public comment. We’re 26 going to provide 2-minutes per speaker with per our normal procedure I think groups of five 27 can collect and have one or more of that group present for 10-minutes. We’ll allow that. We’ll 28 get through that and which I’m anticipating will take us close to 10:30, quarter to 11:00. I’d like 29 to hear the applicant’s rebuttal and then see if there’s appetite or energy for Commission 30 discussion tonight or we want to move that forward. It’s pretty clear to me unless we’re going 31 to stay very, very late, we’re not going to get through Commission discussion tonight. So, that’s 32 my intended plan and I do think that we will take a break around 10:00. Just a short break, 33 maybe 5-minutes, at an appropriate breaking point between public speakers. So, that’s my plan 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . and I do see members of the public, additional members starting to raise their hand. So, here's 1 what I’m going to do and this is something that I guess I learned from our Mayor. I’m going to 2 ask anyone… members of the public who wants to speak to raise your hand by 9:30. I got 9:12 3 right now. At 9:30 we’re going to cut off the list where ever it is at 9:30. So, that’s 18-minutes to 4 raise your hand. That’s amply opportunity so I’d encourage you to do that if you want to speak 5 tonight. 6 7 So, I think with that we can move to open the floor for public comment and raise your hand if 8 you wish to speak. On the Zoom App, there’s a raise hand button on the bottom of your screen. 9 If you’re dialing in from a phone, press *9. I know (interrupted) 10 11 Ms. Tanner: Sorry, if I may Chair, I want to just confirm we’re doing 3-minutes per speaker? 2-12 minutes, okay. 13 14 Chair Hechtman: Okay, are we ready to start that process? 15 16 Ms. Klicheva: Yes, I am ready here. Okay, so our first speaker is Alan Cooper. 17 18 Mr. Alan Cooper: Good evening, Commissioners. I have lived across the street from Castilleja on 19 Kellogg for 37-years. First, I want to thank you and City Staff for continuing to seek solutions in 20 this complex project. That will get Castilleja part of what they ideally want which is 30 percent 21 more students and will get neighbors part of what they ideally want which is a residential 22 neighborhood without persistent and increased traffic, parking, and noise issues. This is a 23 balance of compromises. 24 25 In my letter to Commissioners 2-day ago, I outlined seven troublesome issues that I see as 26 needing to be resolved. I made a simply specific suggestion as to how each issue could be 27 resolved as part of a compromise. I ask that you consider these suggestions seriously. 28 29 Three of my issues regard monitoring and regulating traffic flow and parking throughout the 30 entire day in the greater neighborhood. There are still significant pedestrian and bicycle safety 31 issues at times during due to uncontrolled traffic on Kellogg. 32 33 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Two of my issues regard the CUP and how the number of onsite events could be significantly 1 reduced to 50 or less and how the CUP mandates could be monitored and enforced in the 2 future. 3 4 One issue relates to the duration of construction. I strongly commend Castilleja for suggesting 5 the option that they move to a temporary campus for 21-months. So, the construction could be 6 reduced to… by more than 1-year. This would be a major gift to the community and to the 7 safety and health of their students. 8 9 A final issue relates to the ARB that suggests that the education be made… building be made 3-10 feet higher. This would yield an even more massive building. It’s seem untenable. I was okay 11 with the prior design but cannot support the new design. Thank you for helping the neighbor 12 and Castilleja. 13 14 [note – unknown male speaker:] Hey Alan, how are you doing [unintelligible]? You still there? 15 16 Ms. Tanner: We’ll try to mute that person I think if we can. 17 18 Ms. Klicheva: Yes, I muted. 19 20 Ms. Tanner: I did just want to… I’m sorry for this is a little awkward Chair Hechtman. Our 21 procedural rules is kind… somewhat Commissioner Summa did indicate earlier do allow the 22 Chair to reduce the speaking time for public comment to 3-minutes. But unlike Council, we 23 don’t have in our rules reducing it further from 3-minutes to 2-minutes. I know it’s a bit 24 awkward but that’s how I read our rules unless the City Attorney is aware of something else 25 that I’m… an oversight that I’m may be having on our Procedural Rules. 26 27 Mr. Yang: No, that’s correct. 28 29 Chair Hechtman: Oh, the statement that appears on our agenda, Item Number Three. The Chair 30 may reduce allowed time to speak to 2-minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 31 That’s an error? 32 33 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Ms. Tanner: Right, that’s an error and it’s that… I think under the general public comment like 1 on non-agenda items. I think it may be different than for agenda items. So, I do apologize that 2 we have that error which Commissioner Summa has pointed up before and I will… we will fix it. 3 But that is just… I wanted to get that and I’m sorry to Mr. Cooper for not apprising of that 4 earlier during his comments. 5 6 Chair Hechtman: So, alright if that is the limit of my discretion then, first of all, I apologize to the 7 members of the public. I appreciate Staff bringing it up so earlier and I want to ask Mr. Cooper if 8 he has another 60-seconds that he wanted to share with us but couldn’t. So, that he doesn’t get 9 the same privilege everyone else does. 10 11 Ms. Klicheva: Just a moment, let me find him in the attendee list and unmute him. 12 13 Mr. Cooper: Thank you Commissioner for the opportunity. I would like to pass that opportunity 14 for the extra 60-seconds, if possible, to Andie Reed later on. Thank you. 15 16 Chair Hechtman: Mr. Cooper, I think, first of all, Andie Reed I think she has a full 10-minutes on 17 behalf of a group as item number 12 on my list. So, she wouldn’t be able to use your extra 18 minute but I appreciate you didn’t have much… anything more to say and so let’s continue to 19 move down the list. And while each of you do have 3-minutes, I’d encourage you all to be 20 succinct and to not to be repetitious unnecessarily. If someone before you said something that 21 you agree with, you could state it that simply rather than repeating the concept. 22 23 Ms. Klicheva: Thank you. Our next speaker is Anu Priyadarshi. 24 25 Ms. Anu Priyadarshi: Thank you and will try to be as synced as possible. So, good evening 26 everyone and thank you so much for the work you do to support our community. Once again, 27 my name is Anu and I live here in Palo Alto. 28 29 I am here to ask you to support Castilleja’s modernization plans. The changes will reduce the 30 school’s impact on the neighborhood and the environment. The gradual move cars below 31 ground without adding more traffic. You can choose the plan that you believe is best for all 32 parties obviously but please bear in mind however that the 52 spaces planned severely curtails 33 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . the school’s ability to educate more women as per the City Staff’s latest report. For this reason, 1 I do urge you to support Option D. 2 3 The new learning spaces will be fossil fuel-free and net-zero energy. Really goals that more 4 organizations in Palo Alto should be pursuing and on that same note. The school’s traffic 5 management program is a leader in the Bay Area. So, I hope others can acknowledge that. 6 7 Since the school first submitted plans, at this point several years ago, it has made changes to a 8 few different things. The exit from the garage, the pickup and drop-off patterns, the exterior 9 façade, the overall square footage to comply with current measurements, the tree plan, 10 preserving more trees, and adding over 100 new ones. The hours of operations, the number of 11 events, and the ways that families and employees can go from campus. Now you have further 12 changes that improve the project. Castilleja is a good neighbor already and appears to want to 13 become an even better neighbor with this modernization. So, please recommend it for approval 14 again. Castilleja should be allowed to try thrive in Palo Alto. Especially because this project has 15 no negative impacts and that’s all I’d really like to emphasize today. So, thank you again for all 16 that you do for the City. 17 18 Ms. Klicheva: Our next speaker is Eduardo Llach. 19 20 Mr. Eduardo Llach: Yes, thank you. I’m assuming you can hear me? 21 22 Ms. Klicheva: Yes. 23 24 Mr. Llach: Wonderful. I just want to basically say that I would like to ask PTC to move this 25 forward to the City Council. I live in Churchill, close to Castilleja and Pally. My grandmother 26 graduated from Castilleja in 1917 and I benefited from the great education we received at 27 Castilleja. We live next to Pally, my four kids went there, lots of buildings have been built and 28 approved while I’ve been here. 29 30 And I’ve been speaking in support of Castilleja at hearings like this one for years. In fact, I spoke 31 to you last year when you endorsed a plan for the first time. Well, here we are again. The basics 32 are the same. We have a sustainable campus, we have a huge aesthetic improvement, no new 33 above-ground footage, no new daily car trips, events will be held to a reduced number, and 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . there’s more educational opportunity for kids. Now, ever more trees are preserved and you can 1 guide this project to [unintelligible] a productive compromise. You know how much parking do 2 you feel should move above ground or below ground? Either way, daily trips will stay the same. 3 4 You know as someone concerned about green space, I care a lot about trees. I just read the 5 Overstory and it’s a great book. I’m impressed that Castilleja has commitment to investing in 6 the infrastructure of the neighborhood and I’m one of the neighbors who supports more 7 capacity in the garage. So, I think the underground garage makes a lot of sense. However, I 8 believe that there is an ability compromise and I believe that there is a way to move forward 9 that pulls many different views into account. Clearly, so does Castilleja. You have many 10 different plans in front of you. All of them are excellent improvements to preserve the trees, 11 move cars below ground, enhance the neighborhood, and allow an institution to… that 12 predates all of us to continue to thrive. By the way, my mother was born in 1899, she graduated 13 as I mentioned in 1917. She was born in the 19 century. 14 15 So, choose a plan and move this City… this to the City Council for approval. The New York Times 16 recently did a great piece on how time-consuming and expensive basic infrastructure and 17 buildings updates have become. Let’s make a decision and let’s send this proposal to the City 18 Council. Let’s help kids get back to learning and being great leaders and members of our 19 community. Thank you. 20 21 Ms. Klicheva: Our next speaker is J. Fleming. Ms. Fleming, you can unmute yourself and share 22 your comments. There may be some technical problem that Ms. Fleming is experiencing. 23 24 Chair Hechtman: Let’s move on and come back to her. 25 26 Ms. Klicheva: Okay, so our next speaker is Jochen Profit. 27 28 Mr. Jochen Profit: Good evening. I hope you can hear me. I’m Jochen profit. I live here in Palo 29 Alto close to Casti. I really wanted to second Mr., I hope I pronounce this right, Eduardo Llach 30 comments. I’m… this is probably the third year now that I’ve been speaking on behalf of 31 Castilleja and I think his comment about how long this process takes is so true. And it’s just 32 incredible to see how something that really should be a slam dunk like a school that is providing 33 so much opportunity to young girls and what’s to update its facilities. It’s taken year and year 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . and year. So, please move this project forward. All kinds of wonderful new benefits have been 1 provided and played out already. There’s a lot of good options for you to choose from. 2 3 I was really struck by one of the comments from Michael Alcheck which I thought was terrific 4 and while I’m not an expert in design architecture. I would say that don’t build the garage too 5 small. I think the garage is the best solution but don’t build it too small. There will be growth 6 and you will be really feeling terrible if you approve a project that will end up being too small. 7 So, as from most, I think buildings that need to be builder [note – bigger?] in the University at 8 Stanford. They quickly become too small so don’t approve one of… don’t approve a garage that 9 will not be suitable in a few years. Thank you. 10 11 Ms. Klicheva: Thank you. Let’s try to return back to Ms. Fleming. 12 13 Chair Hechtman: Just before Ms. Fleming speaks, I want to remind the members of the public 14 that it’s almost 9:30. So, if you haven’t raised your hand yet and you want to, you need to do so 15 by 9:30. Ms. Fleming? 16 17 Ms. Klicheva: I believe Ms. Fleming still have some technical issues. So, I will move on to Julia 18 Ishiyama. 19 20 Ms. Julia Ishiyama: Good evening Commissioners and Staff. I appreciate your review of 21 Castilleja’s Conditional Use Permit and Transportation Demand Management Plan. I live close 22 to the school in Old Palo Alto and I welcome a detailed analysis that will ensure residences the 23 peaceful enjoyment of our neighborhood. I’m also confident that the current plan to allow a 24 gradual enrollment increase up to 540 students stands up to scrutiny. I understand the 25 concerns about traffic but by making any enrollment increase conditional on no net new trips 26 and imposing substantial fines. You have already created an incentive structure that guarantees 27 compliance. Under its current leadership, Castilleja has been a good citizen and has kept its 28 word on TDM. 29 30 A small local group of residences still object but it clear based on the public record that they 31 won’t be satisfied by any amount of additional mitigation or monitoring. And are instead, 32 intractably imposed to anything other than a de minimis enrollment increase. 33 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . I understand that the City Council has asked you to identify procedures that would allow for a 1 larger increase and I ask that you approach this stage of the approval process by taking into 2 account the five long years of hard work that you know even better than I do, has included 3 careful consideration of the right path forward. Please hone your recommendations based on 4 legitimate criticism but don’t let a refusal to compromise take us backward. 5 6 Since I’ve been bold enough to suggest the motives of my neighbors, I’ll reveal mine. I’m 7 Castilleja alum who wants to see both my school and my City succeed. Goals that I know from 8 experience go hand in hand. Castilleja’s unique educational environment is not available 9 anywhere else in the area and the option of a local single-sex school has enabled thousands of 10 Palo Alto young women to grow and thrive. The students educated at Castilleja are your 11 friends, neighbors, babysitters, and dog walkers. Casti alums, teachers, and staff members shop 12 alongside you at the California Avenue Farmers Market and jog next to you at the Moonlight 13 Walk and Run. We are part of this community and as a Palo Altan who has always valued giving 14 back, from serving on Congresswomen Eshoo’s student advisory board as a high school to 15 supporting local non-profits as a working professional. I consider any good that I’m able to do 16 here to be a return on Castilleja investment in me. 17 18 I’m also proud that in the inclusive City where I was raised, Castilleja can offer a quality 19 education to other throughout the region. Particularly, to young women from under resources 20 school districts. 21 22 In the past, I’ve heard commenters and City Official discuss residency as a potential enrollment 23 factor and I urge this Commission not to limit the opportunities available to families who 24 cannot afford to live in Palo Alto and access our excellent schools. Doing so would cut against 25 the values of diversity and equity that we as a community [unintelligible]. 26 27 I want to be clear, I do not combine my support uncritically and I will always push my alma 28 mater to do better as a member of this community. But I support the parking design and 29 enrollment changes as currently proposed because this is a good plan on its merits. One that 30 holds the school to good behavior and supports its ability to be a real force for good in Palo Alto 31 and I urge you to support this plan as well. Thank you. 32 33 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Ms. Klicheva: Thank you and our next speaker is L… a speaker with the username LFP. Speaker 1 with the username LFP you can unmute yourself and share your comments with us. 2 3 Ms. Tanner: Sir or ma’am, you’ll have to use your unmute button on your side. We’ve unmuted 4 you from the City side but you’ll have to mute; which should be in the lower left-hand corner of 5 your screen I believe or at the bottom of your screen on Zoom. We may have to return to that 6 speaker, Chair. 