HomeMy WebLinkAbout2022-11-16 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,
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Planning & Transportation Commission 1
Action Agenda: November 16, 2022 2
Zoom & Council Chambers 3
5:00 PM 4
5
Call to Order / Roll Call 6
5:14 pm 7
Ms. Amy French, Chief Planning Official: [video started mid-sentence] not coming tonight. 8
9
[note- many people speaking at once off mic] 10
11
Ms. French: Hi, everyone, we’re going to start our meeting. Just letting you know. 12
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Vice-Chair Summa: Are we ready? 14
15
Ms. French: Yes. 16
17
Vice-Chair Summa: Good evening, I’d like to call to (interrupted) 18
19
Automated voice: Recording in progress 20
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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 Summa: Good evening, I’d like to call to order a special meeting of the Planning and 1
Transportation Commission for November 16, 2022. So, I think the first thing to do is to 2
(interrupted) 3
4
Ms. French: Take roll. 5
6
Vice-Chair Summa: Roll. 7
8
Ms. Madina Klicheva, Administrative Assistant: Chair Lauing will join us later, he’s not here right 9
now. Vice-Chair Summa? 10
11
Vice-Chair Summa: Preset. 12
13
Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Chang? 14
15
Commissioner Chang: Here. 16
17
Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Hechtman? 18
19
Commissioner Hechtman: Here. 20
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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 Reckdahl? 2
3
Commissioner Reckdahl: Here. 4
5
Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Roohparvar? Absent. Commissioner Templeton? Absent. We have 6
a quorum. 7
8
Vice-Chair Summa: Thank you and I think the next thing is to read the adoption of a resolution 9
authorizing use of teleconferencing for Planning and Transportation Commission meetings 10
during Covid State of Emergency. 11
12
1. Adoption of a Resolution Authorizing Use of Teleconferencing for Planning and 13
Transportation Commission Meetings During Covid-19 State of Emergency 14
15
Ms. Amy French, Chief Planning Official: Thank you and I’ll read the spiel about participating. 16
17
Vice-Chair Summa: Okay, thank you. 18
19
Ms. French: Pursuant to AB-361 this meeting will be held with the option to attend by 20
teleconference or in person. Members of the public may provide live public comment by 21
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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.
submitting a speaker card prior to the start of public comment on that item. Speakers may 1
address items that are not on the Agenda during the oral communications portion of the 2
meeting. Spoken comments via a computer or a smart phone will be accepted through the 3
Zoom App. To address the Commission, go to zoom.us\join meeting ID is 916 4155 9499. And 4
when you wish to speak, click on raise hand. To offer comments using a regular phone call 1-5
669-900-6833 and enter the Meeting ID, again 916 4155 9499. When you wish to speak on an 6
item hit star (*) 9 on your phone so we know that you wish to speak. Thank you. 7
8
Vice-Chair Summa: Okay and I think we need to… a… I need to get a motion to adopt that 9
resolution. 10
11
Vice-Chair Summa: Okay, I see that… and I see we have a first and a second. 12
13
MOTION 14
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Commissioner Hechtman: Oh, let me, I’ll make the motion to adopt the Resolution. 16
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SECOND 18
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Commissioner Chang: I’ll second the motion. 20
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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
Vice-Chair Summa: Okay, can you please call the roll? 2
3
Ms. Madina Klicheva, Administrative Assistant: Commissioner Chang? 4
5
Commissioner Chang: Yes. 6
7
Ms. Klicheva: Thank you. Commissioner Hechtman? 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 10
11
Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Reckdahl? 12
13
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yes. 14
15
Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner…. Vice-Chair Summa? 16
17
Vice-Chair Summa: Yes. 18
19
Ms. Klicheva: Motion carries 4-0. 20
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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
Vice-Chair Summa: Okay, I believe the next thing on our Agenda this evening is oral 2
communications. 3
4
Commission Action: Motion by Hechtman, seconded by Chang. Passed 4-0 (Lauing, Roohparvar, 5
Templeton absent) 6
Oral Communications 7
The public may speak to any item not on the agenda. Three (3) minutes per speaker.1,2 8
Vice-Chair Summa: Do we have any people present or people out in Zoom land? 9
10
Ms. Madina Klicheva, Administrative Assistant: Vice-Chair Summa, I haven’t received any 11
speaker cards for oral communications and I do not see any raised hands for oral 12
communications. 13
14
Vice-Chair Summa: Thank you. Then I believe the next item is Agenda changes, additions, or 15
deletions. 16
Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions 17
The Chair or Commission majority may modify the agenda order to improve meeting management. 18
Ms. Amy French, Chief Planning Official: None. 19
20
Vice-Chair Summa: Thank you and next up would be City official reports. 21
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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.
City Official Reports 1
2. Directors Report, Meeting Schedule and Assignments 2
Ms. Amy French, Chief Planning Official: Yes, thank you. This is Amy French. Coming up we have 3
tonight’s meeting is a special meeting. The second and third meetings, the last two meetings of 4
this year are on November 30th and December 14th. On November 30th we will have the 3200 5
Park Avenue Project and on the 14th we will have a Development Agreement amendment, we’ll 6
talk about State legislation, and we’ll have some updates to Title 18 for electrification. 7
8
And as far as the remaining Council meetings that would need Planning Commission 9
representation. We have a meeting coming up on the 5th and that is the Mercedes’s Project at 10
1700 Embarcadero Road. So, I’m showing that the representative is Keith Reckdahl for 11
December, thank you. And then we have a couple of other items that are still tentative but 12
getting closer and that’s the ADU Code changes which the Planning and Transportation 13
Commission saw, the 575 Los Trancos Open Space home project that the Planning Commission 14
saw, and then, later on, we are hoping to get our Parklet, Permanente Parklet Program 15
Ordinance to the Council this year. 16
17
So, that’s upcoming and then, of course, we can talk later about representation in April and 18
June for back up in April and primary in June for representation at Council because we have a 19
vacancy in this two months. 20
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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
Vice-Chair Summa: Okay and I… maybe I missed it but we still have the joint meeting with the 2
Planning Commission with City Council? 3
4
Ms. French: Sorry, yes. I was just referring to the Wednesdays so yes, you are joining at the City 5
Council meeting on November 28th after Thanksgiving for a joint hearing on the Housing 6
Element. 7
8
Vice-Chair Summa: Thank you so much and do we have a report from other departments? 9
10
Ms. French: Not tonight. 11
12
Vice-Chair Summa: Okay, thank you so much, and then (interrupted) 13
14
Commissioner Hechtman: Acting-Chair Summa, I have something I’d like to bring up in this 15
before we move to the next Agenda item. 16
17
Vice-Chair Summa: Thank you so much, go ahead. 18
19
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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 Hechtman: So, I wanted to report to the Commission on the City Council’s action 1
on the Temporary… well was and is the temporary Retail Ordinance that came before us on 2
August 31st. And I normally would leave it to Staff but something unusual happen this time so I 3
think it bears a little bit of discussion. 4
5
So, if my fellow Commissioners remember when this came to us on August 31st, the City Council 6
had adopted this temporary ordinance, and they were… it had come to us to look… with Council 7
instruction to look at three particular things; which were not ready for prime time because they 8
needed study so weren’t yet done. And it came to us with a Staff recommendation to go ahead 9
and make the ordinance, the temporary ordinance, permanent and deal with whatever changes 10
later that need to be made, and so the Planning Commission deliberated that. There were two 11
people absent that day. I think it was Commissioner Roohparvar and maybe Vice-Chair Summa, 12
where you there? Okay, so I think there were two missing. In any event, we agreed 13
unanimously that the ordinance really wasn’t ready for prime time and that our preference 14
unanimously was that the ordinance should be continued in its temporary form, but we were 15
concerned that the Council might not agree. And so, we included in the motion four items that 16
we were particular concerned about that should be addressed if they were going to make the 17
temporary ordinance permanent and so that was our recommendation, unanimous, that went 18
to the Council. 19
20
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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 kind of work I do, I’m in front of Planning Commissions and Councils all the time and 1
what is traditional in all of those settings, and I think here in Palo Alto, is whatever 2
recommendation the Planning Staff makes to the Planning Commission. The Staff recommend 3
to the Council whatever the Planning Commission’s recommendation was. So, in our situation, 4
that would have been a recommendation to keep the ordinance temporary, but if you’re not 5
going to, deal with these four things. So, I happen to the be the liaison that night for various 6
reasons and when I… so, I reviewed the Staff Report and I was surprised to find that that was 7
not Staff’s recommendation. That Staff’s recommendation was to make the ordinance 8
permanent and Staff, you know, disclosed that we had recommended that it stay temporary 9
and had disclosed that as an alternative we had recommended that these four things be dealt 10
with. And Staff said we haven’t put any of those four things into the ordinance, but we can if 11
the Council wants. So, I personally found that frustrating and the way it played out… and so and 12
I didn’t understand because the Staff Report and you know, I’ve got Ms. French here but this is 13
about the whole Planning Staff. Not just our representative tonight. It wasn’t explained in the 14
Staff Report why Staff was recommending something other than our recommendation. But the 15
question was asked during the Council meeting and the answer from Director Lait, and I’m sort 16
of putting together a combination of comments, is Staff has a lot on their plate. This ordinance 17
needs to be changed, whether it’s a temporary ordinance or a permanent ordinance, but by 18
making it a permanent ordinance. It kind of takes the pressure off Staff and it could be done 19
later and that’s entirely understandable that they would have that perspective. And one of the 20
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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.