7 8 Chair Hechtman: Let's… yeah, let's move on to the next and see if they can figure it out over 9 time. 10 11 Ms. Klicheva: I’ll next speaker is Lian. Sorry if I miss pronounced your name. 12 13 Ms. Lian [note – no last name]: Hello, can you hear me? 14 15 Ms. Klicheva: Yes, we can. 16 17 Ms. Lian [note – no last name]: Good evening, my name’s Lian and as a new neighbor of 18 Castilleja I want to speak about two issues, TDM, and the garage. I’m happy that after your 19 hearing about Castilleja last fall, it was finally fully understood that the garage will not bring 20 more cars to the neighborhood. Opposing voices have tried to confuse the issue but I 21 appreciate that you… the EIR carefully studied the proposal and were able to see through those 22 attempts. Castilleja is a TDM leader and I wish other organizations in Palo Alto would follow its 23 lead. Throughout the pandemic, Castilleja has only improved upon its TDM with additional 24 buses for students who are not ready to return to Caltrain yet. Castilleja’s commitment to 25 keeping car trips low will not waiver because that’s the only way the school will be permitted to 26 enroll more students in the high school. No cause for doubt here. Castilleja is already pivoting 27 to do whatever it takes to keep car trips low. 28 29 As for the garage, I’m a strong supporter. It’s a gift to the neighborhood, a wise investment in 30 the long-term, aesthetics, and infrastructure of both Palo Alto. The options before you all 31 improve quality of life and preserve trees. Please remember that the new tree plan also adds 32 over 130 new trees to campus. Another huge gift to our neighborhood. 33 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . I’m looking forward to seeing this project finally begin. Please act quickly to led your support 1 again. Offer the City Council clear guidance toward a better future for my neighborhood with 2 underground parking on Castilleja’s modernized, sustainable campus. Thank you. 3 4 Ms. Klicheva: Thank you and our next speaker is Mary Sylvester. Mary Sylvester represents a 5 group and she will have 10-minutes. I see that Mary has removed her hand. Just a moment, let 6 me find her in the speaker… in the attendee list. Mary, if you could raise your hand again, that 7 would help me to find you. To you see you on the top of the list. Okay, Mary, you should be 8 able to unmute yourself now. 9 10 Mary Sylvester: [unintelligible] Good evening, Commissioners and Staff. I’m Mary Sylvester, an 11 immediate neighbor of Castilleja School and I have lived here for 43-years. I’m speaking tonight 12 on behalf of Keith Bennet from Save Palo Alto’s Ground Water, who had to leave the call due to 13 the late hour as he has work commitments, as many of us do. 14 15 Palo Alto’s Ground Water is particularly concerned with the impacts of underground 16 construction as it impacts our community’s ground water which is becoming increasingly more 17 valuable as a result of climate change and population growth. Underground construction has 18 impacts during and after construction. We believe these impacts should be avoided and 19 minimized through design and construction processes. 20 21 First, decisions on any underground construction need to be made based upon relevant and up-22 to-date geotechnical studies. The Environmental Impact Report must be specific for the actual 23 project design and include accurate and current ground conditions. The DEIR for this project 24 was prepared in 2017. The Geotechnical Studies have a clearly-stated expiration date in early 25 2020 and the DEIR does not consider the excavation proposed for the swimming pool but it 26 only contemplates a single level underground for the garage. This is a very material difference. 27 The pool deck is 15-feet below ground surface and excavation for the pool will extend to 28 approximately 27-feet below ground surface. Allowing for the 7-foot depth of the pool, pipes, 29 and pumps below the pool and an approximately 2-foot thick slab of concrete to reduce the 30 buoyance when the pool isn’t filled. The water table at this location is about 25-feet below 31 ground surface in autumn, rising to about 18-feet below ground surface during winter storms. 32 We must assume groundwater will be encountered during construction as it was in 2006 for 33 construction of the gym. 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . 1 Palo Alto Building Code requires contractors to dewater at least 2-feet below the deepest 2 excavation and contractors invariably dewater further. Therefore, we can assume groundwater 3 will be lowered at least 5-feet to 30-feet or more below ground surface. Applicants often site 4 compliance with Palo Alto Groundwater Ordinance as providing necessary protections from 5 impacts. However, Palo Alto Dewatering Ordinance does not impose any, and I repeat, any 6 restrictions on the rate or total amount of groundwater pumped. Contrary to the perception of 7 many, unless specifically required as a Condition of Approval, the ordinance does not require 8 use of cut-off walls to limit groundwater waste. The extent and impacts of dewatering are 9 significant. Based upon measurements in Old Palo Alto with similar soils, groundwater will likely 10 be lowered by 5-feet or more many months likely over an area extending 500-feet from the 11 construction site and 2-feet or more over a circle 1/2- to 1-mile in diameter and tens of millions 12 of gallons of a valuable resource will be discarded. 13 14 Castilleja is on the border of an area of high recharge for our deep aquifer levels that Palo Alto 15 uses for our emergency portable water supply. So, pumping groundwater here reduced aquifer 16 recharge. It is well known that lowering the groundwater table results in subsistence which is 17 pertinent for the alluvial fan soils typical of Old Palo Alto. Typical subsistence is about 1 percent 18 of the amount of groundwater lowered which corresponds to 1 ½-inches or more for this 19 project. I have clearly observed and documented such subsistence from residential dewatering 20 at my house from basement construction 100s of feet away as well as associated permanent 21 damage. Furthermore, groundwater is a source of [unintelligible] moisture. Especially for trees 22 as soils above the water table are moistened by water whipped up through the soil and the 23 mature tree roots grow down into the moist soil zones. 24 25 An often overlook environmental impact of underground construction in high ground water 26 areas is greenhouse gas emissions from the concrete used. To prevent the structures from 27 floating up, Palo Alto’s Building Code requires the building to be heavier than the water it is 28 displacing for the highest anticipated groundwater level. Although, an accurate geotechnical 29 estimate is needed for design, considering the very large rise in groundwater levels during 30 major storms. I estimate that the design requirement of buoyance for groundwater rising at 31 least 8-feet above the bottom of the excavation. For a pool of this size indicated, 1,350-tons of 32 concrete will be needed just to counter act buoyance. That’s 675-cubic yards. The pool deck 33 and underground walls will likely use another 400-tons of concrete. Another approximately 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . 2,000-ton of concrete is required for the floor, roof, and walls of the garage. For a total of 1 3,350-tons. The manufacture of concrete releases 400-lbs of CO2 per ton of concrete. The CO2 2 emissions for the underground construction are therefore approximately 1,340,000-lbs. Let’s 3 put some perspective on this number. Palo Alto is strongly encouraging residents to replace 4 their gas-burning ranges with electric. We use three therms per month of natural gas for 5 cooking and hot water combined. Burning one therm of natural gas results in the emission of 6 about 11.7-lbs of CO2. So, our consumption of natural gas for heating and hot water admits 7 about 420-lbs a year. The CO2 omitted for this project under ground construction is the about 8 the amount omitted doing to… due to cooking and hot water heating in 3,200-years. 9 Retrofitting 320 residents with all-electric ranges and water heaters would offset these 10 emissions over 10-years. 11 12 The large underground construction increases the load on our stormwater management 13 system. Approximately 80 percent of stormwater is absorbed by soil. Then flows to the Bay. The 14 buffering system both filters the runoff and reduces load on our stormwater drain and is 15 motivation for Valley Water and the City of Palo Alto to require rain gardens, permeable 16 pavement, and other features for capturing stormwater. 17 18 Underground garages are expensive to build. In summary, construction of the pool 19 underground has many impacts on groundwater and greenhouse gas emissions. With 20 construction of the underground garage likely will not directly impact the groundwater during 21 construction. The loss of soil for absorbing groundwater and greenhouse gas emissions are 22 significant. An updated and comprehensive DEIR is needed at a minimum and we suggest the 23 applicant seriously consider design alternatives including ways the need for parking could be 24 ameliorated through quality transportation demand systems. Thank you. 25 26 Ms. Klicheva: Our next speaker is Maya Blumenfeld. 27 28 Maya Blumenfeld: Hello and thank you. My name is Maya Blumenfeld and I’m here to speak in 29 support of Castilleja’s thoughtful, environmental sounds and highly commended modernization 30 plan. Single-sex education can be transformative, especially for some girls. Luckily, we live in 31 Palo Alto, a town where students who want to go to a girls' school can do just that at one of the 32 finest girls schools in the country. Tonight, you can again recommend this proposal to City 33 Council. 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . 1 Last year, you began to discuss Conditions for Approval understanding that there is most 2 certainly a path that should lead to approval for this project. One of the most important 3 moments I believe during that meeting took place when Commissioner Hechtman relayed a 4 conversation he had with his wife about what the number 540 signified. He explained that 5 she’d reminded him that 540 represented real people. Girls who are seeking an outstanding 6 education. Because the modest… because of the modest increase in students, it’s 25 per year 7 for 5-years, can be accommodated on the Castilleja campus without an increase in traffic and 8 without negative impacts. There must be a path forward to approval. 9 10 Tonight, you have more improvements and options offered by Castilleja. More additions to a 11 series of compromises. One thing that we can all agree on, getting cars off neighborhood 12 streets is a great idea. Castilleja has given you five ways to do just that and the sooner that 13 decision is made and sent to City Council. The sooner those girls can gain access to the 14 educations that they are hoping for. With no new trips to campus and fewer parked cars on 15 neighborhood streets. 16 17 Please, approve this project again. It’s better than ever. 18 19 Ms. Klicheva: Thank you. Our next speaker is Rebecca Sanders. 20 21 Ms. Rebecca Sanders: Good evening Commissioners and Staff. My name is Rebecca Sanders, I 22 am Co-Chair of Palo Alto Neighborhoods which is an umbrella organization supporting residents 23 and neighborhood groups across the City. Our organization has voted to have me express our 24 concerns and encourage better solutions. 25 26 When another applicant with an R-1 site recently came to Council and asked for unprecedented 27 exceptions. Our Mayor suggested that they come back with something that complies with the 28 law. Now, none of the five parking proposals submitted by Castilleja do comply because all 29 would add way more floor area to the site than is allowed. The Council hasn’t even agreed it 30 will allow that extra floor area. So, there may be significant legal obstacles as well. 31 32 So, here at PAN, we would like to discuss an alternative parking solution at Castilleja that does 33 comply with the law. Right now, there are 89 parking spaces on the site. These are all surface 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . spots. If Castilleja adopts a TDM that earns them the 20 percent parking reduction as in Option 1 C. They will only need to provide 83 parking spaces in total. So, they can actually remove six of 2 the current surface spaces and fully meet their parking requirements. And ta-da, no huge 3 underground garage is needed at all. 4 5 There are so many benefits to this alternative, we wonder why it isn’t at the very top of the 6 Staff report, why it’s not under consideration. It will save millions of dollars of construction 7 costs, lots of time, it’s far better for the environment, and it eliminates the need to excavate a 8 massive hole. Pouring in tons of concrete, disrupting our water flow. With no garage, 9 driveways, and ramps leading to it aren’t needed which Castilleja get’s an estimated extra 10 4,000-square feet of surface land to use. Having no garage helps both the neighbors and 11 commuters on Embarcadero by avoiding an enormous disruption due to construction. And 12 without the garage, you don’t need to craft a text to create a giant exception to Castilleja for 13 the underground facility. Because with no underground facility, no exemption is needed. 14 15 So, just like Mayor suggested to the other applicant, there is a way that Castilleja can come 16 back with a project that complies with the law. We’ve heard only one objection to eliminating 17 the garage. Namely that surface parking isn’t so attractive but neighbors aren’t objecting to the 18 current surface parking at Castilleja; which this proposal actually reduces anyway. We’re sure 19 there are further ways to screen the remaining surface parking should anyone ever deem that 20 necessarily. 21 22 Please consider an alternative to granting Castilleja this unprecedented waiver of our floor area 23 but just having it use surface parking. It will be helping the environment, the school, and our 24 entire community. And with my final moments here, I just personally would like to say thank 25 you to Keith Bennett and Mary Sylvester for that fantastic review of the impacts on our water 26 system. I thought that was excellent. Thank you. 27 28 Ms. Klicheva: Our next speaker is Andie Reed and Andie represents a group of five people. So, 29 she… Andie will get… Ms. Reed will get 10-minutes. Ms. Reed, we cannot hear you well. It’s very 30 low volume and it sounds like you’re under water. 31 32 Andie Reed: Oh dear. 33 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Ms. Klicheva: Now we can hear you well. 1 2 Ms. Tanner: Yeah, that’s better. Thank you, Ms. Reed. 3 4 Ms. Reed: Oh ok. [unintelligible] 5 6 Ms. Tanner: Oh, can you come… I think you maybe you’re going away from the microphone 7 perhaps or moving. It could be even slightly as moving your head sideways can sometimes 8 decrease the sound. 9 10 Ms. Reed: How is this? Is that good? 11 12 Ms. Tanner: Try it one more time. 13 14 Ms. Reed: How is this? 15 16 Ms. Tanner: Come a little closer. You just… you were just audible… better audible a second 17 earlier. 18 19 Ms. Reed: [unintelligible] 20 21 Ms. Tanner: Yes, there you go. Whatever you’re doing now please keep doing that. 22 23 Ms. Reed: Okay, thank you. Good evening, Commissioners. Just one quick note I wanted to let 24 the Commissioners know that my neighborhood PNQL emailed two of the Planning 25 Commissioners. [unintelligible] for directions where to drop off our binder. So, I’m sorry to not 26 hear [unintelligible] on Mr. Alcheck and Mr. Hechtman but I would be happy to do so. 27 28 Let me start, we have [unintelligible](interrupted) 29 30 Chair Hechtman: We… can we pause the clock for a minute. I don’t know if it’s just me but I 31 really can’t understand what Ms. Reed is saying. 32 33 Commissioner Lauing: I can’t either. 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . 1 Ms. Tanner: Ms. Reed are you using a headset or anything or are you in a larger room? 2 3 Ms. Reed: You know, I can go over and use my husband Hank Sousa. 4 5 Ms. Tanner: I don’t know what you’ve just done. Right now, when you said Hank Sousa 6 [unintelligible], I could hear you very clearly. 7 8 Ms. Reed: Okay, I’ll try not to move my head. 9 10 Ms. Tanner: I know it’s hard but we can hear you at this moment. Do you want to try to 11 relocate or do you want to go on with what you have right now? 12 13 Ms. Reed: Well, I’ll just go on if you can hear me now. 14 15 Chair Hechtman: No, it's… you’re really coming in and out and so perhaps what I’d like to do is 16 have you take a minute. It sounds like you might have a different computer you could use. Let 17 us move to the next speaker Ms. Gross and then try you again. Will that work? 18 19 Ms. Reed: Yes, my other computer says Hank Sousa on it. So, I’ll walk over to his computer. 20 21 Ms. Tanner: Okay, we’ll come back to you in about 3-mintues then. 22 23 Ms. Reed: Please, thank you. 24 25 Ms. Klicheva: Okay, great, so we have (interrupted) 26 27 Commissioner Alcheck: It might be because one is hearing the other and it’s designed to mute 28 secondary sounds. 29 30 Chair Hechtman: If she and her husband are both active on their computers near each other, 31 yeah. 32 33 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Ms. Klicheva: Our next speaker is Barbara Gross. Barbara, you can unmute yourself and share 1 your comments with us. 2 3 Ms. Barbara Gross: Good evening, this is Barbara Gross. I live and work and vote in Palo Alto. 4 Thank you for sending this proposal forward with your approval last year. At the City Council’s 5 direction, the school has improved upon the previous design which should make this quite easy 6 for you to review and return to the Council with your support. 7 8 Among the improvements, more trees are preserved, there are many options of the 9 underground parking, there are choices for the pool, and the delivery day. 10 11 You may have noticed by now that over the years the goal posts of this project keep moving. 12 What’s more, the school is getting confusingly and seemingly contractionary guidance at times. 13 With these many different choices for the size and configuration of the garage. You can help 14 find a fair compromise that will stop this constant shifting of the debate. 15 16 The delivery options on Emerson both vastly improve our current conditions. Moving deliveries 17 further inside campus and below-grade or behind a sound wall. Both options take neighbor’s 18 needs and concerns into account and I see that the school again in the spirit of compromise is 19 open to either option. 20 21 At the same time, I hear opposing voices who seem to be open to nothing at all. It becomes 22 harder and harder to honor those perspectives when the school has spent years listening, 23 adjusting, and making changes that just never seem to be enough. Please, it’s time for you to 24 approve this project again. Thank you. 25 26 Ms. Klicheva: Thank you and we are coming back to Andie Reed. Andie Reed, I believe she said 27 she’ll be using Hank Sousa’s laptop. So, I’ll unmute Hank Sousa. 28 29 Ms. Reed: Great, thanks very much. Can you hear me? 30 31 Ms. Klicheva: Yes, we can. 32 33 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Ms. Reed: Awesome, okay, thanks so much. We are gratified that the City of City Council in 1 March requested an accurate measurement of square footage for Castilleja’s expansion project. 2 This is very important because the school is requesting a Variance to replace current existing 3 floor area. But that number has changed over time and even that does require a Variance. Now 4 at least we have an accurate count of the square footage being requested in this Variance. City 5 Planning Staff solicited a professionally prepared building survey and gross floor area 6 assessment which I’ll call the Dudek report which we got on November 17th. And it shows the 7 current existing Gross Floor Area is substantially in excess of what is allowed by Code. It is 8 138,000-square feet versus 81,000-square feet. In turn, this information also shows that the 9 Variance request is also significantly an excess of Code and I didn’t see this in PTC Packet a link 10 to this very important document prepared by Dudek that finally settles Gross Floor Area. Does 11 this report come under your purview tonight? 12 13 The middle of Packet Page 104 states tonight’s goal is receiving public feedback and PTC 14 direction on any further adjustments that may be necessary. Seeks the PTC’s direction on any 15 topic area that requires further analysis. Additionally, on Packet Page 105, second paragraph, 16 the PTC in its review has the authority to review and make recommendations on the CUP, 17 comprehensive review of the TDM, and the Variance. This would seem to include this Dudek 18 report which we just got. 19 20 The next paragraph discusses the split vote on the Variance. However, the findings on the 21 Variance in the 11/4/2020 PTC Staff report Packet Page 28 doesn’t actually give the number of 22 square feet that is being asked for in excess of Code. I believe one of the Commissioners asked 23 that now and that number is 47,300 and that Variance finding from last year didn’t say what the 24 Code Floor Area Ratio is as compared to what the school wants to build. Now that Floor Area 25 Ratio being proposed is 4.8 and what is allowed to be built per code is .30. 26 27 There is a schedule in the ARB Staff report showing the summary of Dudek’s count. City Staff 28 adds the column showing proposed demolished buildings and proposed new buildings. Plus, 29 some lines at the bottom that subtract out the volumetrics. At first glance you think oh well 30 that makes sense but here’s the thing. Dudek was hired to provide the calculation of Gross 31 Floor Area anal sized with reference to current Code. These… the two buildings that have 32 immense extra square feet because of volumetrics were both rebuilt after the Code was in 33 effect. We have to respect Dudek’s expertise and not change the numbers. Just because the 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . proper square footage wasn’t reported when those buildings were rebuilt. Does not make them 1 compliant with Code as Dudek points out in their analysis of what is existing Gross Floor Area? 2 The unabated growth of the school over the past decades, most of it since the Zoning Code 3 have been in effect. The gym, the fine arts buildings were rebuilt in 1998 and 2006. The 4 mechanical building was built in 2001 renders the school’s replacement of current GFA a much 5 larger ask than previously acknowledged. 6 7 This is not just a numbers game. The reason those Code sections were established is to limit 8 heights. Requiring them to be counted as second or third floors so the massing and stark nature 9 of the towering effect would be accounted for. Neighbors have been saying for years that the 10 proposed block-long building is too massive for our neighborhood of small houses. Further 11 review of the plans Pages G.004 and G.005, clearly show additional Gross Floor Area of 71,000-12 square feet that is being proposed but is not being counted. These pool equipment building is 13 not under a building. It is underground. It’s not under a building. These square footages are not 14 a portion of a building. So, therefore, they have to be added to Gross Floor Area. We are always 15 having to find this stuff and it's getting old. Can you ask the Planning Department to review 16 these plans when they get settled? Although it doesn’t add to Gross Floor Area, it is very 17 interesting to note that the underground square footage, not including the garage, is proposed 18 to increase from 41,000-square feet to 80,000-square feet. City Council Motion Item B 19 discusses reviewing an underground garage facility alternative that allows a maximum of 50 20 percent of the requires onsite parking to be below grade. I want to point out that the parking 21 report from July 2021 prepared by Fehr and Peers is linked on Packet Page 111, but the very 22 important point that this report identifies that there are currently 89 surface parking spaces on 23 campus is not mentioned in the Staff report. City Council has determined 89 parking spaces are 24 sufficient for this project. We understand that the school would like to move their pool in order 25 to increase the mass and volume of their large building. To very controversial issues. However, 26 doing so reduces surface parking by 60 spaces and takes advantage of a Floor Area Ratio based 27 on misstated existing Gross Floor Area. Removing 60 surface parking spaces causes a problem 28 they currently have as there are already 89 spaces. Can you please address? 29 30 Regarding an RPP, once we look at how it would require neighbors to pay for parking, which we 31 now have for free, and doesn’t cover nights and weekends during events when we sometimes 32 have issues and it excludes the school. We can’t figure out why it’s mentioned. As we have 33 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . stated for 5-years, we have an understanding with the school that they park on their side of the 1 street and we park on ours and generally, it works great. 2 3 As to events, the link in the Packet leads to a schedule that’s undecipherable. It would be 4 helpful to have a complete suggested list and have the neighbors in on the conversation before 5 any CUP is finalized. 6 7 As to the TDM, the link goes to a four-color public relations piece that is very impressive. 8 Neighbors main concern is enforcement. This piece shows strategies for counting cars that 9 include counters that are on campus driveways, self-monitoring via surveys, and staff/student 10 oversight committee. But since most… some of the parents drop their children off on the 11 streets. We can’t figure out how these will be counted. We realize that the actual details are yet 12 to be finalize and we want to be in on that. 13 14 In closing, neighbors are amendable to an enrollment increase of 450, rebuilding in less volume 15 and mass, using current surface parking spaces, and lowering the number of events at nights 16 and weekends. We would love to get behind a rebuild that covers these issues. Thank you for 17 your hard work on this project. 18 19 Ms. Klicheva: Our next speaker is Bill Burch and Bill get… Mr. Burch will receive 10-minutes. He 20 represents a group of five people. 21 22 Chair Hechtman: But before Mr. Burch goes, it’s after… it’s 10:05 and so we’re going to take a 5-23 minute break. Let everybody stretch their legs and we will resume. Mr. Burch, please be ready 24 to go at 10:10. 25 26 [The Commission took a short break] 27 28 Chair Hechtman: Commissioners as you return, please turn on your camera at least 29 momentarily so I know that you’re back and we can resume. Alright, it looks like we’ve got six 30 out of seven. 31 32 Commissioner Templeton: Chair, this is Cari. I am here but I’m not able to turn my camera on 33 right now. 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . 1 Chair Hechtman: Okay, alright so we are all back and can move to Mr. Burch on behalf of his 2 group. 3 4 Mr. Bill Burch: Hi, just want to check and make sure you can hear me okay? 5 6 Ms. Klicheva: Yes, we can. Thank you. 7 8 Mr. Burch: Great, thank you. Members of the Planning and Transportation Commission and 9 Staff, I want to thank you for this opportunity to speak on behalf of Castilleja School. My family 10 has lived in Palo Alto for over 40-years and in that time, we’ve come to love and appreciate our 11 community. We are blessed with wonderful natural resources stretching from the Baylands to 12 Foothill Park. We also enjoy our cultural treasures including the Children’s Theatre, fantastic 13 libraries, Stanford University, and yes, I would include Castilleja School as well. We can thank 14 the foresight of those who came before us for these gifts. We should also appreciate the 15 stewardship of our current civic leaders for such great new resources as the new Baylands Bike 16 Bridge and the Junior Museum. The Palo Alto process can be painstakingly arduous at times but 17 wonderful things can be achieved. 18 19 It’s in that spirit of process that I’d like to take you back nearly 10-years ago when Castilleja first 20 reached out to City Staff and neighbors about their plans to upgrade the campus and desire to 21 increase enrollment. Since those initial meetings, Castilleja has shown good faith and a 22 willingness to listen and compromise. For example, on-campus events were drastically cut to 23 reduce impacts. Deliveries and pick-ups have been reduced and limited at a cost to the school 24 to improve conditions in the neighborhood and the school has limited it hours of operation. 25 26 Castilleja TDM, Traffic Demand Management Program, has grown to become a way of life with 27 daily trips reduced by up to 31 percent by adding new bus routes, providing dedicated morning 28 and afternoon shuttles to Caltrain and East Palo Alto; as well as requiring employees to 29 commute by alternative means 3-days a week and park off-site on those days that they do 30 drive. Castilleja advocates for internal carpools and ridesharing while encouraging cycling and 31 walking for all community members who can do so. That willingness to listen and compromise 32 is reflected in the evolving campus design. The architects have reduced the massing of the 33 buildings along Kellogg and Bryant. While the underground parking and the pool area have 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . been reconfigured to further protect trees. As you know, the school is now offering several 1 different options for the garages and two choices for the location of deliveries in response to 2 guidance from the City Council. 3 4 A 10-years process, all the while time keeps passing, and all the while Castilleja cannot offer 5 admission to students who are seeking this education. Every year spent in process, negotiation, 6 and compromise has resulted in scores of young women being shut out from joining the 7 Castilleja community. Time is passing. The school is making compromises, many of them, and it 8 begins to feel like it will never be enough. Like there will always be a new issue to delay this 9 process. This project has been receiving unprecedented scrutiny for over 10 long years. 10 11 Meanwhile, while we are spending so much time talking about setbacks and trees, and traffic 12 patterns. We are forgetting the human impact. Castilleja is a school that is different from other 13 schools. It’s not the right place for everyone and luckily Palo Alto has other outstanding choices 14 for students who are seeking a larger co-ed environment. But for girls in Palo Alto who are 15 looking for something else, Castilleja is right in our midst. Walking and biking distance away 16 waiting for them and waiting. 17 18 Meanwhile, I know there are residents who take issue with the fact that some students come 19 from outside Palo Alto. They want Castilleja to cater only to our direct community and not the 20 surrounding towns. I feel compelled to point out that this line of thinking sounds a lot like 21 people want to build a wall around Palo Alto to keep the outsiders out and hoard our resources 22 only for ourselves. In truth, some students who come from surrounding towns live in areas 23 where the schools are not as strong, where they don’t have local options like Pally and Gunn, 24 and this chance to attend Castilleja is an opening to opportunities they can’t access any other 25 way. Whether we like to admit it or not, independent schools like Castilleja with 22 percent of 26 its students receiving tuition assistance are one of the most powerful ways to gain equal access 27 to educational opportunity. Especially in the Bay Area where real estate values make living in 28 well-resourced school districts impossible for many families. Time is passing. 29 30 I realize that many Palo Altans are concerned about growth, but let me remind you that this 31 project is not an expansion. The proposed building has a smaller footprint and car trips are 32 capped. The school has responded to neighbors, community members, City Staff, and City 33 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . leaders with modifications that improve everything from drop-off patterns, from façade 1 materials to roof lines. 2 3 Tonight, you will weigh in about enrollment, the garage, and events. Well, let’s run through 4 what has already been done over the past 10-years on these topics. Events have already been 5 brought to within the limits you’ve set and quite frankly, a further reduction in the number of 6 events would weaken the communal fabric of the school. The garage has been reduced to 7 preserve trees and improve conditions in the neighborhood and the school has offered several 8 different compromises there. 9 10 So, let’s return to enrollment. The actual students who want to learn at Castilleja. The school 11 will make sure they do so without adding trips. I know that critics have cast down on this 12 promise but their doubts are unfounded. Castilleja is already keeping that promise with better 13 Transportation Demand Management than anyone in the Bay Area. Castilleja will do what it 14 takes to keep car trips level because Castilleja wants to educate more girls. This isn’t a big high-15 tech company, a factory, or a corporate office park. It’s a small school that seeks to build a 21st-16 century learning space and gradually add more students without adding traffic. If we step back 17 for a moment, one could argue that years spent on debate have begun to make the proposal 18 seem much bigger than it really is. Remember, small school, smaller footprint, and a gradual 19 and modest increase in enrollment with no new traffic. 20 21 Let’s seize this opportunity to switch the onerous Palo Alto process to one of Palo Alto progress. 22 The Conditions of Approval can be met. Let’s continue to respect the ideals of Palo Alto. Great 23 schools, commitment to the greater good, opportunity, and community. It would seem to me 24 that this proposal checks all of those boxes. Thank you very much for the opportunity to 25 address you tonight. 