Council Members asked Staff, well how long will it take before you think its ready, and they 1
said… Director Lait said about 18 months. 2
3
And so, what the Council ended up doing was essentially following our recommendation. They 4
were also uncomfortable with this ordinance becoming permanent in a temporary form 5
without the studies that would further inform it. So, they ended up approving basically 6
following our recommendation to keep it temporary and they set… there’s kind of this 18-7
month clock associated with that. 8
9
So, I think it turned out alright from the perspective of our recommendation but I just wanted 10
to take, and I’m sorry I’m taking some time here, but to my knowledge that’s the first time… 11
well this is the first time in the 3 years that I’ve been on the Commission that the Staff has not 12
followed our recommendation in making its recommendation to the Council and I would 13
encourage Staff to avoid doing that. I think what would have been better here is if Staff had 14
said in its Staff Report this is the Commission’s recommendation. Here’s our concern, we’re not 15
going to have this work ready for 18 months. That’s a long time to keep a temporary ordinance 16
but nonetheless, this is what the Commission wanted. I think that’s a better approach and I 17
think it’s consistent with the course of behavior that I’ve seen. And it’s important to use 18
because we need to trust, you know, we work with Staff and we have a trust that our 19
recommendations are going to be respected and given weight going forward. And if there’s a 20
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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.
problem with them then we should know about them. So, Ms. French I see would like to 1
[unintelligible](interrupted) 2
3
Ms. French: Through the Chair, I appreciate Commissioner Hechtman’s remarks. I’m a little 4
concerned because we have a hard stop at 6:00 for the Staff that are here for Item Number 5
Two to go to the community meeting and get there by 6:00 on Zoom. So, perhaps we could, if 6
there’s more comments about that or additional comments, we can take that after minutes? 7
8
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay thank you, I wasn’t aware of that. I would have pushed it till 9
later but that was… that’s my message is (interrupted) 10
11
Ms. French: Thank you. 12
13
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 14
15
Vice-Chair Summa: Thank you, Commissioner Hechtman and we can have more discussion 16
amongst ourselves about that later this evening and I think I’m going to hand it back over… no, 17
no. 18
19
Chair Lauing: [unintelligible – off mic] 20
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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
Vice-Chair Summa: No, no, I’ll continue and then Commissioner Chang, you had a… 2
3
Commissioner Chang: I’ll just hold my questions until the end. 4
5
Vice-Chair Summa: Okay, thank you so we will now move onto Item Number Three. 6
Action Items 7
Public Comment is Permitted. Applicants/Appellant Teams: Fifteen (15) minutes, plus three (3) minutes rebuttal. 8
All others: Five (5) minutes per speaker.1,3 9
10
3. Review Draft 2022 Comprehensive Plan Implementation Annual Progress Report and 11
Draft 2022 Housing Element Annual Progress Report and Recommend City Council 12
Authorize Transmittal of the Reports to the Office of Planning and Research and 13
Department of Housing and Community Development, Respectively, by April 1, 2023. 14
Vice-Chair Summa: One of… our first action items which is review Draft 2022 Comp Plan 15
Implementation Annual Progress Report and Draft 2022 Housing Element Annual Progress 16
Report and recommend City Council authorize transmittal of the report to the Office and 17
Planning and Research and Department of Housing and Community Development, respectively 18
by April 1, 2023. So, Staff, do you have a presentation? 19
20
Ms. Amy French, Chief Planning Official: Yes, I… on my Staff we have Clare Campbell, we have 21
Chitra Moitra and Tim Wong to present tonight. Take it away. 22
23
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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. Clare Campbell, Long Range Planning Manager: Thank you, good evening Commissioners. 1
I’m Clare Campbell, Manager of Long Range Planning. So, Staff is here tonight to present to you 2
the statuses of the existing Comprehensive Plan and Housing Element programs. So, even 3
though we’re not quite through the end of the year, the calendar year. The statues provided 4
reflect the work that has been completed through October of 2022 and we’re not anticipating 5
that any of these statuses are going to change by the end of the year based on our 6
conversations with Staff. 7
8
So, the Staff recommendation tonight is for the PTC to review the programs and provide 9
feedback as we’ve done previous times that we’ve come to you. And then recommend that 10
Staff carry forward those comments to the City Council to consider in the spring when we will 11
have the finalized progress reports for the Council to review. If the Planning Commission is not 12
comfortable with the Staff recommendation, an alternative recommendation is to have Staff 13
return to the Planning Commission in February with responses to your comments that are 14
provided tonight and to present the finalized versions of the Annual Progress Reports. So, I just 15
wanted to make it clear about the recommendation. 16
17
So, I’m going to turn it over to Chitra to start our Staff presentation. Thank you. 18
19
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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. Chitra Moitra, Planner: Good evening, Commissioners. I am Chitra Moitra, Planner, Long 1
Range Planning. Tonight, we are going to… Staff’s going to provide you a summary… a high-level 2
summary of the implementation programs of the Comprehensive Plan as well as the programs 3
for the Housing Element, 2015-2023 Housing Element. With me, I have Tim, who is going to do 4
the Housing Element part and I’m going to do the Comprehensive Plan part. And as Clare said in 5
this meeting PTC can provide input and recommendations and modifications as necessary for 6
the Council consideration. 7
8
As we all know, this is a required mandatory reporting which we do annually and it is mandated 9
by Government Code Section 65400 where we have to report each year by April 1st to HCD and 10
OPR about the Annual Implementation Progress the City makes. And a part from that, the Palo 11
Alto Municipal Code 19.04.030 also requires that the Planning Commission should annually 12
review these implementation programs and provide consult there. Any changes or any 13
recommendations they make? 14
15
The next slide shows the implementation chapter and the distribution of the 410 programs by 16
Comprehensive Plan elements. And as we can see, the Natural Environmental Element is the 17
one which has the most programs… implementation programs followed by Transportation and 18
Safety Element. 19
20
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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 slide describes the implementation table format. The format has three major heading. The 1
lead department or the implementing agency, how much time it takes or requires for the 2
programs to be implemented. If it’s a short-term, a medium-term, or a long-term program and 3
the anticipated level of effort required for the program which is both in terms of dollar amount 4
as well as complexity of the program. And the… and Staff, in order to review the program, has 5
added the status column which shows these four… these five categories; complete, partially 6
complete, ongoing and pending. 7
8
This is a snapshot of the achievements done in 2022 November, up to November and it shows 9
that this year six programs have been completed and partially completed is 32. Ongoing is 287 10
and pending is 85. And I might add that the number of pending programs have decreased from 11
last year as well as the number of ongoing programs have increase since last years reporting. 12
13
And this is the implementation completed program list since adoption and since we are 14
presenting the… doing the Annual Report from 2018. So, in the last 5 years, we see that 78 15
programs have been completed which is about 19 percent of the total programs. And a lot of 16
these programs, as you as, have… completed programs have morphed into ongoing programs. 17
As you can see, the number of on going programs in my previous graph increase to 278. 18
19
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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 based on Commissioner’s feedback last time, I’m also reporting the changes which have 1
happened during from 2021 to 2022 and we can see that there are 29 programs which have 2
changed their status since last year, 2021. And of these programs, mostly they are from 3
pending to completed stage or from completed to ongoing stage. These are the changes in the 4
stages of the programs and these are the… this is the distribution from the Comprehensive Plan 5
Elements. So, 12 programs in Land Use Element have changed status and if you look at by 6
department. The number of programs… most number of programs changed from… in the 7
Planning and… PDS Department followed by Community Services. 8
9
And I think this is the end of my short presentation and if… Tim will follow next with the 10
Housing Element Implementation Statues. 11
12
Mr. Tim Wong, Senior Planner: Very good, thank you, Chitra. So, good evening, my name is… 13
good evening Commissioners. My name is Tim Wong and I’m a Senior Planner and so is just an 14
update on the 5th Cycle or the 2015 through 2023 Housing Element. So, we’re almost done with 15
this 5th Cycle, we have a couple months left and just to highlight that our RHNA for this cycle or 16
and excuse me, RHNA stands for Regional Housing Needs Allocation. It’s the City’s fair share for 17
the 5th Cycle of housing development and our RHNA for the 5th Cycle is 1,988 units. And as of 18
November, of this year we have 116 net new units and that’s from January 1st to present date. 19
And of the 116 that included one, seven-unit multi-family and that’s how we generated our one 20
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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,
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number
of speakers.