26 27 Ms. Klicheva: Thank you. Our next speaker is Cindy Chen. Cindy, you can share your comments 28 with us. Thank you. 29 30 Ms. Cindy Chen: Great, I just wanted to make sure your timer was ready for me. Thank you. 31 32 Ms. Klicheva: Thank you so much for waiting. 33 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Ms. Chen: Of course, thanks for your help. Thank you, Commissioners, for this opportunity to 1 speak. I live on Emerson Street very close to the Castilleja campus and I want to express my 2 appreciation for the garage options presented to you this evening. I recall last year when the 3 City Council directed the school to reduce the garage capacity to 52 cars. At that time, it struck 4 me as an arbitrary number. It was significantly smaller in order to address concerns of a few 5 neighbors but why 52? Did they actually know the number of spots that could be fulfilled the 6 school’s required spaces per City Code? Did they know the number of spots that would still 7 allow more trees to be preserved? Did somebody study that the 52 car capacity would mitigate 8 traffic in a way that no other could? The answer to these questions is an emphatic no. The 52 9 car limit was an arbitrary finger in the wind number. Unfortunately, its effect is to significantly 10 impair the school’s ability to educate more young women, and yet to oblige, the school has 11 submitted plans to you that meets Council’s limit. Instead of recommending that plan, 12 however, please approve their garage with 69 car capacity. 13 14 The slightly larger capacity will get more cars off the street, it will prevent parking on Spieker 15 Field, it preserves trees, and it still adds to additional traffic on any surrounding street including 16 Emerson, my street. Having a 60 car capacity is a sound proposal. I thank you for your 17 continued attention tonight and I know it’s going to be another late night so thank you very 18 much. 19 20 Ms. Klicheva: Thank you. Our next speaker is Hank Sousa. Mr. Sousa, you can unmute yourself 21 and share your comments with us. 22 23 Mr. Hank Sousa: Thank you. Hello PTC Members. I live by… nearby Castilleja School, about 185-24 feet away, and would like to suggest some alternatives to their expansion plan. First, hold off 25 on any additional enrollment increases after the 450 suggested by the Council motion. Leave 26 off further increases until we neighbors can access the impact. Suggest the school stay at that 27 number, 450, for 10-years. Most of us close-in neighbors are into our senior years and do not 28 want to keep pushing back every time the school is granted an increase. Let’s see how they do 29 with this less excessive enrollment bump. 30 31 Next is the parking discussion, there are currently 89 parking spots at grade on campus. More 32 than enough to enroll 450 students and still a good number to continue the successful, small 33 school model. Suggest the school no longer allow students to drive themselves and insist that 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . shuttling bring the vast majority of students to the campus. Off-campus sites would allow 1 parents to drop their kids where they board the shuttles for the ride to campus. 2 3 The idea to move the swimming pool results in the loss of 60 parking spaces. Its current 4 location is fine and will fit in with the new building after a couple of minor tweaks. The idea to 5 excavate a large area to recess the pool is wrong-headed. Leave it where it is and that allows 6 the current parking to stay in its several locations around the campus. No need for deep cut-off 7 walls around the pool which interfere with drainage of the water shed. Put sound walls around 8 the pool or a retractable cover like you see in some hotels. These are softer, easier solutions to 9 the proposed rebuild. 10 11 We neighbors have conveyed these ideas for many years but don’t get much traction in the City 12 Planning Offices. Who speaks for us? The Planning Staff appears to be advocate for the 13 applicant. We have spent money hiring an attorney to advise us but again, who at the City 14 speaks on behalf of the neighbors who want a less impactful project? Please don’t try to pack 15 10 pounds of nails into a 5-pound bag. The school is already very densely populated. Stick with 16 a small enrollment increase while recommending against an underground garage. Thanks for 17 hearing our concerns. 18 19 Ms. Klicheva: Thank you. Our next speaker is Jason Stinson. 20 21 Mr. Jason Stinson: Hopefully you guys can hear me? 22 23 Ms. Klicheva: Yes, we can. 24 25 Ms. Stinson: Great, thanks. Good evening Commissioners and everyone else on the call. Here 26 we are again, still discussing the Castilleja project. For years the school’s been modifying and 27 reducing the scale of their proposed modernized campus and I hope this evening you will 28 recommend approval of the significantly smaller 69 car underground garage as well as modified 29 pool design that includes moving a stairway. 30 31 I want to focus on the trees this evening. That’s been a big issue. It’s been brought up a lot in 32 the past. I haven’t heard as much tonight, but many of the school’s recent changes have been 33 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . design specifically to further protect their canopy. In particular, changes have been made to the 1 pool and the parking garage in order to mitigate the impacts on protected trees. 2 3 First, the 69 car garage protects the trees just as well as the 52 car garage. It also serves the 4 neighborhood better by moving more cars below grade but most importantly it protects the 5 trees. Secondly, making adjustment to the placement of the pool stairway and the electric 6 transformer will further protect tree 89. In addition, choosing this pool option still allows 7 deliveries to be moved below grade which I believe is ideal for the immediate neighbors from a 8 noise standpoint. And thirdly, the school is adding 100 new trees to their campus as has been 9 said by previous speakers. While it may be many years until these trees are mature, they are 10 investing in the beautiful canopy for generations to come. 11 12 Like many Palo Altans, I really like trees, and the ones that line our City and beautify or line our 13 streets and beautify the City are amazing. We also really love our City schools and investing in 14 education has always been a Hallmark of Palo Alto values. Castilleja is consistently ranked 15 among the top five all-girl schools in the country. It’s a remarkable resource for our community. 16 They’re investing in their trees, they’re investing in sustainability, and they’re investing in 17 education. And I believe now is the time that we just move forward with this project once and 18 for all. Thank you. 19 20 Ms. Klicheva: Thank you. Our next speaker is Jim Fitzgerald. 21 22 Mr. Jim Fitzgerald: Hi, this is Jim Fitzgerald. I am a long-time resident of Palo Alto and I’m here 23 tonight to provide my unqualified support for Castilleja’s new redevelopment plan. I want to 24 thank all of you on the Committee for your support and endorsement of the previous 25 redevelopment plan. And it is just unfortunate that we need to tie up your time again to 26 address this project once more due to a small group of objectors. 27 28 Everything about this updated project provides improvement for all parties. Including 29 exceptional education for more young women, reduce traffic flow, enhance beautification of 30 the campus, and… as well as enhance beautification for the neighbor-facing buildings and 31 grounds. I might add this was accomplished in the first plan that you all approved but this plan 32 just goes further in that direction and improves it further. 33 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . This new Castilleja plan goes even further in preserving trees, reducing traffic and car trips, 1 limiting hours of operation and education events, further enhancing the aesthetics of the 2 campus for the neighbors with lower roof lines, increased setbacks, and more underground 3 square footage to reduce the activity above ground. These steps have created additional 4 burden for Castilleja in delivering its… on its noble mission but it continues to be a quality 5 neighbor and very committed to making these changes work. Even through the operational 6 inefficiencies that it may create. I’m doing… in doing so, they can finally build the modern 7 facility needed to nurture and educate the next generation of women leaders. 8 9 As always, Castilleja has bent over backward to meet the concerns and objections of those who 10 oppose this project. But however, no one is saluting themselves that any plan will really satisfy 11 this obstinate group. So, I would advise you to not hold your breath waiting for that 12 concurrence from them. What matters most is this Committee provides its endorsement of this 13 excellent redevelopment plan. This plan addressed the concerns of the City Council and is even 14 better than the last plan that was approved by your folks. So, this plan… so I’m asking that this 15 plan receive your enthusiastic re-recommendation and in particular, supporting the larger 16 parking options of this plan. And I request you provide that as soon as possible. Thank you very 17 much. 18 19 Ms. Klicheva: Thank you. Our next speaker is Kathleen Foley-Hughes. Kathleen, you can unmute 20 yourself and share your comments with us. 21 22 Ms. Kathleen Foley-Hughes: Thank you. Thank you. Again, my names Kathleen Foley-Hughes 23 and I’m a long-time resident of Palo Alto. Good evening Commissioners and thank you for your 24 service to the City. Thank you as well for voting to recommend this project to the City Council 25 last year. Castilleja is a gem in our City, an absolute asset, and it has been frustrating to see 26 these excellent plans move so slowly. I imagine it must be somewhat surprising to see them 27 before you again after you put so much time and care into reviewing and recommending them 28 last year. 29 30 These new improvements should only make that process easier this time around. Most trees 31 are preserved in all options, TDM is still an institutional priority which the pandemic has only 32 further proven as the school added new bus and shuttle routes when Caltrain ridership 33 decreased. 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . 1 Castilleja is an excellent neighbor and a good citizen with students who are always giving back 2 to Palo Alto. As the founder of Ada’s Café, I have experienced this first hand. From its inception, 3 Ada’s has relied on Castilleja students' engagement and we are not the only organization in 4 Palo Alto that benefits from Castilleja’s presence in our community. 5 6 You label the Environmental Impact Report for this project as the gold standard. One of the 7 best in the City’s history. This project is vital to the school’s future and the school is vital to our 8 City’s future. These five different choices for the garage and two alternatives for the pool and 9 location of deliveries together offer a way to arrive at a compromise. I know that all of the 10 choices before you will improve conditions in the neighborhood with as the Environmental 11 Impact Report proved. No significant and unavoidable impacts. Thank you so much for your 12 time. Good night. 13 14 Ms. Klicheva: Thank you. Our next speaker is Lesley King and Lesley represents a group of five 15 people. So, Ms. King will receive 10-minutes. 16 17 Ms. Lesley King: Great, thank you. 18 19 Ms. Klicheva: Just a moment, let me quickly adjust the time and we’re good to go. 20 21 Ms. King: Thank you. My name is Lesley King and I own a house about a block from Castilleja. 22 First, I want to thank the Commissioners for all the hard work you do on behalf of our town. I’m 23 speaking tonight on behalf of a few other residents as strong supporters of the Castilleja 24 renovation and we have a few comments to make. 25 26 The nuances of this project review are very confusing as a lay person. So, some of our 27 comments are meant to clarify some of the items that I believe should no longer be 28 controversial. As I read the Staff report issued in advance of this meeting, I understand that 29 you, the Planning and Transportation Commissioners have the authority to make 30 recommendations on the CUP, the Transportation Demand Management Plan, the Variance, 31 the parking adjustment, the EIR, and the Text Amendment proposed by City Staff. That’s a long 32 list and one that Commissioner Lauing mentioned tonight and I know that you take this 33 responsibility seriously. 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . 1 My first comment is about your recommendations on the CUP. I think this relates to the 2 enrollment increase and the TDM measures to ensure no new trips. As of now, the mandate 3 you have received from City Council calls for starting with an enrollment increase to 450 and 4 identifying a procedure to allow Castilleja to increase to 540 in phases contingent upon 5 compliance to no new trips. This procedure as far as I can tell is already outlined in the 6 application and for some reason, I feel that this no new trip fact has been hard for the 7 community to grasp. The application has specific language that outlines the very gradual and 8 measured path the school would need to follow in order to be allowed to admit more students. 9 If the growth beings by taking the school to 450 from the current 426 that Amy French just 10 mentioned. The school would need to successfully meet the no new trips threshold before it is 11 allowed to add more students. And if that goal is met, the school can then add another 25 to 27 12 students in the next year. As you can see, the procedure seems to already be in place and I was 13 pleased to see that Castilleja put forth an even more detailed set of procedures in response to 14 the City Council’s latest comments. Even the procedures were already comprehensive. In my 15 study of the plans, I see that the successful traffic TDM measures were well developed and in 16 place. Showing me the compromise and cooperation that Castilleja has demonstrated 17 throughout this prolonged process. And from what I read in the Weekly, the school has again 18 proposed additional policies. Including ones that have been mentioned tonight, new shuttles, 19 bus routes, bike-sharing, guaranteed rides home in emergencies for employees who don’t 20 drive, an internal lift program, and a kiss and ride program with parents dropping children off at 21 an off-site location to meet a shuttle. All this comes in addition to the measures that Castilleja 22 has already taken over the past 10-years to reduce traffic by over 30 percent. So, the school has 23 already run a successful TDM program and seems determined to continue to succeed. And I just 24 want to reiterate the good news that the burden is on the school to show continued success 25 with TDM. Since Castilleja wants to enroll more girls, the no new trips will need to be a priority. 26 It’s not the neighbors or the City’s or even the PTC’s burden. It’s on the school to earn the right 27 to enroll more students. 28 29 The second point on this relates to the complaints I’ve heard from a few vocal opponents who 30 point to the fact that the school over-enrolled over a decade ago and they point to this as 31 evidence that it cannot be trusted. Those days are clearly over. The school has been under a 32 microscope at every moment. The length of this renovation approval process, the depth of 33 study invested in the EIR, the standards that have been applied to this project are not ones I’ve 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . seen applied to other projects. In my opinion, Castilleja has accurately recognized that 1 accountability is essential to rebuilding trust and moving forward and thus accountability is 2 built into the application. 3 4 The next item in the City’s Staff report that I want to address is the parking garage. I really 5 appreciate Commissioner Alcheck’s comments that the debate about the size of the garage is 6 counter to the original request from the community asking for underground parking. The City 7 recently directed Castilleja to limit the size to 52 spaces and it’s my understanding that this is 50 8 percent of what was required for total parking for the project. But at the ARB hearing last week, 9 the Board Members supported Plan E because it complied with the City Council’s guidance. 10 However, all five of the five Board Members admitted that they also support Plan D with 69 11 spaces because it protected as many trees and maximized undergrounds space which they 12 admitted seemed wise. So, the ARB Board Members were unanimous in their support of 69 13 spaces below ground. I agree with them. I was at the City Council meeting when the number 52 14 was introduced and it seemed to be pulled out of the air. Is it an arbitrary number? Where they 15 just thinking that 50 percent is somewhat fair? Since the desire to reduce the garage was driven 16 by the effort to preserve trees and reduce the construction scope. If the same benefits to trees 17 can be accomplished with 69 spaces instead of 52. Why wouldn’t we put more cars below 18 ground? This plan was deemed superior by the EIR. It is supported by the City’s Comprehensive 19 Plan and even the City’s ARB Members were left tossing the question around at the end of their 20 long hearing. They didn’t seem to have a good answer as to why we were going forward with 69 21 spaces. 22 23 My final observation about the Staff report is just a small and specific one that reveals a larger 24 and more general concern that I want to present. As… on Page 10 in the short side, the report 25 admits that even though the large chart in the previous several paragraphs suggests a shortfall 26 of 30 spaces if the school enrolls 540 students. The chart and the parking demand study did not 27 take into account any of the TDM measures. And I know that Amy French mentioned this earlier 28 this evening but this analysis is inaccurate and incomplete and I don’t know why it’s being 29 presented. It looks to us as… in the public that it’s underlying an inconsistency. We’re relying on 30 arbitrary numbers to determine whether this project can succeed? Is that in the best interest of 31 Palo Alto? So, 52 is the number of spaces that the City Council directed to be below ground. 32 Why are we wedded to 52 when 69 spaces can be accommodated while still preserving the 33 trees? 30 is the shortfall of spaces that the school reaches 540. That doesn’t take into account 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . the TDM so it’s irrelevant. Why would we begin a conversation this important with such flawed 1 data? 2 3 And 50 percent the amount of parking capacity that can be allowed below ground in the 4 suggested Text Amendment. This amendment which requires that only 50 percent of parking 5 can be below ground or the entire measurement of the project will be redefined. Where did 6 this guideline come from? How was this threshold derived? 7 8 I understand the need for compromise and it’s well past the time to find a middle path that 9 serves all parties. And so, at this point I… even though the ARB and PTC have acknowledged 10 that this is a project that should be approved. The Staff and the guidance from Council don’t 11 seem to heed that advice and instead have raised some seemingly arbitrary numbers with 12 incomplete data. As a concerned neighbor, I ask you please to remember that you have already 13 said what you’ve already said about this proposal. That it should be possible to approve. I 14 would like to see this project approved and underway so that we can all move forward. Thank 15 you. 16 17 Ms. Klicheva: Thank you. Our next speaker is Neva Yarkin. 18 19 Ms. Neva Yarkin: Good evening, Commissioners. My name is Neva Yarkin. I live 600-feet from 20 Castilleja. My family has owned this property for close to 60-years. Adding another 125 21 students for Castilleja expansion will only lead to more traffic and congestion in the area 22 because 75 percent of the students come from outside of Palo Alto. Building a parking garage 23 with entrance off of Embarcadero/Bryant and exit Emerson/Embarcadero will only create more 24 grid locks in the surrounding area. If Castilleja used a school-wide shuttling service, like Nueva 25 and Harker Schools, this could help with some of the traffic problems. Building a parking garage 26 will need many tons of cement. One ton of cement gives off one ton of carbon dioxide. Palo 27 Alto should not allow any more parking garages if we are truly concerned about environment 28 for future generations to come. 29 30 I have safety concerns regarding 5-years of construction and I’ve said this before. Castilleja 31 continuing to teach classes in portable buildings while major building construction is going on 32 would be an accident waiting to happen. You would have students, cars, bikers, pedestrians, 33 neighborhood residents, etc. trying to navigate in between huge trucks and heavy equipment is 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . playing with fire. When Stanford was rebuilding their student housing, only construction 1 workers were allowed into the construction site. What about Palo Alto’s future? Pally, Stanford, 2 and train crossings will also have impacts and need to be considered in the future. 3 4 In summary, lowering student enrollment to 450 students, reducing traffic by using a school-5 wide shuttle service, having a construction safety zone, cutting greenhouse gases would help 6 reduce Castilleja’s impacts in the area. Thank you for your time. 7 8 Ms. Klicheva: Thank you. Our next speaker is Rita Vrhel. Ms. Vrhel will receive 10-minutes 9 because she represents a group of five people. 10 11 Ms. Rita Vrhel: Hi, can you hear me? 12 13 Ms. Klicheva: Yes, we can. 14 15 Ms. Vrhel: Okay, good evening Commissioners and the public. As a Castilleja parent, I have 16 observed with acute interest the presentation and discussion of Castilleja expansion plans. I do 17 not live near the school but I do need to remind everyone that there are other schools in Palo 18 Alto that educate girls. So, this is really not a question of having our girls uneducated versus 19 they must go to Castilleja. I also would like to disagree with several speakers who felt the need 20 to not only state their opinions but to denigrate speakers who did not agree with them or were 21 presenting the other side. 22 23 Recently, two very important reports were released. They were the Fehr and Peers 7/23/21 24 Castilleja Parking Study commissioned by Castilleja School and Dudek who wrote the DEIR, 25 which Commissioner Hechtman I believe called the gold standard, released an 11/17/2021 26 report on Castilleja’s Built School Building Survey and Gross Floor Area assessment. This report 27 was referenced earlier by Andie Reed. Interestingly, even though this report was… one report 28 was published in July and the other in November. Neither report in total was included in the 29 ARB Packet or in the Packet that was sent by City Staff to the PTC. I emailed them a copy of 30 each report and hoped that they will take the time to read it because Ms. French basically did 31 not discuss either report at all. This is probably because these reports equal what I am calling an 32 inconvenient truth. The information in these two reports, if evaluated with a fair mind, should 33 cause the PTC and the City Council to send Castilleja’s expansion plans back to the drawing 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . board. Again, I am shocked that these reports were not included to either Board. They were 1 only a link. 2 3 The 7/23/21 Fehr and Peers Castilleja parking study commissioned by Castilleja School indicated 4 a parking garage of any size is not necessary. Therefore, a Text Amendment, as suggested by 5 the City Council, is not necessary. On Page 1 of the report, they indicated “Alternative Four, the 6 dispersed circulation/no garage alternative would meet the City’s Municipal Code requirements 7 providing 104 parking spaces which is based on the number of teaching stations”. Please let me 8 report… repeat that finding. “Alternative Four, the dispersed circulation/no garage alternative 9 would meet the City’s Municipal Code requirements providing 104 parking spaces which is 10 based on the number of teaching stations”. The report further stated, “that an enrollment of 11 540 students would still meet the parking… the 104 spaces would be enough to accommodate 12 400… 540 students”. There was not one word in Peers… in this report supporting the need for 13 an underground garage. On Page 2 of the report, it indicated that Fehr and Peers have 14 monitored the peak period generation on-site parking and on-street parking adjacent to the 15 school since 2012. These people know what they’re talking about. They’re not presenting 16 massaged facts or figures. They have been monitoring the parking etc. for over 9-years. On 17 Page 5, the report details the location of all 330 on-street parking spaces comprised of 54 18 school fronting parking spaces and 276 non-frontage parking spaces. It must be remembered 19 that some of the neighbors proposed a parking garage as one solution to reduce the number of 20 cars in their neighborhood. But this report indicates that around the school, there are 330 21 available parking spots. Therefore, is it wrong for the neighbors who live near the garage to not 22 want this toxic dump in their neighborhood? 23 24 Page 15 of this report discusses future parking demand and on Page 19 to 23 they discuss 25 Municipal Codes, a 20 percent and a 9 percent reduction in parking, TDM strategies that reduce 26 parking, etc. Again, there is not one word in Fehr and Peer’s report supporting the need for a 27 parking garage. It is exactly the opposite. So, arguments on whether the City Council knew what 28 they were talking about or whether they were confused, or whether it should be 59 or 62 spots 29 underground is actually null and void given this report. 30 31 Historically… well and I’m going to go back to the first part of the letter that I sent you. Castilleja 32 is a big business. They have benefited tremendously by ignoring their 2000 CUP and use permit. 33 They have over-enrolled and the return on their investment for this over-enrollment and their 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . fine of $265,000 was over $12 million. According to Castilleja’s 2015 to 2020 tax returns, Form 1 990, publicly available through links on Charity Navigator, Castilleja School Foundation, a non-2 profit 501(c)3 subject to no taxes, is doing quite well. An increase in net assets or fund balances 3 from $90 million to $120 million was reported during this period. During the same period, 4 contributions and grants totaled $45 million with $14.8 million received in 2016 and $13.3 5 million received in 2018. So, I do ask you why can’t Castilleja afford a shuttle program as 6 recommended in the recent Fehr and Peers report? 7 8 Also, when Castilleja received their use permit in 2000, Mr. Larzarty, who was then the Planning 9 Official, wrote a letter and included in his report that at no time did Castilleja School indicate it 10 was in their intent to submit a later application for additional students. He also stated “That any 11 subsequent request for additional students will not favorably be looked upon by the City” and 12 “While the City appreciates the school’s demonstrated willingness to work with the neighbors 13 to address existing traffic and parking problems. The City is not willing to continue to approach 14 increasing school enrollment for Castilleja in an incremental manner”. The use permit granted 15 Castilleja, that would be Use Permit #99-UP-48, did not allow for any increase in Floor Area or 16 for any increase in students. 17 18 I think that the PTC would be wise to actually have the documents that have been released 19 which I’ve noted in my speech. Review them and send this project back to the drawing board 20 based on those reports. Thank you. 21 22 Ms. Klicheva: Thank you. Our next speaker is Roger McCarthy. 23 24 Mr. Roger McCarthy: Can you hear me? 25 26 Ms. Klicheva: Yes, we can. 27 28 Mr. McCarthy: Good evening Commissioners. My name is Roger McCarthy and I live about a 29 mile from Castilleja on Waverly Street. Thank you for listening to me this evening and for 30 service on Commission… on this Commission. I know you have all better things to do at 11:00 31 pm tonight. 32 33 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . I am speaking tonight to urge the Planning Commission to approve as quickly and expeditiously 1 as possible the changes and upgrades to the Castilleja project that have now undergone 2 multiple years of review and as you’ve heard suggested multiple times tonight. Should be sent 3 back to the drawing board again. This is hopelessly ridiculous. If these poor Castilleja folks 4 weren’t so dedicated, they would have given up a long time ago. 5 6 I have no association with Castilleja, past or present. I have a daughter in the computer 7 technology field but I didn’t send her there. With my Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, I wasn’t 8 worried about her technological preparation. In the 40-years that I’ve lived locally, I don’t think 9 I’ve ever set foot in Castilleja. My interest in this project stems solely from my technological 10 leadership positions and my concern as a Palo Alto citizen. 11 12 I’m an officer and treasurer of the National Academy of Engineers. I’m a member of the 13 Governing Board of the National Research Counsel and now I am a Director of the National 14 Academies Corporation. The National Academies were chartered in 1863 by Abraham Lincoln as 15 an independent body to advise the nation on issues related to science and engineering and now 16 medicine. 17 18 In my position, I have a national perspective of our country’s much-lamented acute shortage of 19 women in the STEM fields. If you’ll bear with me for a moment, I think it’s important for the 20 Commission to appreciate just how bad this situation is because you are in a position to at least 21 help do something about it. 22 23 Our nation… our national largely co-educational system has been failing to educate young 24 female secondary students for STEM careers at a staggering scale for generation. This fiction, 25 oh we have other schools in Palo Alto, these women won’t go uneducated. That’s true. They’ll 26 just go uneducated in the STEM area. Now, what’s the problem with that? The massive under-27 representation of women in the nation's STEM fields is nothing short but national disgrace. Just 28 17 percent of our engineers are women. Just 24 percent of our computer jobs are held by 29 women and that percentage is predicted to shrink to 22 percent by 2025 and that was before 30 COVID; which has already been commented on as a disastrous result in the education of 31 women. As of ’17, 2017, reported in 2019, only 36 percent of the nation's doctor where 32 women. This represents a wretched improvement over the 23 percent we had in 2000. To put 33 this incredibly disgraceful performance in context, even Turkey, a Muslim nation, 37 percent of 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . their doctors are women. Our low percentage of women becoming doctors puts us in ranks of 1 some of the most misogynistic nations in the world. The world averages 48 percent, so we have 2 to ask ourselves why does virtually the entire Western world does better than us? And of 3 course, all these numbers has been mentioned earlier. Have undoubtedly been aggravated 4 adversely by COVID. 5 6 Despite the intelligence and talent which we [unintelligible] look in Silicon Valley. We are a 7 sorry copy of our national figure. The valley is dominated by men from entry-level positions to 8 the highest leadership roles. The few women who did emerge in tech a few years ago have all 9 been must out. So, I turn the question to you Commissioners, so what are you going to do? Are 10 you going to wait for something else to solve this problem again? We can’t cure the nations 11 short comings in Palo Alto, but we can certainly begin to address our own. 12 13 A key part of our national solution to this problem is the all-girls school. Virtually every study 14 that has ever addressed this issue has found women are far more likely to enter STEM fields in 15 an all-girls secondary education environment. And we have one of the best in the whole nation 16 right here in our backyard. Study after study proves that graduates from all-girls schools are six 17 times more likely to pursue fields in STEM and three times more likely to pursue a career in 18 engineering. 19 20 We have actually the second-best all-girls high school in the entire nation right next door and 21 the only non-sectarian one right down the street. Co-ed schools will not solve our existing STEM 22 gender imbalance which stands in mute testimony to their long-term ineffectiveness. Sure, 23 we’ll send them girls to school and they’ll become teachers, go into the arts where it's more 24 culturally approved, and they won’t go into the STEM fields. This is just a fact. This is not an 25 opinion. Our huge gender imbalance is not going to improve without change and we’re… and 26 we are doing now, including what we are doing in Palo Alto, is not enough. We need to do 27 more. We need to do it now. This problem is not going to solve itself. 28 29 We need to allow Castilleja to admit more girls now because we can’t sit back and wait for 30 change. We have to make choices to actively promote change. We certainly can’t wait for the 31 red states to do it. My concern is for years we have created the narrow nimby interest of a few 32 dozen residents. While we have denied at least 1,000 additional women a Castilleja education. 33 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . So, the question before you is actually simple. Is this forum going to act as a mechanism to put 1 the economic interest of a few over the many? Or are you going to help the overwriting interest 2 society has in getting this project approved and started? 