moderate-income unit through our BMR program and the remaining 109 where through ADUs. 1
And this represents… we’ve achieved 53.4 of our RHNA total, including exceeding our above 2
moderate required 27 percent and just happy to note that 99 percent of the Housing Element 3
programs have had some progress made. The lone program that no progress was made was 4
looking at moving the PTOD from the Cal Ave down Cal Ave area to the Downtown District. 5
Next slide, please. So, here is a greater breakdown of the City’s progress towards each of those 6
income categories. As you can see, once again, we had that one moderate unit that was 7
through our BMR program, 115 above moderate units, primarily ADUs, for that total 116 total 8
units, and you can see in the bottom right-hand corner of the chart 53.4 has… percent of the 9
City’s RHNA has been permitted or produced. Next slide, please. 10
11
And here is also the change in status, if there are, for the Housing Element programs. So, in our 12
5th Cycle Housing Element, we do have 72 total programs and as you can see the one lone 13
remaining program that is pending is again the PTOD. All the other programs have either been 14
addressed or partially addressed or as you can see a large portion of our programs are ongoing. 15
I will say that again, this is the last year of this cycle and starting with the new Housing Element 16
this chart will look much different in that the State is requiring much… many more programs 17
with metrics. And so, this ongoing category, if you will, will be significantly different than what 18
we currently have at this point. Next slide and so that concludes my very short presentation 19
and so Chitra, there you go. 20
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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. Moitra: So, this is the recommended motion for the Planning Commission, to review the 2
draft Comprehensive Plan Annual Progress Report, which is Attachment A as well as 3
Attachment B, and recommend that City Council authorize the transmittal of the reports to 4
Office of Planning and Research, OPR, as well as to HCD by April 1st. This is the motion which 5
Staff has suggested but as an alternative action, PTC may also consider to have Annual Progress 6
Report return to them in February of 2023 with their finalized statutes for 2022 and responses 7
to PTC’s comments. 8
9
And as next steps, based on what PTC’s decision would be, we would either come back in 10
February for your review again and we would go forward based on your recommendation. We 11
would go forward for City Council review in March which is, you know, mid-March and the 12
Office of… final submission to the Office of Planning and Research by April 1st, 2023. So, this is 13
the end of my presentation and now if you have any questions we would be happy to answer 14
them. Thank you. 15
16
Vice-Chair Summa: Commissioner Chang, did you have a question? 17
18
Commissioner Chang: Yeah. 19
20
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Vice-Chair Summa: Okay, thank you, go ahead. 1
2
Commissioner Chang: So, I had two questions, first was could… I’ve asked this before but could 3
you help refresh my memory about what pending… what the pending statues means? Does it 4
meant hat we are not addressing it or that we are going to address it or? You know, could you 5
just give us some more color as to what that means? Is it a priority that’s gone away and we’re 6
not going to do it anymore or is it waiting some resources or is it something else? 7
8
Mr. Wong: So, thank you very much for your questions, Commissioner Chang. For pending, it 9
meant that there was no action taken on that particular program which is specifically the PTOD. 10
And although this program, since we are at the end of the 5th Cycle, we’re not going to carry 11
over this program per se. In the new draft Housing Element, there is another program that will 12
address the PTOD but it’s a slight variation. So, to answer your question, pending meant no 13
action. 14
15
Commissioner Chang: Okay but what about for the Comprehensive Plan items because there 16
are so many more of those? 17
18
Mr. Wong: Oh okay. 19
20
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Ms. Moitra: Yes, for the Comprehensive Plan item I think its as Tim said, no action has been 1
taken in the year in which we are reporting, but previously, that program has been 2
recommended by different City departments but due to either lack of resources or lack of Staff 3
or prioritization. That program was not implemented for that year. 4
5
Commissioner Chang: So, are there any programs… my follow-up question is are there any of 6
those pending ones that we’ve… that there’s agreement by Staff, PTC and Council that we’re 7
just not doing those anymore? If that makes sense or are they still all things that we may 8
continue to do in the future? 9
10
Ms. Moitra: Yes, there… these are still Staff programs which we will be continuing to do in the 11
future but just for that year, it has not been worked on. 12
13
Commissioner Chang: Okay, thanks and then my second question is, Ms. Moitra when you’re 14
talking about the options for the PTC tonight where we could say that we want to wait. Just get 15
the final count for 2022. I wanted to get a sense from you of how different you think things 16
would be given that we are essentially at the end of the year and the holidays are coming. 17
18
Ms. Moitra: Well, I don’t anticipate much change happening in one month because as you can 19
see a lot of our programs, more than 70 percent of the programs, are ongoing and the status 20
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will remain ongoing. As far as completion goes, you know within a month I don’t think much 1
will be completed. In other words, I don’t anticipate much change but you know as Staff, we 2
will be sending out to the different departments an email asking them if anything has changed. 3
Let us know, we will update the status. That’s what we are going to do as a plan of action after 4
this meeting in mid… you know, in a coming month. 5
6
Commissioner Chang: Okay thank and I said I only have two questions. Is it okay if I add a third 7
one? Okay, the third question I have is what are the implications or what, if anything, happens 8
to Palo Alto as a result of only meeting part of our RHNA for the last cycle, Mr. Wong? 9
10
Mr. Wong: Thank you for that question. There are no implications in not meeting our RHNA for 11
this cycle. 12
13
Commissioner Chang: Great, thank you. 14
15
Vice-Chair Summa: I’ll get to other Commissioner questions but I first I wanted to for the record 16
state that Commissioners Roohparvar and Templeton have joined us. So welcome and are there 17
any other questions from Commissioners? Go ahead. 18
19
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Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. I guess let me start with a follow-up to the question that 1
Commissioner Chang just asked. I thought as we went through the RHNA information earlier in 2
the year. There was something about projects that we identified as housing sites in this current 3
cycle, that didn’t turn into housing, have some elevated status under certain circumstances in 4
the next cycle. And so that’s kind of an impact of not meeting our numbers in this cycle. Am I 5
misremembering? 6
7
Mr. Wong: That is correct in that if we do roll over some sites that were identified in the 5th 8
Cycle that we are including into the 6th Cycle. Then those parcels have by-right provision if the 9
developer proposed a 20 percent affordability… proposes 20 percent of the units be affordable. 10
Then yes, those become by-right on those parcels that rolled over. 11
12
Commissioner Hechtman: Alright, thank you. Next question is also for Mr. Wong, so 13
Attachment B is the Housing Element table of the progress of the 72 I think programs and the 14
last two columns in my copy are blank. Are they incomplete? Are they… what’s the statues? 15
They’re entitled, in my version, 2022 status and then it gives the initials but there are no initials 16
and then Staff comments September 2022 there are no Staff comments. And I’m wondering if 17
that’s, maybe that’s just a defect in the Staff Report that was printed but the online version has 18
that corrected. I actually didn’t look in the online version. 19
20
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Mr. Wong: Apologies, yeah, those column should not have been in the… because those are not 1
a part of the APR, so those columns should not have been part of the Attachment so my 2
apologies. 3
4
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay so when this goes to Council you’ll just drop out those two 5
columns? 6
7
Mr. Wong: Right. 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay, fine, and then I had one question for Ms. Moitra on 10
Attachment C and that is that the 2022 column and the overall status column seem to have the 11
exact same information. 12
13
Ms. Moitra: Yes. 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: One is just in initial form and the other is written out as words and I 16
just wanted to make sure I’m not missing anything. So, that’s right? 17
18
Ms. Moitra: No, you are right. The 2022 status is the overall status is the same. 19
20
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Commissioner Hechtman: Okay, alright, those are my questions, thank you. 1
2
Vice-Chair Summa: Any other questions, Commissioners? No, okay well then I will just open it 3
up to whoever wants to start the comments. 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: [unintelligible – off mic] 6
7
Vice-Chair Summa: Pardon me, are there any members of the public that would like to speak to 8
this item? 9
10
Ms. Madina Klicheva, Administrative Assistant: For this item, Agenda Item Number Three, I 11
have not received any speaker cards and I do not see any raised hands in Zoom. 12
13
Vice-Chair Summa: Thank you, then we will open it up to Commissioners. Who would like to 14
start? Commissioner Hechtman. 15
16
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you, these are really very brief. Thank you as always Staff for 17
bringing this to us. You know, we’ve seen this a couple times a year and what I was most happy 18
to see where a couple of things we talked about in the past to help us as Commissioners ferret 19
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through a lot of information. And one of them was tell us what’s different and Staff did that 1
with Attachment C. 2
3
So, and I’m really appreciative of that because that to me is where the meat is, what’s changed. 4
And then the other thing that I appreciated and I wonder if Commissioner Chang might have 5
missed it. Last time I was concerned because I didn’t know what the words meant. What do you 6
mean by complete, partially complete, pending and what I had noticed is Note C in our Staff 7
Report actually provides a little definition. And so maybe it wasn’t enough of a definition for 8
Commissioner Chang but to me, it helped me as I started to look at this information which is, 9
let’s see, it… that Note C is on the bottom of Packet Page 16 which has… it gives the definitions. 10
So, anyway, I wanted to thank Staff for listening and responding after our last meeting on those 11
things. 12
13
And I also just wanted to say that just as Mr. Wong had said that on the Housing Element side 14
they’ve gotten to 99 percent of the programs which I think is terrific. On the Comprehensive 15
Plan side, Ms. Moitra didn’t mention it but you know, that started in 2017, so it’s more recent 16
and we’re also ready at 80 percent have a status of something other than pending. And even 17
the pending ones may have made some progress before they stopped. So, I think it’s really 18
impressive, there’s 410 of them, and to be pushing all of those stones up the hill simultaneously 19
is impressive so thank you for the report. 20
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1
Vice-Chair Summa: Commissioner Reckdahl. 2
3