3 4 Perhaps the most aggravating thing these last years, the engine of these delays and denials for 5 Castilleja project has been the nit-picky requirements of R-1 zoning. But in fairness to the 6 opponents of Castilleja plans, using the restrictive R-1… they are using the restrictive R-1 zoning 7 for exactly what it was designed to do, to discriminate. R-1 zoning was invented abruptly in 8 1916 explicitly as an engineer to achieve racial segregation in Berkeley that would survive 9 [unintelligible]. Previous attempts to segregate by zoning explicitly mentioning race were shut 10 [unintelligible] out. So, R-1 was invented to use economics to accomplish the racial segregation 11 explicit racism could not, and the target of our opponent's discrimination is tailor-made for the 12 R-1 zoning discrimination engine. Young women who have no vote and have been the target for 13 discrimination for generations anyway. Don’t take my word for any of this. I urge you to look up 14 the history of R-1 zoning for yourself. It’s well documented on the internet and Berkeley 15 recognizing its shame of authorship has repealed R-1 zoning. Perhaps most [unintelligible], 16 Castilleja was established before any of this awful R-1 discrimination engine was even invented. 17 I urge the Planning Commission to not permit itself to be used as a tool for the explicit 18 demonstration goal that is a whole foundation of R-1 zoning. 19 20 We simply have had enough delay in the approval [unintelligible] of these plans. It would help 21 enormously if you would just insist on the goal post stop moving, which they have for years, 22 echoing the comments of Barbara Gross. What we don’t have enough of are women in high 23 tech, women in medicine, women in research labs, and women in engineering. Girl schools like 24 Castilleja are critical to change net and to bring women into the STEM field and leadership 25 roles. 26 27 Please support this project. The footprint will get smaller. The car trips will remain the same. I 28 don’t think I could improve on the comments of Nanci Kauffman, so I will just join her and ask 29 you to support these plans in a way that provides a potential for girls and young women in the 30 Bay Area to multiply meaningfully for generation to come. Thank you very much for your 31 attention. 32 33 Ms. Klicheva: Thank you. Our next speaker is Roy Maydan. 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . 1 Mr. Roy Maydan: Ready? 2 3 Ms. Klicheva: Yeah, we are ready. Thank you. 4 5 Mr. Maydan: Thank you. Hi, good evening, my name is Roy Maydan and I’ve been a resident in 6 Downtown North for more than 25-years. And I’m very grateful for the attention that 7 Commissioners that you’ve given to this project. Also, I’m someone who wants to see City 8 leaders make the decisions that will positively impact our property values, quality of life in our 9 community. I especially appreciate that you have already supported the merits of this proposal. 10 Therefore, I’m disappointed to once again to be speaking to you at yet another hearing on the 11 project as this does seem to deny all the work that you have put into this in the past. Now the 12 good news is that you did act with clarity and conviction in the past and I’m sure that the 13 improvements that the school has come back and proposed will only increase your desire to 14 see this project become a reality. 15 16 Your previous review of this project solidified what the date in the EIR approved. That the 17 garage will not bring more car trips to the neighborhood and you just need to determine how 18 many parking spots should go below ground and how many should remain on the surface. 19 20 While I support a proposal keeping as many cars off the street as possible while preserving the 21 trees. I trust your leadership as you make that decision. However, please keep in mind that the 22 Staff report estimates that Option E will result in a shortage of parking spaces. Most of all, it’s 23 important for leaders to be able to decide then act in this decisions. You’ve decided once and 24 this review further defines the plans you have already supported. Now I hope you will make the 25 choice and urge the City Council to act favorably. Thank you. 26 27 Ms. Klicheva: Thank you. Our next speaker is Stewart Raphael. 28 29 Mr. Stewart Raphael: Can you hear me okay? 30 31 Ms. Klicheva: Yes. 32 33 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Mr. Raphael: Great. Good evening Commissioners and Committee Members. My name is 1 Stewart Raphael and I’m a Palo Alto resident for 9-years. When I spoke to you last October, I 2 spoke about the need of increasing enrollment at Castilleja and also about power of an all-girls 3 education. And also, the effectiveness of the school’s TDM program in mitigating any impacts 4 from the enrollment increase. At that time, I couldn’t believe that now we’d still be debating 5 this topic a year later. So, I’d like to take this opportunity to restated the results of Castilleja’s 6 aggressive TDM program. 7 8 The school has reduced traffic in the neighborhood by around 30 percent thanks to 9 requirements placed on employees and students. Their proposed CUP adds additional TDM 10 measures to further mitigate traffic in the neighborhood. Examples include guaranteed 11 emergency rides homes for employees who don’t drive, new bus and shuttle routes, and an 12 internal Castilleja lift service. Castilleja is really demonstrating their commitment to TDM and 13 the school has added new bus routes from San Mateo, from Burlingame, and Woodside when 14 students from those communities did not want to take the train due to the pandemic. 15 16 And I might also point out, that the underground garage is not going to bring additional cars to 17 the neighborhood because our trips to the neighborhood are capped. And please remember 18 that the Environmental Impact Report showed there to be no negative impact on traffic with 19 the new garage as long as drop off and pick up was distributed around the campus. 20 21 So, I asked you then, a year ago now, and I ask you now. Please recommend approval for this 22 project, so that the opportunity could be expanded and the campus can be modernized with no 23 negative impact to the community. Thank you. 24 25 Ms. Klicheva: Thank you. Our next speaker is Tony Hughes. 26 27 Mr. Tony Hughes: Hello? Can you hear me? 28 29 Ms. Klicheva: Yes, we can hear you. 30 31 Mr. Hughes: Great, hey thanks. My name is Tony Hughes and I’ve lived in Palo Alto for 65-years. 32 I think this should kind of be a slam dunk. I mean you approved this proposal before and the 33 project has been improved since then. You’ve now reviewed this project more than any other 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . project that I can think of and I remember the expansion of Oregon from a two-lane road to a 1 four-lane expressway just to give you a little perspective there. So, the big question I keep 2 asking myself is why are we still having these meetings? This is the third time that I’ve spoken 3 on behalf of the project and I’ll speak a fourth and a fifth and sixth time if that’s what it takes. 4 5 I mean this is a small school with capped traffic looking to increase the student body by a small 6 amount. The other schools that have split campuses have added new divisions or grown 7 significantly. This is still going to be a 6th through 12th-grade school and they want to add 25 to 8 27 students a year as long as traffic does not increase. Repeating that, as long as traffic does 9 not increase. So, once again, in my mind the salient details, it’s a small school, we’re talking 10 about a modest increase in students contingent upon no new traffic. 11 12 So, I’m still asking the question, why this resistance? I mean when I went to Pally, there were 13 800 students. Today there are over 2,000 students. The gym at Pally has grown from 40,000-14 square feet to 91,000-square feet. The performing art center has grown from 12,000-square 15 feet to 25,000-square feet. The football field has lights and there’s night activities there as well. 16 If you’re still trying to figure out why there’s more traffic and parking challenges in this area. I 17 have two more clues for you. Town and Country and Stanford. 18 19 With five different choices for underground parking and two different choices for deliveries in 20 the location of the school. Less above ground square footage, more trees preserved. I’m 21 confused, what’s the problem? In my eyes and in the eyes of many, many Palo Altans, there’s 22 no problem here at all. This project should be approved for the second time by you and for the 23 last time by the City Council. This is not an expansion, it’s a project with no significant impacts, 24 and as I said at the outset. This seems like it should be a slam dunk. Thanks very much. Thanks 25 for your good work and I’m finished. 26 27 Ms. Klicheva: Thank you. Our next speaker is Vania Fang. 28 29 Ms. Vania Fang: Hi, can you hear me? 30 31 Ms. Klicheva: Yes. 32 33 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Ms. Fang: Good evening. Thank you, Commissioners, for the opportunity to speak. I’m Vania 1 Fang and I live across the street from Castilleja on Kellogg Street. I cannot wait for this project 2 to be approved. I want to look out the windows onto an updated campus with more trees and 3 green space. The various garage plans which we have seen today will remove parking from our 4 neighborhood streets to below ground and whichever plan you chose will also reroute some 5 pickup and drop off below ground. All of this will improve conditions in the neighborhood and 6 enhance the value of the homes in the nearby area. 7 8 As you all know, Castilleja is highly sought after school. I know many people move to Palo Alto 9 because of our outstanding schools and Castilleja is among them. I truly appreciate the years of 10 work that Castilleja has put into listening to neighbors questions and concerns. Now I hope you 11 will listen to my concerns. I am counting on you to approve this project once and for all. You 12 have sent it forward to the City Council with your endorsement before. With these 13 improvements, it should be easy to do so again. Please urge the City Council Members to do as 14 they have been entrusted to do. To follow your informed and careful guidance to approve this 15 project. 16 17 During this long process, the school has willingly met every change requested by City Council 18 and City Staff as the goalposts kept moving. This has now resulted in additional alternatives for 19 you to review on their [unintelligible]. I trust you to find the best among these plans and to help 20 bring this long chapter to a close. Please continue to urge the City Council to support this 21 proposal. Thank you very much. 22 23 Ms. Klicheva: Thank you. Our next speaker is Yair Blumenfeld. 24 25 Mr. Yair Blumenfeld: Thank you for the opportunity to speak and thank you for staying up so 26 late. I’m actually going to modify what I originally planned to say. Given that I honestly don’t 27 have too much to add to the individuals who spoke so eloquently and really thoughtfully on 28 behalf of the proposal. The proposal before you is clearly sound, it’s environmentally superb, 29 and Castilleja has committed to not only keeping traffic at its current levels. But improving 30 traffic over time and they’ve clearly done that over the last couple of years. 31 32 I’ve been here for about 12-years as… in Palo Alto with our family. We have two daughters, one 33 at Castilleja, one in Pally, and honestly, I’m not aware of any other school or organization for 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . that matter in all of Palo Alto that has committed to improving traffic over this period of time. 1 Or that has taken the environmental aspects of their remodel to this extent. So, I’ll just add my 2 voice to the overwhelming support on behalf of the proposal and clearly all of us on this 3 meeting and who’ve spoken before really hope that you recommend this project for approval. 4 5 Ms. Klicheva: Thank you. Our next speaker is Carolina Abbassi. I see that she left the meeting so 6 I will move on to Rob Levitsky. 7 8 Mr. Rob Levitsky: Hello. I want to start off by saying I’m not the member of any prestigious 9 board but I am a 65-year resident of Palo Alto and the only neighbor whose property actually 10 adjoins Castilleja School. As of last at the ARB meeting, it became clear that the Planning Staff 11 were pushing scheme E of the underground garage. Finally accepting that protected trees need 12 to be left alone. 5 ½-years it took to get the Planning Staff to follow the Tree Ordinance. So, 13 don’t blame the neighbors for asking the zoning rules be followed. It took about 4-years to 14 protect the houses at 1235 and 1263 Emerson that Castilleja wanted to just demolish. We 15 prevailed on the Planning Staff to follow the rules for merging lots that disallow merged lots to 16 exceed 10,000-square feet. 17 18 Similarly, we had to prevail with the City Council in March so they provoke the idea that an 19 underground parking garage was a basement. A concept that the planning was selling. That 20 took 4 ½-years. These delays were caused by bad design and incorrect zoning interpretations. 21 Castilleja and planning are still playing games with square footage allowed and a Variance for 22 lot coverage. 23 24 You see, Castilleja is zoned R-1, yet they and planning are trying to plan the rules again. They 25 claim they’re R-1 zoning when it comes to not counting square footage. Some 20 below grade 26 classrooms with no windows, but then they claim a hardship that R-1 zoning allows only 30 27 percent lot coverage and they’re close to 50 percent. Way over the zoning limits. Sorry, 28 Castilleja, you can’t have it both ways and no Variance should be considered. 29 30 And back to the underground garage which David Hersh of the ARB called functionless last 31 week. It also depends on a Variance of sorts as the current designs depend on several 32 permanent encroachments into the Melville Avenue public utility easement. Including a tunnel 33 under the 8-inch Melville sewer line to walk from the garage to the campus. Again, tunnel 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . under the sewer. David Hersh called that one out as well. What is the status of the 1 encroachment permits that would need to be approved by the City Manager to do this? The 2 fact is, the garage is unnecessary and should be removed from the proposed design. There are 3 plenty of surface parking spaces as the school was operating before with 448 students with no 4 parking issues. We don’t need a CO2-belching industrial concrete garage in our neighborhood. 5 If Castilleja really wants 500 to 600 students, it's time to move or open another campus like so 6 many others do. Thank you. 7 8 Ms. Klicheva: Thank you. Our next speaker is Deborah Goldeen. 9 10 Ms. Deborah Goldeen: Good evening, Commissioners. My name is Deborah Goldeen. I am a 58-11 year resident of the City of Palo Alto, a 4th generation Bay Area. In such capacity, I feel I have an 12 exceptional breadth and depth of understanding of what this City needs and what this area 13 needs. And Castilleja is an incredibly important part of the value of this community and we 14 desire… they desire support. Not our obstruction. You know what this reminds me of? Is Bleak 15 House. You know, this is… it started out with some reasonable ideas but it’s gotten to the point 16 where it's just Jarndyce versus Jarndyce. You know this is not about parking space and 17 dewatering and saving heritage oaks. This is just obstructionism, that’s all it is. The City would 18 hold its residences to this standard? Oh my gosh, how amazing would that be? No, they don’t. 19 They don’t care how big garage… underground basements people build and they don’t expect 20 residents to be net-zero in their carbon emissions. They don’t… you know they don’t protect 21 their heritage trees. Heck, the one on Webster that was 400-years old, the live oak just came 22 down because of someone had to have their dream home built. You know I… it’s a… it’s just a 23 pusillanimous City Council and Commissioners who allow this to proceed as if this is good 24 government. And it’s not, it’s ridiculous. 25 26 I just… you know in my perfect world, what I would love to see happen is I would love to see 27 Stanford University lease a huge track of land to Castilleja for a dollar a year just like it leases 28 land to the City of Palo Alto for Paly and Gunn. And then Castilleja could sell its Kellogg and 29 Bryant Street property. And it can be sold to developers and then because there is no more R-1 30 zoning which surprises me why anybody is using that as an argument anymore because 31 [unintelligible], SB 9, and SB 10 passed. You know that property would be all condos and those 32 few obstructionist, stubborn, self-people who are holding on tooth and nail to keep this 33 development from happening would get what they deserve. Fine, you know you want to lose 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . this wonderful asset in the community and have condos in your backyard? Go for it. Just do 1 that. 2 3 Anyway, obviously, I think that the Commission should proceed with approval as is with the 4 parking garage. I for one would very much like Palo Alto to stop being an embarrassment in the 5 world and I think this is a good place to start. Thank you. 6 7 Ms. Klicheva: Thank you. Our next speaker is Jeff Levinsky. 