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah, could you go back to Slide 11, please? Okay, so if you look at the 4
first three categories we’re way below. How does that affect our credibility going forward and 5
when we submit the next RHNA cycle? Are they going to look at back then say you didn’t do 6
very much in the affordable housing? Will they… will we have to work hard to convince them 7
that we’re serious about affordable housing? 8
9
Mr. Wong: Commissioner Reckdahl, thank you for that question. Our 6th Cycle RHNAs was… our 10
6th Cycle RHNA number was not account… sorry, let me back up. The 5th Cycle production was 11
not a factor in our 6th Cycle RHNA and so that’s what I was trying to say. So, but moving 12
forward, I think that the State, with their enforcement wing and other State requirements, will 13
start really honing in on the City’s affordable housing production. My apologies. 14
15
Commissioner Reckdahl: So, do we have good story of what’s going to be different? 16
17
Mr. Wong: Well, as part of the Housing Element… the 6th Cycle Housing Element Update we are 18
really focusing in looking at housing production whether that be affordable or market rate. In 19
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addition, we’re always looking to secure more funding sources for affordable housing 1
production. 2
3
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay so (interrupted) 4
5
Mr. Wong: That will be the emphasis. 6
7
Commissioner Reckdahl: So, nothing big that we’re going to say that that’s going to make it 8
really easy. It’s going to still be a struggle for the bottom three categories? 9
10
Mr. Wong: Well, as part of it, we are looking at increasing our funding sources. So as, for 11
example, as part of the Business Tax, a portion will be going towards affordable housing to help 12
with affordable housing production. In addition, we have a program to provide additional 13
incentives for affordable housing. Such as fee waivers and other measures we can take to make 14
affordable housing more attractive in the City. 15
16
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay and the very line, the 31 percent, actually I was some what 17
impressed by that because that’s really highly subsidized. So, that includes Wilton Court, that 18
first row? 19
20
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Mr. Wong: Yeah, certain units of Wilton Court and also the preservation of Bona Vista led to 1
that [unintelligible](interrupted) 2
3
Commissioner Reckdahl: Oh okay. A part from those two, were there other spots where we had 4
very low-income units? 5
6
Mr. Wong: Off the top of my head I think Wilton Court had a large share. There may have been 7
others but I don’t… I can’t think of any developments at this point. 8
9
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay and if… can you go to Slide 12 now? Same story, I’m concerned 10
about when we present our Housing Element to the State and they look at our past production 11
of housing. Will that affect our credibility when they look at the housing programs and we have 12
a fair number that are incomplete? Will that affect our credibility at all or is this kind of an 13
afterthought to the State? 14
15
Mr. Wong: It is the ladder, more of an afterthought because Housing Element requirements 16
have changed so drastically that, like as mentioned, we won’t have for example ongoing 17
program. They’ll be must more rigorous and yes. 18
19
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Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay, so the fact that we didn’t close these out is just water under the 1
bridge and we’re moving on. 2
3
Mr. Wong: That is correct. 4
5
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay and how many programs do we have in the next Housing 6
Element? Do you remember? 7
8
Mr. Wong: Oh, I don’t have the exact number of programs but one of the changes in the 9
Housing Element Update is we’ll have a lot more implementing objectives and so we will be 10
reporting on more items. Maybe not programs but definitely more items. 11
12
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay, thank you that’s it. 13
14
Vice-Chair Summa: Commissioner Templeton and then Commissioner Chang. 15
16
Ms. Campbell: I’m sorry, can I just jump in… I apologize. I just need to let everybody know that 17
Tim needs to leave because he has to get ready for this community meeting and he’s a critical 18
component of this next meeting. So, I’m sorry but we’ll try to cover any questions for Tim in his 19
absence. 20
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number
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1
Vice-Chair Summa: Okay, thank you so much for that. Have a good evening Mr. Wong. 2
3
Mr. Wong: Thank you. 4
5
Vice-Chair Summa: Commissioner Templeton. 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you, Vice-Chair. Well, that’s a bummer, I had a quick question 8
so I was hoping I could squeeze it in before he had to leave but maybe someone else knows the 9
answer. First, I want to echo the gratitude that Commissioner Hechtman mentioned around 10
some of the easy-of-use language and formatting that has gone into this compared to previous 11
versions. So, thank you for doing that. 12
13
Looking at Slide 11 and 12 again, I’m just wondering… to echo what Commissioner Reckdahl 14
said and maybe expand upon it. I’m wondering if we should include how many housing 15
proposals have been rejected as part of the credibility question because it’s an incomplete 16
picture here to look at just what we approved. But I think that we’ve seen a lot of proposals 17
come through that haven’t been approved and I’m wondering if we could quantify that and if 18
that would be helpful for us understanding where our opportunity lies as we go forward. Do we 19
have that information? 20
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1
Ms. Campbell: Yeah, I… so I can speak to that. Just generally speaking, that is not one of the 2
requirements for the Annual Progress Reporting (interrupted) 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: I see. 5
6
Ms. Campbell: So, that’s why we’re not tracking that for this document. So, we’re just following 7
the specific guidelines that are outlined for… of the required annual reporting. I do think that 8
next… as Tim mentioned, we know that there’s some new State Laws regarding the Annual 9
Progress Reports and I do believe that one of them really drills down a lot deeper into some of 10
these numbers about applications in and what was… were not approved and things like that. 11
So, I think next year when we bring something forward to the Planning Commission. You’re 12
going to see a whole kind of new collection of data related to housing production. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: Awesome, that makes a lot of sense and if there are draft templates 15
or anything like that. It would probably be good to show it to Council so they know what to 16
expect for next year, even though we don’t have to fill it out this year. Just that anticipation I 17
think, and to us, if we could see it, it would be helpful for us to understand how that will be 18
used because it will be tracked more closely. Thank you, that’s my question, I appreciate it. 19
20
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Vice-Chair Summa: Thank you. Commissioner Chang. 1
2
Commissioner Chang: Thank you. Thank you… also I’m going to echo, thank you so much Ms. 3
Moitra for being so responsive to our requests last time around about how the information was 4
presented. It’s super easy to digest this time. 5
6
My question is actually regarding the Housing Element and I was wondering because of the 7
challenge of producing very low-income and moderate housing kind of by definition requires 8
funding or subsidy that comes from somewhere. I’m wondering if we know how we’ve done 9
relative to our neighbors who might have kind of similar constraints? Like our neighboring 10
municipalities who might have some more constraints and whether we’ve seen anything in how 11
neighboring municipalities have successfully… have been able to successfully address any of 12
those? Or how do we stack up? How are we doing relative to other cities near us as well as in 13
California for specifically with respect to the moderate and below categories? 14
15
Ms. Campbell: Well, I think we definitely don’t have that information for you tonight. We would 16
need to do a little bit of research and come up with that information and we can provide that as 17
part of the response back. So, I just wanted to also share with you what… another thought that 18
I was thinking about with the Council report, if we do go with the Staff recommendation, is that 19
we would also be including in that Council report like the attachment like we did last year. That 20
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goes through the questions that are asked by the Planning Commission and providing a 1
response. And we would make sure that the Planning Commissioners all got copied on that 2
report as well. So, that way you’ll have it at your fingertips to see what the Staff has prepared 3
and researched for you. But I’m sorry, we don’t have that information tonight. 4
5
Commissioner Chang: No, I mean, yeah, it’s probably quite a bit of research but I thought I’d ask 6
in case you kind of knew something about it. Thank you. 7
8
Vice-Chair Summa: Anyone else, Commissioners? Well, I know we have a hard stop for some 9
people this evening I’ll be brief. And also pile on with the thanks for this report and for pointing 10
out the differences. Highlighting those which made it easier for us to understand. 11
12
And I also share concern about how we can achieve affordable housing. And I don’t have hard 13
data at my fingertips but my recollection is that Palo Alto has twice… nearly twice the units of 14
affordable subsidized housing at Mountain View. And that we are only led by a percentage by 15
one other city in the Bay Area and but I found that out by looking it up. So, actually, Palo Alto 16
has a history of being concerned about affordable housing. We also, I believe, have the first 17
inclusionary which is when we require a percentage of housing in multi-family to be below-18
market rate in the State if I’m not correct. I hope I’m not overstating that but I’m getting a nod 19
from Staff. So, I think just to add a little flavor to the conversation. 20
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1
And then I wanted to ask Staff about a La Comida program, just as a specific thing because I 2
think we have a couple minutes left here, and that is C1.182. I wanted… I had an opportunity… 3
oh, it’s Packet Page 24. I just thought if Staff briefly could… I had an opportunity to go to a 4
luncheon service at Stevenson House for La Comida and without explaining everything. They’re 5
going to need a new location in North Palo Alto. And I don’t know in what way we support that 6
program and I was just curious if Staff knew. And if that’s… it's not a trick question, if you don’t 7
know off the top of your head, I just thought it was interesting. It was very moving for me to 8
see this luncheon service and the number of seniors that it helped and I know that they’re… 9
when the COVID emergency ruling goes away… ordinance goes away State wide. They’ll have to 10
be servicing less people unless they can find another location. So, I just thought I’d put that out 11
there and it’s a little specific. I appreciate and with that, I’ll just be looking for a motion from 12
one of my colleagues. 13
14
MOTION 15
16
Commissioner Hechtman: I’ll move Staff recommendation. 17
18
SECOND 19
20
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Commissioner Chang: I’ll second that. 1
2
Vice-Chair Summa: We have a first and a second from Commissioner Hechtman and 3
Commissioner Chang. Are we all ready to vote? Okay, could you call the vote, please? 4
5
VOTE 6
7
Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Chang? 8
9
Commissioner Chang: Yes. 10
11
Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Hechtman? 12
13
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 14
15
Ms. Klicheva: Chair Lauing? 16
17
Chair Lauing: Yes. 18
19
Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Reckdahl? 20
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1
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yes. 2
3
Ms. Klicheva: Vice-Chair Summa? 4
5
Vice-Chair Summa: Yes. 6
7
Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Roohparvar? 8
9
Commissioner Roohparvar: Yes. 10
11
Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Templeton? 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 14
15
Ms. Klicheva: Motion carries 7-0. 16
17
MOTION PASSED 7(Chang, Hechtman, Lauing, Reckdahl, Roohparvar, Summa, Templeton) -0 18
19
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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 Summa: So, that passes so we can let the Staff go that needs to go and then we will 1
start on our next item. Do we need to have a break at all for Staff? No, okay, thank you. 2
3
Ms. Moitra: Thank you, Commissioners. 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: Are you going to call the item first? 6
7
Commission Action: Motion by Hechtman, seconded by Chang. Pass 7-0 8
4. PUBLIC HEARING / QUASI-JUDICIAL. 660 University [21PLN00341]: Recommendation 9
on Applicant's Request for Approval of a Planned Community (PC), to Combine 3 10
Parcels (511 Byron St, 660 University Ave, 680 University Ave/500 Middlefield Rd), 11
Demolish Existing Buildings (9,216 SF Office) and Provide a New Four-Story Mixed-12
Use Building with Ground Floor Office (9,115 SF) and Multi-Family Residential (all 13
floors) Including a Two Level Below-Grade Parking Garage. Proposed Residential 14
(42,189 SF) Will Include 65 Units (47 Studios, 12 1-Bedroom, 6 2-Bedroom); and 15
Request for a Comprehensive Plan Amendment to Allow Replacement of Existing 16
Office Floor Area in the Multiple Family (MF) Land Use Designation. 17
Vice-Chair Summa: So, our next Action Item is on Planned Community application for 660 18
University and but Chair Lauing has to recuse himself so I’ll let him go ahead and do that. 19
20
Chair Lauing: Yes, unfortunately on advice of City Attorney I’m going to recuse because their 21
interpretation is that if I opine and participate in this meeting tonight. I would not be able to do 22
that as a future Council Member so in that regard I’ll be recusing for this item and we’ll… later 23
on I’ll be able to hear it in a different context. 24
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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
Vice-Chair Summa: And are there any other disclosures its… given it’s a quasi-judicial item? 2
Commissioner Hechtman. 3
4
Commissioner Hechtman: Oh, I guess I’ll just disclose that I’m pleased that one of our ranks, 5
Chair Lauing, has been elected to be on our City Council for the coming term. And it's definitely 6
worth it to not have you on this quasi-judicial item so you can serve in that roll so 7
congratulations. 8
9
Chair Lauing: Thank you. 10
11
Vice-Chair Summa: Thank you for that, Commissioner Hechtman, and so this is Action Item 12
Number Four. Public hearing, quasi-judicial, on 660 University, and this is a recommendation on 13
an applicant’s request for a Planned Community to combine three parcels and etc. And I guess 14
what I will do at this point is let Staff make their Staff Report. 15
16
Ms. Amy French, Chief Planning Official: Yes, we’re working on the Staff report upload and we 17
have Emily Foley who is our planner on the project, project planner, and we do have applicant’s 18
here as well tonight. So, we will make sure (interrupted) 19
20
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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 Summa: It’s a little bit hard to hear you, I’m sorry. 1
2
Ms. French: Oops, oh we have Emily Foley, the planner on the project, and we do have 3
applicant’s here. So, we’ll start with Emily’s (interrupted) 4
5
Ms. Emily Foley, Planner: Yeah sorry, we were just buying some time while I got the 6
(interrupted) 7
8
Ms. French: Yeah, tap dancing. 9
10
Ms. Foley: Thing pulled up, so yes good evening. My name is Emily Foley. I’m the planner for 11
this project. This is 660 University, the Planned Community, PHZ, project, and associated 12
Comprehensive Plan Amendment. 13
14
So, the project overview is that this includes a Comprehensive Plan Amendment to allow the 15
existing medical office. The site is currently designated multi-family in the Comprehensive Plan 16
and so in order to facilitate this project. They are request… the applicant is requesting to allow 17
the existing office to be rebuilt as well as an increase in the allowable density. This project is a 18
Planned Home Zone rezoning to include a new four-story mixed-use building with about 9,000 19
square feet of office and 65 residential units; 20 percent of which would be affordable in 20
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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.
keeping with Council’s guidance on PHZ projects. There would also be two levels of 1
underground parking with a total of 88 parking spaces. The PC Zoning Code Section currently 2
has a height limit of 35 feet for projects that are adjacent to RM-20 part… zoned parcels which 3
this is adjacent to. And so that is part of the PHZ request is an Exception to that height limit as 4
well as reduced setbacks which we will discuss more further in the presentation. Also, in order 5
to facilitate this project, they would be doing ACOC to merge the three existing parcels. 6
7
The project location is the block along University between Byron Street and Middlefield Road. 8
Surrounding uses include Lytton Gardens across the street, the Hamilton Senior Condos 9
towards the rear of this block. The neighborhood in general has various medical offices, 10
apartment buildings as well as the First United Methodist Church and it’s within walking 11
distance of downtown. Surrounding densities of the larger projects I’ve also listed on this slide 12
for reference. The proposed project is proposing 130 dwelling units per acre. Again, it’s… it is 65 13
apartments on an approximately ½ acre lot. The Hamilton is about 30 dwelling units per acre 14
and Lytton Gardens is about 104 dwelling units per acre. 15
16
This slide is showing the PHZ process, so what the applicant is going through, and where we are 17
at in this process. So, the first required step is a pre-screening with Council. This project went to 18
pre-screening in October of last year. It is then followed with formal application and Staff 19
review. The Staff review is ongoing, there are some departments that have not fully had all of 20
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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 comments addressed at this time. And then in terms of public hearings, the first is the 1
Planning Commission, that is this first meeting here today. After the PTC it then goes to the 2
Architectural Review Board and upon receiving a recommendation from the ARB. It moves back 3
here to PTC and then to Council for final decision. Public comments are accepted at all public 4
hearings and through writing at any time during this process. 5
6
Likewise, the California Environmental Quality Act compliance is ongoing for this project. A 7
Notice of Preparation of an Environmental Impact Report is currently circulating. So, that 8
started on November 4th and goes through Monday, December 5th. So, any comments related 9
to scoping and what should be included in the EIR are currently being collected. And this 10
meeting tonight is also the scoping meeting as required for that EIR preparation. After that the 11
document will be prepared, the draft EIR will be circulated. This will likely be along side either 12
one of the ARB meetings or when it returns to PTC. After that point, any comments from the 13
draft are responded to and the adoption of the EIR and MMRP, which is the Mitigation, 14
Monitoring Report, and Program, is alongside Council’s approval or potential approval of the 15
overall project. 16
17
So, back to 660 University specifically, this is the site plan. As you can see in Yellow is the 18
residential lobby and in blue is the proposed office space. Towards the interior side of the site, 19
there is office kind of patio amenity space for the office. You can also see the driveway, the 20
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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.
ramp down to the underground parking with access off of Middlefield Road. There are also two 1
stairs that provide access to the underground garage for pedestrians. This is an example, it is 2
one of the three-floor plans I believe for both floors two and three. Every unit has outdoor 3
balcony space. The fourth floor has some units that have slightly larger balconies as well. And 4
then this is the roof plan which shows a roof deck amenity space for the residents as well as 5
mechanical enclosure equipment space. These are the elevations. The appearance of the 6
building is mostly under the preview of the Architectural Review Board which is a future step in 7
this project. The current proposed materials include plaster and the balcony railing is proposed 8
to be glass as well. The image on the left is the view from Middlefield Road and the image on 9
the right would be the view from Byron Street. Likewise, the top image is the view from 10
University Avenue and the rear is the view from the interior of the site. 11
12
There are some policy considerations that I wanted to bring to the Commission’s attention this 13
evening. The first if the height, the proposed height is mostly 45-feet 5-inches. That’s to the top 14
of the parapet of the fourth floor but the maximum height, as defined by the Zoning Code, is 55 15
feet 5 inches to the top of the mechanical enclosure which as we saw in the roof plan takes up a 16
considerable amount of the roof space. Additionally, the maximum height to the top of the 17
elevator towers which the Zoning Code exempts the equipment portion. The portion above 18
what’s required to provide access to that roof deck. The maximum height for that is 60-feet 11-19
inches and so for reference, typically the Zoning Code has a height limit of 35 feet when 20
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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.
adjacent to RM-20 zoning and there is a 15-foot allowance for mechanical elevator equipment, 1
etc. But it is worth noting that all though the proposed height exceeds the height limit, it does 2
comply with the daylight plane as is. 3
4
The plans include a setback analysis of the block along Middlefield. Typically, Middlefield… this 5
slide actually… yes, there is special setback along Middlefield Road and that’s what’s considered 6
a special setback. It’s slightly larger than typical setbacks required by zoning and then the 16-7
foot required setback along Byron Street and University Avenue is the typical street-side 8
setback. And so, what this project is proposing is 10 feet long both Middlefield and Byron and 6 9
feet along University. It is worth noting that the building does modulate somewhat so this is the 10
minimum setback. There are places along the perimeter of the building that have slightly larger 11
setbacks but it’s only within a couple of feet. 12
13
I also wanted to discuss parking. So, this project will be utilizing a TDM, so Transportation 14
Demand Management Plan, to have 20 percent reduction in required parking spaces. Typically, 15
110 parking spaces are required and 88 are proposed as a part of this project and is under 16
view… the TDM plan is under review by our transportation division. 17
18
Additionally, this shows the current definition of multi-family residential from the 19
Comprehensive Plan. It lists or it notes that the allowable density is eight to 40 units and it 20
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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.
mentions allowable uses and so office is not currently one of those allowable uses. And so, we 1
are recommending a proposed change that existing medical office may be maintained and 2
replaced south of Middlefield Road near the Downtown and SOFA neighborhoods and that the 3
allowable density can be increased to 130 dwelling units per acre. The exact wording of the 4
Comprehensive Plan changes are definitely still in progress and something you can provide 5
feedback on. 6
7
And so, the recommended motion tonight if for the PTC to provide initial comments and 8
feedback and recommend that Staff forward the proposed project to the Architectural Review 9
Board and a second action to take public comment on the proposed project. Particularly as 10
required since this is a scoping meeting for the preparation of the Environmental Impact 11
Report. However, as an alternative action, you may decline to move the project forward to the 12
Architectural Review Board, at which point it would return to you, the PTC, with changes. 13
14
Thank you, that concludes my presentation and the applicant is here in person as well as on 15
Zoom with their presentation. Thank you. 16
17
Vice-Chair Summa: Thank you for that and I think the applicant goes next. Thank you, so please 18
feel free to speak. 19
20
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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. Boyd Smith: Good evening. I am Boyd Smith, we appreciate the opportunity to present this 1
project to you this evening. It is worth noting this project is also being presented to you by Palo 2
Alto Dental Group. We are in a joint venture with them and this project represents a 3
collaboration with them. They have owned the land I think since maybe 1934, have been 4
operating in that location for that long. Also, worth noting, if this project does proceed, PA 5
Dental does intend to relocate to somewhere else within the City boundaries. 6
7
We present this project to you… to the City Council in a pre-screening hearing earlier this year. 8
The project was received well. We received a lot of constructive feedback, much of which has 9
been incorporated into the new design that will be presented to you this evening. Also, worth 10
noting that PA Dental has received hundreds of signatures of support for this project. I look 11
forward to answering any questions that may come but I’ll turn the time over to our architect 12
now to present the project in more detail. 13
14
Vice-Chair Summa: Thank you. 15
16
Mr. Ted Korth: Good evening, my name is Ted Korth with KSH Architects. So, some of this I 17
won’t try to repeat what Emily said because she was very thorough in her presentation but 18
maybe we go through these sheets here. Next, please. So, I’ll talk for a little big and then Paul 19
_______________________
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.
Lettieri from The Guzzardo Partnership, our landscape architect, will be speaking about the 1
landscape on the project. Next, please. 2
3
So, there’s a… this is a context plan showing our site in the center of the page. Just to show you 4
that there are a number of other four-story buildings in the area. Mostly all residential projects 5
as well that are the four-story buildings. Even on the adjacent site, owner, same block. Sorry my 6
voice is disappearing, next, please. So, these are just some of the context views from around 7
the property looking at the different intersections or different corners of that intersection of 8
Middlefield and University. Next please and then these are some of the other buildings that are 9
four stories in the close proximity to this project as well. Next, please. 10
11
So, Emily described the ground floor but the setbacks that we do have also are providing 12
opportunities for landscape on all four sides of the project. So, that’s integrated and Paul 13
Lettieri will talk about that further later on. The two lobbies, both for the residential and the 14
office use, are on University and they’re tucked in. You can see where there’s a recess there 15
and there the ground floor of the building has been raised 30 inches above grade to satisfy 16
FEMA requirements for floods. So, there’s a gentle ramp on either side leading to each 17
entrance and at the center of the buildings, there’s a recessed area that we thought would be a 18
good opportunity for public art. Next please, Amanda. Okay, thank you. 19
20
_______________________
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, here’s a rendering on the corner of Middlefield and University. It shows the two entrances 1
along the ground floor. It shows recessed openings, projecting balconies, planting at the base of 2
the building, and a lot of ins and outs, deep-set windows, and changes in plane to adjust the 3
scale of the project and gives it an active ground floor for the pedestrian use. Next, please. 4
5
This is a view from Byron that shows the projecting balconies, the recessed areas in the dark 6
color. We chose materials that were… we thought that a white color would be nice for the part 7
of the form and then we have a warm tone, reminiscent of a wood color, for the recessed areas 8
that are there and the balconies are all clear glass. Next, please. 9
10
So, there are two basement levels. The ramp is on the lower right-hand corner. You can see 11
that the plan has been tucked in to allow an existing, really beautiful, oak tree that’s shown. 12
Amanda’s showing that and we set the building back and the foundation back so that that tree 13
will not be effected by construction on the project. And our landscape architect will describe 14
what the arborist findings have been for that tree and how to protect it and this is the other 15
below-grade level for parking. Next, please. 16
17
So again, the ground floor plan shows a garden off the ground floor space for the office area in 18
the center that extends beneath the tree. The residential lobbies on the left side of the plan, 19
the office lobbies on the right side of the plan, and again, the setbacks that I was describing 20
_______________________
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.
earlier. Next, please. So, these are the unit plans. There are 65 units in the building. A 1
combination of studios, one bedrooms, and two-bedroom units, and as Emily explained they all 2
have outdoor balconies as well. Next, please. At the fourth floor on the right side, you can see 3
there’s a green zone there which is denoting outdoor terraces. The whole building is setback on 4
that area to satisfy the daylight plane for the adjacent residential project. Next please and these 5
are just diagrams, plans of the different types of units that are in the building. One bedroom, 6
two bedroom, and studios. Next please, again same thing, next, please. 7
8
And at the top floor, there’s an outdoor terrace that is primarily facing University Ave. Its 9
setback from the bottom side of the project so there are no balconies overlooking the adjacent 10
residential units. Next, please. 11
12
These are just context drawings show the scale of the project. The way it steps up and down, 13
the way the planes change, the heights, and how it relates to the existing context. Next please, 14
and the view again of changes of plane, change of color, and material. The potential for public 15
art in the center on the ground floor and the office lobby on the left and the residential lobby 16
on the right side of the plane. Next please and this is a view from the Middlefield side. It's 17
showing how the building steps back on the upper left-hand corner down towards the adjacent 18
residential building and that is the angle that satisfies the daylight plane in your Code. Next, 19
please. This is the view that you can see where the building has been setback on the right-hand 20
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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.
side on the top floor and again, it shows changes in plane, a ground floor that’s activated by 1
nice large windows and protecting canopies as well. Next please and a view from Byron that 2
shows the similar attributes. Next please and this section shows there’s a diagonal line shown 3
there that Amanda’s marking. That is the line of the required daylight plane that this building 4
complies with. Next please and this for Paul Lettieri, hopefully, he’s on a Zoom call. Thank you. 5
6
Mr. Paul Lettieri: Yes, he is. Good evening Commissioners. I’ll just briefly talk about the 7
landscape for the site. The setbacks do give us the opportunity to have sort of a nice landscape 8
foil in front of the building on pretty much all four sides of it. And the planters there are mostly 9
over the garage structure but the structures been designed such that the… it’s something so 10
that the planters are going to actually be quite low. And the planting can be low enough to 11
satisfy any of the sight distance requirements there are and still give us a really beautiful 12
frontage. Yeah, that’s good. 13
14
I guess the other significant aspect of it is the big oak tree that is on the adjacent site. Part of 15
what the arborist report asked us to do it to just minimally disturb the ground around it. Even in 16
terms of leaving the asphalt pavement that’s on the existing site that’s under it where our 17
wood deck is shown now. So, what we’re proposing to do is just build the deck on top of the 18
existing paving and leave it in place to minimize changes. Generally, you know, large oak trees 19
don’t like changes. Normally, you wouldn’t want asphalt around them but there’s been asphalt 20
_______________________
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.