8 9 Mr. Jeff Levinsky: Good evening, Commissioners, Staff, and everyone still awake. I’m very glad 10 that the Council adopted the position that Castilleja’s underground garage is floor area. Council 11 is now asking you to consider whether to recommend exempting that garage from floor area. 12 As you work that through, here are five things to consider. 13 14 One, as a number of speakers pointed out tonight, the proposed ordinance isn’t needed 15 because Castilleja already has more than their required surface parking. That is with a 20 16 percent TDM, Castilleja needs only 83 spaces, but they currently have 89 above ground. They 17 confirmed tonight that they’re even reducing their footprint so they should have more than 18 enough room for 83 spaces with no garage. 19 20 Two, the proposed ordinance would give Castilleja exemptions from floor area that no [note – 21 audio cut out] 22 23 Chair Hechtman: Will you pause the (interrupted) 24 25 Ms. Tanner: Yeah, let’s pause the time. Mr. Levinsky, we can’t hear you. If you can hear us, Mr. 26 Levinsky, we cannot hear you. I think we should go to the next caller and see if we can get him 27 back on. 28 29 Chair Hechtman: Great. 30 31 Ms. Klicheva: Our next speaker is a caller with the last digits 002 and to unmute yourself it is *6. 32 Perfect, [unintelligible](interrupted) 33 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Mr. Terry Holzemer: Can you hear me now? 1 2 Ms. Klicheva: Yes, we can. 3 4 Mr. Holzemer: My name is Terry Holzemer, I’m a Palo Alto resident, I’ve been here over 28-5 years, and have been an educator in this area for over 20-years. To be very brief, I’d like to 6 mention three quick areas that I hope the Commissioners will consider in their deliberations. 7 8 First of all, that this physical expansion of the school has never been about women’s education 9 or its wonderful merits. Having been an educator for a very long time, I appreciate and push for 10 women’s education every day. However, no one in this neighborhood or in the neighborhood 11 around Castilleja has argued against the school’s needs to rebuild or remodel its campus. 12 However, they have requested a reasonable expansion that fits in with their existing 13 neighborhood like all neighborhoods in Palo Alto. It’s time to stop demonizing the neighbors. 14 Stop calling them racist, stop calling them all kinds of names that have been described tonight, 15 and it’s time to realize that neighbors want the same thing everybody else wants. They want a 16 reasonable, quiet residential neighborhood. 17 18 I think a small increase to 450 students seems reasonable, given a period of time, of course, to 19 see how it works out. And again, no garage as those reports earlier have been described, those 20 reports earlier, an underground garage is not necessary, and that’s been clearly reported even 21 to the school. 22 23 Number two, very quickly, the importance of fairness and total transparency. For example, why 24 should Castilleja get exceptional treatment to not having to count for Gross Floor Area that 25 already exceeds the current Code? I don’t think that this is fair and I think that this also has to 26 be examined by the Commissioners. 27 28 And finally, precedence, will all non-profit schools and churches in R-1 zones and there are 29 many, be allowed the extra floor space? Will underground garages be allowed and not without 30 counting the square footage of course? There’s already a stream of cars going into the 31 neighborhood. I know this, I’ve observed it, and with an increase of more than 1/3 of those cars 32 on a daily basis. How this will impact the neighbors? 33 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . And finally, I’ll mention the events, 50 and 70 events a year sounds like a lot if you don’t live in 1 that neighborhood. But if you do, any neighborhood, that’s a heck of a lot of events. Activities 2 that I hope the school would either reconsider lowering or compromising to reduce this 3 number over a period of years. Thank you very much and please, do not demonize the 4 neighbors. 5 6 Ms. Klicheva: Thank you and we are coming back to Jeff Levinsky. Jeff… Mr. Levinsky, you 7 should be able to unmute yourself and share your comments with us. I see that you are staying 8 muted. 9 10 Ms. Tanner: Mr. Levinsky, on your side you have to unmute yourself I believe. We still see that 11 you’re muted. 12 13 Ms. Klicheva: Maybe I should show a slide with phone number. So, that maybe Mr. Levinsky 14 could call in instead. 15 16 Ms. Tanner: Yeah, if he would like to call in, we could do that, or if he wants to submit his 17 comments in writing. You can go ahead and show the slide if you’d like to Madina. Mr. Levinsky, 18 if you can hear us if you want to use the phone number to call in. 1-669-900-6833 and then the 19 Zoom meeting ID for this meeting is 916 4155 9499. And we’ll just give a moment to see if 20 you’re able to call in and if not, we will encourage you to write to the Planning Commission and 21 submit your comments in writing. I did see him disappear but I’m not sure that I see another 22 number yet appearing. 23 24 Chair Hechtman: Alright, I’m going to move us on now. Mr. Levinsky, sorry you had technical 25 difficulties, but as Ms. Tanner said, to the extent you weren’t able to present your full 26 comments, please send us an email which we will certainly consider. And that goes for the 27 couple of other people who had some technical difficulties tonight. Ms. Fleming and I think 28 somebody with three initials. Please email us with your concerns and comments. So, that was 29 our last public commenter so now I want to bring it back to the applicant for rebuttal 30 comments of up to 5-minutes. And then just to preview my thinking, and after the rebuttal, I 31 want to query the Commission on this, but it’s 11:30. My intention or suggestion is that 32 normally… the next steps we would normally have after rebuttal is to ask questions of the 33 applicant. I propose that we proposed… that we pause this item after the rebuttal, before the 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . questions which I think maybe lengthy, continue this item to our meeting next Wednesday. To 1 ask those questions of the applicant and complete the public comment portion and do our 2 deliberation and direction to Council. So, that would be my strategy. 3 4 So, before I ask for your thoughts on what to do after rebuttal, let’s hear the rebuttal. Ms. 5 Romanowsky, are you going to start that off? 6 7 Ms. Romanowsky: Yes, thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is Mindie 8 Romanowsky, I am land use counsel for Castilleja School. First, I wanted to touch on something 9 that you were asking about earlier in the evening. While the City Council discussed the idea of a 10 Text Amendment at their March 15th hearing. I do want to emphasize what was said earlier 11 which is that the City Council refined their motion when they adopted the final motion on 12 March 29th. And if you look at the language of the March 29th motion, it did not require a Text 13 Amendment to effectuate the Council’s underground parking goals. So, because a Text 14 Amendment was not included in that final motion. I just want to state for the record that 15 there’s no Council mandate, nor legal requirement that the Planning Commission consider or 16 even recommend the Text Amendment that was drafted for you to consider. You can still 17 achieve the City Council's direction by recommending a parking option without a Text 18 Amendment because your Comprehensive Plan prioritizes underground parking. The Municipal 19 Code has a pathway for supporting underground parking for non-residential uses, which of 20 course the school is, and there is relevant precedent as I have discussed in previous meetings. 21 22 So, tonight we really were hoping to get your feedback on the parking schemes and do hope 23 that you continue this meeting to next week. So, that you can really pick up the… this 24 information that you hear tonight can be fresh, top of mind, and we can get your feedback. 25 Because we really are hoping that you can make a clear recommendation to the Council and 26 meet their mandate. 27 28 If you do choose to consider the Text Amendment, we request respectfully that you preserve 29 the ability to park more than 50 percent of cars below grade in a way that does not necessarily 30 trigger a scenario where the entire parking garage would count towards FAR. If we are able to 31 provide an efficient parking solution. This could be accomplished, for example, if the size of the 32 garage remains unchanged, the trees are preserved, but efficient parking is utilized like tandem 33 parking for example. This could be a way to put more cars below grade, not have any new 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . construction impacts or tree impacts and it would minimize any parking adjustment that is 1 needed. It’s a very elegant solution. For this reason, Scenario D is something that we would 2 strongly ask you to consider just as the ARB was also in favor of. 3 4 Next, a couple of things I’d like to clarify that we heard this evening for the record. First, there 5 were a number of claims that I heard about the amount of concrete, the amount of 6 underground construction, groundwater questions. All of these claims were unfounded frankly, 7 due respect, but the requisite data and the analysis of these issues were analyzed by expert 8 third-party professionals complying with legal requirements of CEQA. And they are included in 9 the EIR for the record which is ripe for review. Long past the time where it should have been 10 certified and so, I would employer not only the Commissioners if you’re curious but members of 11 the public to take a look at those. And if you have questions for the various consultants, I’m 12 sure they can be consulted. 13 14 Next, with regard to the square footage and the Variance request. I know that’s not on the 15 table tonight, but I do want to just say that Ms. French did present those raw numbers in her 16 report tonight, and also those reports were done by the outside third-party consultant Dudek. 17 Those were linked to the report, which just for the record all of the reports have been produced 18 over the last 8-months, were linked, or are uploaded. So, I just want to clarify that because 19 there were some comments that those have not been provided. And just to be clear, the 20 analysis that was done does show that the above grade FAR will be less than what is on campus 21 if and when we are approved and built. Even if you take that second-floor equivalency into 22 account. 23 24 Finally, I would like to put a slide back up on the screen that… actually, can I share my screen? 25 Do you mind stopping the time for a minute? I’d like to put a slide up that illustrates how 26 essentially parking… the interplay between parking, enrollment, and TDM all sort of work 27 together. And if you would allow me to share my screen, is that possible? 28 29 Ms. Klicheva: Yes. 30 31 Ms. Tanner: Just give us a moment. 32 33 Ms. Romanowski: Okay, thank you. 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . 1 Ms. Tanner: Do you have the icon at the bottom of your screen? 2 3 Ms. Romanowski: Yes, thank you. It seems to let me, so can you see my screen here? So, Fehr 4 and Peers was commissioned. The City asked us to have Fehr and Peers do a parking study that 5 would show based upon what we have on campus and what is adjacent to campus for each one 6 of the parking options. And since the ARB seems to be focused on D and E and Staff is focused 7 on E and these are the examples that I think are worthy of sharing. Which is to say that look at 8 the proposed on-site spaces for our two options. Option D has 95 and then of course the 9 frontage around the campus of the school only along our side of the campus is 54. Option D, 10 there’s 149 spaces available, and Option E there’s 143 spaces available. At the peak parking 11 demand, and this is in the Fehr and Peers report, there is a shortage of 19 spaces for Option D 12 and 25 spaces for Option E. But this is when there is absolutely no TDM measures in place. Of 13 course, we know this project needs to implement TDM. There’s no way to grow enrollment if 14 we can’t cap our trips and the beauty and the sort of elegance of the TDM program is that 15 when you introduce these measures. And this is just an example of some of the things that we 16 can choose… that we already do frankly and that we will continue to do. When you have these 17 measures, you know new school bus route, if there’s 10 TDM users. That’s 10 parking spaces 18 that are not required and as you go down this list you can see not only are you reducing trips 19 but you are reducing parking demand. And so, for example with these modes, we could get a 20 reduction of 27 spaces which of course covers this maximum shortfall here of 25. The Staff 21 report mentioned Option B where there was a shortfall of 30 spaces. Option B seems to be less 22 interesting to both the ARB and Staff. So, I apologize for going a bit over. I want to thank you for 23 your time, all the thoughtful comments this evening, the long meetings on this project. We 24 really appreciate the feedback and we look forward to yours and hope that this is continued to 25 next week. And I will stop sharing. 26 27 Chair Hechtman: Thank you, Ms. Romanowski. So, I’m going to… I want to bring it back to the 28 Commission before asking questions of the applicant to get a reaction to my suggested way 29 forward tonight at 11:37. Does anyone have a different idea they would like to propose? Mr.… 30 Commissioner Lauing, your hand is up first. 31 32 Commissioner Lauing: Yes, I have a question and just a broader one is what else do we have to 33 cover as always? It look like we’re going to be pretty full next week as well and we basically only 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . took public comment tonight and some questions. So, I’m just on the fly here trying to calculate 1 how many more hours in one or two meetings we’re going to need to go through all of the 2 things that we’ve been asked to look at. So, it… I don’t know how urgent wireless is and 3 Channing for the fifth time but you guys have to plan that in as well. So, just a broader question 4 of how’s this stake up for next week as opposed other things that have to get done? 5 6 Ms. Tanner: if I may, I would offer that we would move the wireless item to January. I think it’s 7 important to probably take this up as close to being fresh in your minds as we can. I would like 8 to see if we could keep the Channing item because we did hear most of that and it’s been 9 delayed a couple times. Once due to our error, well twice in some ways, but that canceled 10 meeting that we had. But hopefully, that would be somewhat brief, but we would probably just 11 have the two items. I don’t think we could do… certainly couldn’t do wireless and this item on 12 the same evening. 13 14 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Alcheck. 15 16 Commissioner Alcheck: I was going to suggest that I support your suggestion. I think moving to 17 December 15th is a wise and respectful choice. 18 19 Chair Hechtman: Does anyone else have additional comments or would someone… 20 Commissioner Summa. 21 22 Commissioner Summa: Hi, thanks. I can’t remember right now but weren’t there a couple 23 things that Staff eluded to in the Staff report that they didn’t have ready for us for this meeting 24 or least one report? I’m trying to remember. Would they be… whatever that was, it was missing 25 and I honestly at this time of night can’t remember what it was. 26 27 Ms. Tanner: It’s okay. Ms. French, do you… are there items that you think you were planning to 28 prepare for the next hearing, or maybe that might a future hearing? 29 30 Commissioner Summa: I think one was a comparison of other school events I think maybe. 31 Would those be ready? 32 33 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Ms. Tanner: Well, I think part of what we would want to do next week is… well, what I might 1 suggest would be to not introduce new information and so if this truly is a continued hearing. 2 We would really just pick up with… you know we might reprint the Staff report for ease of 3 access to the public but it wouldn’t be any additional information at this time come forward. 4 5 Commissioner Summa: Okay and for summary and Commissioner Lauing asked that question at 6 the beginning of the meeting where there was going to be different information the next… 7 continued meeting. Maybe I’m remembering incorrectly. Thank you. 8 9 Ms. Tanner: And on that note, I might suggest if there is a motion it might be helpful for the 10 public to know if there will be public comment at the next one or you know, just to be clear for 11 everybody. 