around this tree for I don’t know how long. Probably since it started growing there since the 1
sites been in use for quite a long time. So, the idea was to minimize that disturbance and just go 2
on top. The planters that are shown there are precast containers that would sit on gravel. That 3
would be on top of the asphalt that’s there as well and we would just minimize the disturbance 4
anywhere near the tree. So, that’s kind of the idea and that would also provide us with a nice 5
little private deck for the folks in the building. It’s a relatively small deck. It would have 6
furnishings and a pretty low intensive kind of uses there. And then we have our pedestrian 7
connections that take you out to the street and there’s some loading considerations along the 8
edge there for move-ins and trash removal that would take you out through that walkway 9
system. 10
11
We’ve also accommodated stormwater treatment in the planters around the building which is 12
always a challenge on high-density sites like this. I think we’ve done that. We’ve integrated that 13
pretty nicely. We’re proposing to remove a few of the street trees and replace them. The 14
removal is because of the health and the condition of a few of the trees. There are some that 15
are in really great shape and we’re keeping those. The lighter green color is the… are the trees 16
we’re keeping; the darker greens are the proposed. Yeah, maybe go to the next slide Amanda. 17
The roof deck is next. Whoop, that was not what I had in… well you can see if you’ve seen the 18
site the trees that’s out there is a… it’s a beautiful California live oak and we want to keep it 19
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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 way. And it’s had an amazing amount of development around it and it’s growing really well 1
even with that adjacency so we got to keep going. 2
3
Yeah, just to give you sense, we’re not putting a deck around a tree. This is another project we 4
did in Mountain View with Court [unintelligible] and Smith Development were we saved the big 5
oak by doing a deck around it. And the ground is actually quite lower here and that’s worked 6
out really great. That’s been there for quite along time so just give you a sense of what the deck 7
would feel like with the oak there but it’s not a… there’s nothing identical about what we’re 8
doing on this site. Except that we will have a deck and we will preserve the big oak tree. Next 9
slide. 10
11
Yeah, the roof deck is divided into sort, from a landscape perspective, it’s divided into three 12
parts. Two sort of more active areas on each end, connected with more passive seating areas 13
with some dense plantings separating them, and they sort of are against the mechanical 14
enclosure which is the grayish color that’s there. So, when you’re up on the space, that’s just 15
the foil… it’s a foil background to the uses that can happen on that… on the roof deck itself. 16
We’ve got a couple of barbeques and then some outdoor dining space. Alright, you can go to 17
the next one. 18
19
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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… I won’t go through all of these images. This is sort of imagery to give you a sense of what 1
the paving material, fencing material, we’ve got several different kinds of fencing down on the 2
ground plane about ranging from open wire to horizontal wood. The wood decking as I 3
described, bicycle racks which we’ve accommodated, and low-level lighting and some of the 4
pots that are there. Those are… that would be happening at the deck and at the back of the 5
building as well as on the roof deck. And some of the lighting techniques that we might use up 6
on the roof deck in the lower left corner and the planters. That’s low lever lighting to keep it 7
sort of as minimal as possible. So, it provides the mood and doesn’t provide a lot of glare. Go to 8
the next one. 9
10
It should be some of the planting imagery. We have over 90 percent native plantings on the 11
site. We worked pretty hard at that. That’s a… it’s a high hurdle that Palo Alto requires that 12
we’re… it's becoming a little more normal as a lot of these things are. It allows us to have a 13
good variety of foliage colors and types and textures as well as some color in flower and foliage 14
and fruiting as well. So, it sort of hits a lot of the things that you want to get with native 15
planting and these are all plants that have a good track record for survival, which isn’t always 16
true for natives in these more urban environments, but we’re pretty confident about how this 17
is going to work. 18
19
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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 think with that, I think that concludes what… our presentation so I’ll turn it back to the 1
Commission with any questions you may have. 2
3
Vice-Chair Summa: Commissioners, if you have any clarifying questions I believe that’s what we 4
do next lately for Staff or the applicant. Go ahead, Commissioner Hechtman. 5
6
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you, so just a clarifying questions for Staff. So, I noticed in the 7
subject of the EIR, biology was included, and I was a little curious about that because it’s a built-8
out site. Its that mostly related to concerns regarding trees? 9
10
Ms. Foley: Correct, yes it’s all regarding protection of the oak tree. The environmental 11
consultant has… we’ve already moved forward with doing a lidar so ground penetrating radar 12
survey of the tree roots. 13
14
Commissioner Hechtman: And thank you, next question, there are two office buildings there 15
currently. Are those both legally non-conforming for the zoning? 16
17
Ms. Foley: I want to say not… they are grandfathered for zoning and non-conforming for the 18
Comp Plan Amendment or for the Comp Plan. 19
20
_______________________
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 Hechtman: Okay but in the absence of this project… let me ask a related 1
question. In the absence of this project, can they continue to be used for office or is there some 2
reason that they can no longer be used for office? 3
4
Ms. Foley: Yes, so the RM-20 zoning section of the Code, Section 18.13.070 specifically 5
discusses grandfathered uses which refers to the professional and medical office uses in this 6
neighborhood. 7
8
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay and then the last question I have is the City’s… you know of the 9
issues here is the dwelling units per acre and I’m wondering if when the City determines 10
dwelling units per acre. Is that based on the actual dwelling units proposed of various different 11
sizes, or is there a standardized in the City? You know, a dwelling unit is 1,000 square feet and it 12
doesn’t matter if that’s half of the actual dwelling unit or two dwelling units. It is standardized 13
or is it based on what’s actually proposed? 14
15
Ms. Foley: It’s based on what’s actually proposed. The size of the unit is not taken into account 16
so you are correct. That larger units will… would inherently have a lower dwelling unit per acre. 17
18
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay, alright, thank you, those are my questions. 19
20
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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,
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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 Summa: Any other… oh, I see Commissioner Chang. 1
2
Commissioner Chang: So, I don’t know if Staff’s going to be able to answer this question but 3
when the Housing Element Ad Hoc of the PTC was meeting with Director Lait. He had shown us 4
some feasibility studies and I was wondering if… and I seem to have recalled that there was 5
feasibility study done on this particular lot. Do you know if… about that at all? 6
7
Ms. Foley: Not for this particular property. I mean I know in general, as a part of the Housing 8
Element preparation, the long-range planning group looks at the development potential of 9
various sites and does estimate what the development potential is. 10
11
Commissioner Chang: Right. 12
13
Ms. Foley: But that is based on the densities of the current Comprehensive Plan policies. 14
15
Commissioner Chang: Got it, okay. Next question, question about the square footage, so I 16
noticed that on… in the title on Packet Page 107. The proposed residential square footage 17
states that it’s 42,189 but then there’s a different number on the table on Packet Page 116 18
where the residential square footage on the, let’s see. one, two, three, four, fifth row from the 19
_______________________
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
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of speakers.
bottom is 43,664. So, that’s a difference of about 1,500 square feet which would like the 1
equivalent of four units. 2
3
Ms. Foley: So, the applicant did resubmit the plans on November 8th and we made some kind of 4
last-minute adjustments to account for that. But yeah, most of the information… the plans 5
include a summary table on the second page. 6
7
Commissioner Chang: Okay and so that would be the accurate (interrupted) 8
9
Ms. Foley: Yes. 10
11
Commissioner Chang: Maybe the applicant can help us with that. 12
13
Vice-Chair Summa: Go ahead, it should be on. 14
15
[note - unknown female speaker:] I think it's just attributed to a recent resubmittal we did and 16
the unit and the size of the units didn’t change. What happened was we kind of reshuffled the 17
elevators on the ground floor. So, there’s some reduced lobby area, so that’s mostly what that 18
area change was. 19
20
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Commissioner Chang: So, then the lower area is the correct one? 1
2
[note – unknown female speaker:] I believe the lower area is the correct one, yes. 3
4
Commissioner Chang: And then a question for Staff, I know that I had… I’ve watched the City 5
Council pre-screening as well and had a question about way the setbacks are so or if Staff 6
knows now why the setbacks are what they are on Middlefield as well as on University. What 7
was the thinking behind it? 8
9
Ms. French: Back in the 50s the car was king and I’ll just say that they were planning for 10
expansion of the City. Including expansion of roadways to handle more cars is the general 11
overarching concept for all for the special setbacks in my understanding. 12
13
Commissioner Chang: Okay and then, sorry let me make sure I ask questions, oh how does what 14
this is… this proposal compared to what a developer could ask for with the State Density 15
Bonus? Would Staff be able to kind of give us a little premiere on that? 16
17
Ms. Foley: I don’t have the exact numbers for that but that is something that we could look at 18
and have. 19
20
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Ms. French: Through the Chair, Commissioner Chang are you interested in seeing a table that 1
compares side by side the proposal with what could be done? 2
3
Commissioner Chang: Or I just or even just kind of a summary of like what the State… yeah 4
sure, a table would be great but I don’t know if you know off the top of you head what the 5
State Density Bonus might allow? Like how this proposal (interrupted) 6
7
Ms. French: As far as number of units? 8
9
Commissioner Chang: Yeah because (interrupted) 10
11
Ms. French: Because typically (interrupted) 12
13
Commissioner Chang: Well, relative to affordability, right? Like yeah 14
15
Ms. French: Yeah because typically, its… there’s a base zoning that’s allowed. The range that’s 16
on the site under the current zoning and then, you know, this is a PC so it’s different but. And 17
then there’s the Density Bonus above the maximum which would be allowed based on how 18
many affordable units. I don’t have that number. 19
20
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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: You don’t, okay, okay, alright, and then do we know how… there was… 1
the applicant had shown some elevations but do we know how tall Lytton Gardens and the 2
Hamilton are just for neighborhood context? 3
4
Ms. Foley: Yeah, I mean we know that it’s a similar number of floors but we don’t have the 5
exact feet. 6
7
Commissioner Chang: Okay, I have a whole bunch of more detailed questions the parking 8
requirement calculations because but I’ll postpone that till later. And then a question about 9
how like how are the affordable… when we’re saying that something should be say 20 percent 10
of the units are affordable. How do we distribute the affordability across the different unit 11
types? Are we suppose to have a proportional representation so that if 50 of them… I’m going 12
to make up numbers. If 50 percent of the units were studios, then 20 percent of that 50 percent 13
should be affordable and then if a different percentage… anyway, am I making… like is it 14
proportional? 15
16
Ms. Foley: Yeah, I understand your question. I don’t believe that that is regulated. It would be in 17
some ways it’s up to the applicant but since this is a PC there would be some ability for the PTC 18
to make a recommendation on that. 19
20
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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,
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of speakers.