12 13 Chair Hechtman: Right so before there is a motion (interrupted) 14 15 Commissioner Summa: [unintelligible] get to speak tonight, shouldn’t they be able to speak at 16 the continued one? We’ve had discussions like this before but it only seems fair to me. 17 18 Chair Hechtman: So, let me clarify the intention. We are… we’ve been presented with 19 information by Staff and the public tonight had a full opportunity to comment on that. The next 20 step in this process is for us to discuss the items that Staff wants discussed and give them 21 direction. And so, and I’m anticipating that’s going to happen, depending on the motion here, 22 on December 15th. And during that dialog would be just like we continued to talk right now 23 until 2:30 in the morning to give our direction to Staff. There would not be another opportunity 24 for the public to comment on December 15th. But what happens after December 15th is Staff is 25 going to take this direction and go away and refine a variety of items and bring that back to us. 26 And when they do bring it back to us, what they bring back to us is going to be a lot of new 27 information and we will have another round of public comment. 28 29 Commissioner Summa: Okay. 30 31 Chair Hechtman: Alright, Commissioner Chang. 32 33 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Commissioner Chang: If we continued next week, would we be able to ask question of the 1 applicant at that point? Right so just to pick up exactly… is your intent that we would pick up 2 exactly the same process that we would have used if we continue on and the applicant would 3 be able to come back and answer those questions. 4 5 Chair Hechtman: Yes, exactly right. It’s as though we continued tonight. So, that would be the 6 first order of business and I was heartened to hear Ms. Romanowsky indicate that the applicant 7 is supportive of coming back next week. That tells me that they will be ready with their full 8 complement of consultants to answer our questions. So, that would be the first order of 9 business. 10 11 Commissioner Chang: I hope that all… I hope all the speakers who spoke… presented will be 12 here because that would be helpful. 13 14 Chair Hechtman: [unintelligible – no audio] behalf of the applicant you meant? 15 16 Commissioner Chang: Yes, on behalf… right because we heard from four different people I think 17 from the applicant and I think it would be helpful to hear from them. 18 19 Chair Hechtman: [unintelligible – no audio] I know that they’re listening and I expect that they 20 will make that happen. Other Commissioner comments? If not, would somebody make a 21 motion and keep in mind Ms. Tanner’s suggestion as to referencing public comment in that 22 motion. Commissioner Lauing. 23 24 Commissioner Lauing: Just one quick question. Is Council having a meeting after next week? 25 The reason I ask is because it may be that whatever we work on next week still won’t get to 26 Council until the second week of January. Whether or not that’s material, I have no idea but I 27 just… I didn’t know if you were trying to create a timeline to get something to Council fast. 28 29 Ms. Tanner: No, I think it's mainly just to pick up as close to the conclusion of this hearing as 30 possible. We wouldn’t be able to get to Council for some time even if they had… they aren’t 31 meeting incidentally after next Monday. But even if they were, we would need at least 30-days, 32 if not more, to get the Staff report through our process to them. 33 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Commissioner Lauing: Okay, fine. 1 2 Chair Hechtman: Just to clarify that, even if we did just stay here tonight and finish this, the 3 result of that is not you take the… Staff taking information to Council. It’s Staff bringing 4 information back to us. Isn’t that the next step or are you going to Council before you come 5 back to us? 6 7 Ms. Tanner: I don’t think that’s our intention and additionally, the ARB still has work to do. So, I 8 think we’ve got this body and the ARB has quite a bit of work I think before Council. So, I think 9 my only point was is Council is not the deciding factor for the continuance. 10 11 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Alcheck. 12 13 MOTION 14 15 Commissioner Alcheck: I’ll make a motion that we continue this item until December 15th, at 16 our next meeting which is a special meeting. At such time, where we will pick up exactly where 17 we left off with the close of public comment and at the start of our Planning Commissioner 18 opportunity to ask questions of the applicant and its representatives. And then deliberate 19 amongst ourselves in an effort to give direction to our Planning Department so they may come 20 back with some fleshed-out options for this body to then recommend to City Council at a date 21 uncertain. That’s how it’s done. 22 23 Chair Hechtman: Thank you. Do we have a second for that motion? 24 25 SECOND 26 27 Commissioner Lauing: I’ll second it. 28 29 Chair Hechtman: Thank you, Commissioner Lauing for the second. Any discussion? 30 Commissioner Summa. Oh, no. Commissioner Alcheck, your hand is still up. I’m assuming that 31 you don’t want to… do you want to speak to your motion? 32 33 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Commissioner Alcheck: Yeah, I think your… the wisdom tonight is that this is fresh and I think 1 it’s prudent that the process… the ball be kept rolling as opposed to pause considering the 2 context. So, I’m glad that you made that suggestion at the beginning of this discussion. 3 4 VOTE 5 6 Chair Hechtman: Alright Ms. Klicheva, can we have a roll call vote, please? 7 8 Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Alcheck? 9 10 Commissioner Alcheck: Aye. 11 12 Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Chang? 13 14 Commissioner Chang: Yes. 15 16 Ms. Klicheva: Chair Hechtman? 17 18 Chair Hechtman: Yes. 19 20 Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Lauing? 21 22 Commissioner Lauing: Yes. 23 24 Ms. Klicheva: Vice-Chair Roohparvar? 25 26 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Yes. 27 28 Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Summa? 29 30 Commissioner Summa: Yes. 31 32 Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Templeton? 33 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Templeton departed toward the end of the public speakers. So, 1 she will reconstitute herself before the December 15th meeting. 2 3 Ms. Klicheva: Okay, the motion carries 6-0. 4 5 MOTION PASSED 6(Ayes: Alcheck, Chang, Lauing, Hechtman, Summa, Roohparvar) – 0 – with 6 Commissioner Templeton absent 7 8 Chair Hechtman: Alright, thank you. Thank you to all of the members of the public who spoke 9 and who stayed and I’m particularly appreciative of six groups putting together cohesive points 10 of view on items in groups of five. That’s actually the most I’ve ever seen and I think it’s very 11 effective tool and I’m glad to see so many people using it. So, and we will see all of you and 12 those who have already gone to bed I hope a week from today. Well, it’s still today for a few 13 more minutes. So, let… I’d like to move us now to approval of minutes. 14 Commission Action: Motion by Alcheck, seconded by Lauing. Pass 6-0 (Templeton absent) 15 Approval of Minutes 16 Public Comment is Permitted. Five (5) minutes per speaker.2,3 17 5. October 13, 2021 Draft PTC Meeting Minutes 18 Chair Hechtman: We have two sets of minutes. October 13th as revised and October 27th as 19 revised. I think we take those serially. Can I have a motion on the October 13th minutes? 20 21 MOTION 22 23 Commissioner Alcheck: So, moved. 24 25 Chair Hechtman: Thank you, Commissioner Alcheck. A second, please? Please. 26 27 SECOND 28 29 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Second. 30 31 VOTE 32 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . 1 Chair Hechtman: Thank you, Vice-Chair Roohparvar. A roll call vote, please? 2 3 Ms. Madina Klicheva, Administrative Assistant: Commissioner Alcheck? 4 5 Commissioner Alcheck: Aye. 6 7 Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Chang? 8 9 Commissioner Chang: Yes. 10 11 Ms. Klicheva: Chair Hechtman? 12 13 Chair Hechtman: Yes. 14 15 Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Lauing? Commissioner Lauing? 16 17 Chair Hechtman: You’re muted. 18 19 Commissioner Lauing: Yes. 20 21 Ms. Klicheva: Vice-Chair Roohparvar? 22 23 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Yes. 24 25 Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Summa? 26 27 Commissioner Summa: I believe I will abstain. I know I missed the 27th and I think it’s likely the 28 13th was the other meeting I missed. 29 30 Ms. Tanner: Thank you and did we get all the Commissioners Ms. Klicheva? 31 32 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Templeton being absent. 33 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Ms. Tanner: Right, okay great, and so then I think it would be the next set. 1 2 MOTION PASSED 5(Alcheck, Chang, Lauing, Hechtman, Roohparvar) – 0 - 1(Summa abstain) 3 with Commissioner Templeton absent 4 Commission Action: Motion by Alcheck, seconded by Roohparvar. Pass 5-0-1 (Summa abstain 5 and Templeton absent) 6 6. October 27, 2021 Draft PTC Meeting Minutes 7 Chair Hechtman: Yes, motion on the October 27th minutes that (interrupted) 8 9 MOTION 10 11 Commissioner Alcheck: So, moved. 12 13 Chair Hechtman: Is that you Commissioner Alcheck? Thank you. A second, please. 14 15 SECOND 16 17 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Lauing second. 18 19 VOTE 20 21 Chair Hechtman: Roll call vote. Ms. Klicheva are you there? 22 23 Ms. Tanner: You’re muted if you’re talking. 24 25 Ms. Madina Klicheva, Administrative Assistant: Oh sorry, yes, thank you so much. Commissioner 26 Alcheck? 27 28 Commissioner Alcheck: Aye. 29 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . 1 Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Chang? 2 3 Commissioner Chang: Yes. 4 5 Ms. Klicheva: Chair Hechtman? 6 7 Chair Hechtman: Yes. 8 9 Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Lauing? 10 11 Commissioner Lauing: Yes. 12 13 Ms. Klicheva: Vice-Chair Roohparvar? 14 15 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Yes. 16 17 Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Summa? 18 19 Commissioner Summa: Abstain. 20 21 Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Templeton is absent. Motion carries 5-1 with Commissioner 22 Templeton absent. 23 24 MOTION PASSED 5(Alcheck, Chang, Lauing, Hechtman, Summa, Roohparvar) -0 -1(Summa 25 abstain) -1(Templeton absent) 26 27 Chair Hechtman: [unintelligible – no audio] to Committee items. 28 29 Commission Action: Motion by Alcheck, seconded by Lauing. Pass 5-0-1 (Summa abstain and 30 Templeton absent) 31 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . Committee Items 1 Chair Hechtman: Commissioners, are there any Committee items? Then we will move to 2 Commissioner questions, comments, announcements or future agenda items. 3 Commissioner Questions, Comments or Announcements 4 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Summa. 5 6 Commissioner Summa: Thank you. I have a question for I guess Assistant Director Tanner. I was 7 curious… the meeting that I missed on October 27th had a discussion of electrification issues 8 and I was just curious what the timeline for that coming back to us? And whether each issue 9 would come as its own separate thing or if all the items would be brought together again? 10 11 Ms. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director: That’s a great question. I… to be honest, I’m not sure 12 the exact timeline. I think we’ll probably bring the first item in the first part of next year like 13 first quarter, but they would come back separately. And it was kind of an overview of the items 14 together kind of topically related and then they would come back probably separately because 15 they’re… well, maybe some of them might be grouped together but they’d… some of these are 16 pretty different from one another. 17 18 Commissioner Summa: Okay, in the first quarter probably? 19 20 Ms. Tanner: Yeah, we’d like to get started soon so. 21 22 Commissioner Summa: Thank you. 23 24 Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Alcheck. 25 26 Commissioner Alcheck: The emergency ordinance that was passed this week is responsive to SB 27 9. I’m curious to know when that… what is that going to be reviewed by the PTC at some point 28 and when do you anticipate that? And also, how was that… I’m just curious how the process for 29 that recommendation or Staff led discussion came about? 30 31 Ms. Tanner: So, just procedurally we didn’t have time to… we didn’t… we barely had time to 32 draft the urgency ordinance honestly and the Objective Standards. So, due to the time that the 33 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . law passed and the time that it goes into effect and so part of the urgency is that it goes into 1 effect immediately. So, that goes into effect immediately on Monday and so it’s in effect on 2 January 1st. Otherwise, if it was just a regular ordinance, it would need two readings. The 3 second reading wouldn’t be able to happen until January and that would have already been the 4 time when SB 9 would be implemented and available. And so, then we would possibly have 5 some applications that would come and then we would have an ordinance that would pass and 6 that would change what’s allowed. And so, you’d have even just… you know, you can imagine 7 how that would be challenging to have a weeks’ worth of applications that have different rules 8 than all the other ones. So, that’s kind of the process there and what we would do is bring that 9 back to… not even just bring the existing ordinance back to the PTC because it’s got some good 10 stuff in it but again it was a rushed job. I think we did a really good job, but we really just 11 needed to get the bare minimum. And I think with the PTC and ARB will be able to be a little bit 12 more creative, more thoughtful, be more thorough in thinking about how do we want these 13 potential projects to be shaped in Palo Alto and that could… I think it’s a pretty exciting 14 opportunity. 15 16 Commissioner Alcheck: Was the framework influenced by our discussion of Objective Standards 17 in your opinion? 18 19 Ms. Tanner: Well, certainly Objective Standards are part of what we spent the bulk of the time 20 on, but what we did there it’s a little bit different because we built that off of the IR. The 21 Individual Review Guidelines which are guidelines for two-story homes and the scale that you 22 were considering with Objective Standards was more for multi-family buildings. Kind of a 23 different scale and shape. So, similar in terms of the ARB and PTC started with our existing 24 guidelines and tried to adapt them. So, I think a similar framework but just the scale is a bit 25 different and so then the guidelines themselves I think are a little bit just different in character. 26 Because of the scale of the house that they’re trying to shape but similar idea. 27 28 Chair Hechtman: Alright, other Commissioners? Well then, I would like to share that this picture 29 behind me, I’ve got my head over to the side so you can maybe see it better. But probably not 30 large enough for you to see that this of course is the pedestrian and bike bridge near San 31 Antonio and in this photo, it's filled with people. Dozens and dozens of people at the grand 32 opening which occurred on November 20th in the morning and in fact here… there, there’s the 33 ribbon cutting with our very own Mayor and Joe Simitian and numerous other dignitaries if that 34 _______________________ 1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. . is showing up. So, anyway, it was great and I was really surprised by the number of people that 1 were willing to stand in line for and then eat free ice cream at like 10:30 in the morning. It was 2 quite something, but anyway it’s a great addition to our biking and hiking fabric, and if you 3 haven’t been out to walk or bike across it, I encourage you to access the Baylands that way. It’s 4 really a wonderful addition to Palo Alto and I’m appreciative of all the work that went into it 5 from at the community level, at Staff level, and at the leadership on the Council to get it done. 6 Any other Commissioner (interrupted) 7 8 Commissioner Alcheck: Chair, I just want to… just… it’s a good little anecdote. I think it was in 9 2013 that this body that I was a part of voted to start a process by which a design competition 10 would be conducted for the design of this bridge. Ultimately none of the designs were chosen 11 but if it ever seems like I’m in a bit of a rush to put things through. It’s because the bike bridge 12 took 8-years to finish in Palo Alto. So, a little perspective that the City that is disrupting the 13 world as wonderful as this bridge is because it is. I’ve been there and even the smallest 14 crossings are challenging. So, it’s worth appreciating that I hope for all of you as you move 15 forward on your Commissionship find that projects that you participate in come to fruition 16 while you’re still breathing on the Commission. 17 18 Chair Hechtman: Thank you, Commissioner Alcheck. So, as the moon rises behind 19 Commissioner Lauing I will declare this meeting of the PTC adjourned. Good night everyone. 20 Adjournment 21 12:05 pm 22