Ms. French: That’s correct and basically the materials and all of that of course need to be the 1
same so that they’re indistinguishable from the units that are market-rate. 2
3
Commissioner Chang: Does that also apply… so how is the parking distributed then? Right 4
because when I look at the chart on Page 117 where there’s the parking spaces are associated 5
with a particular type of unit. Like studio has… there’s 47 studios and 43 spaces associated with 6
them and then 12 one bedroom and six spaces associated with them. How does the 7
affordability then layer into that and does it mean that all of the affordable units have no 8
parking or how does that all fit together? 9
10
Ms. French: These numbers from our Parking Code just says how many total (interrupted) 11
12
Commissioner Chang: Right. 13
14
Ms. French: Based on the number of bedrooms. So, I… as far as I know these are not assigned 15
spaces in the complex but you know, that would be something to clarify. 16
17
Commissioner Chang: Okay, that helps too and then clarification question here about on Page… 18
Packet Page 116. There’s about in the middle of the table the regulation says rear… regulation 19
column says rear yard daylight plane. So, what’s the rear… which elevation are we talking about 20
_______________________
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here? Is this the side facing Byron or the side facing the oak tree? I just didn’t know what it was 1
referring. 2
3
Ms. Foley: It’s the Byron Road street side. 4
5
Commissioner Chang: Okay, can we see the elevation just so that we understand what you’re… 6
I just didn’t even understand what the request was. 7
8
Ms. Foley: So, because the properties across Byron Street are also zoned RM-20, daylight plane 9
applies relative to that? I believe it is 10 feet and 45 degrees but I should double check that and 10
so or it should say in that table. Yeah, 10 feet at the setback line and then 45 degrees and so 11
typically, the rear setback is an interior lot line and in this case, it is a street-side lot line. And so, 12
you know, we think that that allowance to encroach is reasonable but (interrupted) 13
14
Commissioner Chang: Because there’s the buffer of the street. 15
16
Ms. Foley: Correct. 17
18
Commissioner Chang: Understood, okay. I just couldn’t understand what was… what we were 19
talk… which side we were talking about. I wasn’t… thank you for clarifying that and then finally, 20
_______________________
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,
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number
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is there anticipated occupancy that we, Palo Alto, use for office space? So, do we say office 1
employee or medical office typically has X number of employ or one employee per certain 2
amount of square feet and does general, traditional office have a different number? Or do we 3
have… do we use any rules of thumb for that? 4
5
Ms. Foley: We can reference our parking. We require one parking space per 250 square feet of 6
office space and that’s whether it’s business office or medical office. 7
8
Commissioner Chang: That’s helpful. That’s it for me. 9
10
Vice-Chair Summa: Go ahead Commissioner Reckdahl. 11
12
Commissioner Reckdahl: I’m curious, the elevator shaft is like 20 feet above the floor. Why is 13
that? That seems much larger than normal. 14
15
Ms. Foley: Yes. 16
17
Commissioner Reckdahl: Is there a particular reason for that? 18
19
_______________________
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. Foley: Yes, that is because the roof is occupiable space. So, because there is roof deck, the 1
elevator provides access to the roof deck, and then the mechanical equipment that would 2
typically be at the roof level is still on top of that. 3
4
Commissioner Reckdahl: So, the roof deck covers just part of the roof, and then they have an 5
equipment room there. 6
7
Ms. Foley: Yes. 8
9
Commissioner Reckdahl: And so, it’s just the fact that the elevator has to go up one extra floor 10
to that roof. 11
12
Ms. Foley: Correct. 13
14
Commissioner Reckdahl: Normally, the would just service the top floor of the building, you’d 15
have the stairway for roof access. 16
17
Ms. Foley: Correct, yes. 18
19
_______________________
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,
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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 Reckdahl: Okay, okay. The next is the mixture of unit size. We have 47 studios, 1
12 one bedroom and 6 two bedrooms which is skewing very small. Can the consultant or the 2
applicant discuss how they came up with that mixture? 3
4
[note - unknown speaker]: So, the… thanks for the question, so we studied a lot of different 5
kind of other apartment projects in Palo Alto and throughout the area. And we came to this 6
conclusion partially after talking to the Council in pre-screening hearing. On hearing some of 7
their advice we made some adjustments. I think we’re also open to exploring other mixtures as 8
well but we kind of went through several different iterations, talked to consultants, we hired an 9
apartment consultant that does other projects in the area and this was kind of a combination of 10
a lot of different third-party studies for what would be representative for the area. 11
12
Commissioner Reckdahl: So, you’re looking at demand or you were looking at… what did the 13
studies look at? 14
15
[note - unknown speaker]: Yeah, I mean for instance there’s obviously a few other projects here 16
in downtown… well, very few projects that are new in downtown Palo Alto but other Palo Alto 17
apartment buildings as well as other neighboring cities. And so, it’s partially looking at demand, 18
it’s also just looking at just typical unit sizes for this type of an urban project. Typically, for a 19
downtown project like this it's going to demand different unit sizes than for instance if you’re 20
_______________________
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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,
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number
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on the out skirts of downtown. Downtowns tend to demand more kind of single studio, one 1
bedroom type units. Those… families aren’t typically going to come to the downtown location 2
like this so that’s definitely one of the drivers. 3
4
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay, thank you, and the next question, maybe you want to stay up 5
there and answer this question, is the Middlefield driveway. We have this entrance and exit on 6
Middlefield, very close to the intersection of University which is a busy intersection. Was there 7
any consideration of putting this on another street, whether it be University of Byron? 8
9
[note - unknown speaker]: [note - no audio] to Staff the University was kind of a no-go. That 10
was would be even more difficult. The challenge with Byron is it partially conflicts with the tree. 11
So, in saving the tree, kind of on the back side, it makes the most sense to have the driveway 12
going in through, sorry, Middlefield because then we can save all the root structure and 13
everything of the tree. So, that was a high priority in kind of designing in and out of the project. 14
15
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay, yeah that’s tough when you’re building in a developed area. 16
Right, it’s much easier to develop in corn fields. 17
18
[note - unknown speaker]: Yeah, I mean if there wasn’t a tree I think we definitely probably 19
would have come off of Byron. It just made it more difficult logistically to do that. 20
_______________________
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 Reckdahl: Do you anticipate having just right turns coming out or will traffic be 2
allowed to turn across… take a left turn across Middlefield? 3
4
[note - unknown speaker]: So, I’m almost positive it’s just a right turn out of the project 5
because I think that would be traffic problem. 6
7
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay, thank you. That’s all I have. 8
9
Vice-Chair Summa: Any other Commissioner questions? So, I think I’ll save questions… a lot of 10
my questions where answered and I’ll save questions for discussion because I see a lot of 11
members of the public. And I don’t know how many want to speak, so I think maybe we should 12
get to that. 13
14
Ms. Madina Klicheva, Administrative Assistant: Vice-Chair Summa, I received three speaker 15
cards; one individual person and two groups that requested 10 minutes. 16
17
Vice-Chair Summa: Okay, why don’t we go ahead… if that’s alright, why don’t we go ahead and 18
do that then. 19
20
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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,
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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: So, I’ll start with people who are in person here. Our speaker is Carol Gilbert. 1
2
Vice-Chair Summa: Welcome Ms. Gilbert. 3
4
Ms. Carol Gilbert: Thank you. Yes, I’m Carol Gilbert, and I’m a resident and on the Board at the 5
Hamilton. And I am one of the people here as a resident and a Board Member speaking for the 6
many people that we were able to bring from the Hamilton who definitely object to the 660 7
University plan as proposed and you’ll hear a number of reasons why. 8
9
I come at it from kind of a different direction, 660 University is at the corner of really what is 10
known as senior corners. Its where the Hamilton is, Lytton Gardens is, and abating… next door 11
to Lytton Gardens is the Webster property as well. It’s the perfect location for some additional 12
housing requirements for Palo Alto but I really think that it should have more affordable senior 13
housing. And over the past few years, various Councils have permitted the City to let all three 14
affordable places to live turn into luxury boutique hotels and I’m not going to mention them 15
now. 16
17
But 660 reports to provide public benefits but if you look at their proposal all you see are 18
requests to amend the City requirements. So, that another concrete monolith can spring from 19
the sidewalk for more affluent residents. I’m not a nimby, I actually think of myself as a yimby 20
_______________________
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the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number
of speakers.
when it fits the location and the needs of Palo Alto. And I’ve recently met with the Low Income 1
Senior Housing Committee and totally understand how much they have lost, and how 2
desperately they want accommodations here in town where many of the people they represent 3
have lived their entire lives and don’t know how to down size or where to down size. 4
5
660 provides so few units for very low to low-income tenants. Everything else is called work 6
force which will appeal to single young people who make a good income. Those rentals will not 7
be affordable in the normal use of the word and what you might permit the Smiths to build 8
here should balance greed with need. So, I ask you to carefully review their many requests for 9
setbacks and number of units and depress for affordable units for seniors who will impact 10
traffic, parking, and noise much less. Thank you. 11
12
Vice-Chair Summa: And excuse me Ms. Gilbert, but if you would like to speak longer, we 13
actually allow 5 minutes per speaker for this kind of item and we will often, if there are a lot of 14
speakers, reduce it to 3 but you have 2 minutes left if you would like to use them. It doesn’t 15
effect the group speakers but it affects individual speakers. 16
17
Ms. Gilbert: I will make one comment about, and I don’t know the numbers of the pages that 18
showed exterior views, but I found them, and this is perhaps more important to the 19
Architectural Review Committee, but it does impact traffic. They show lovely sketches of the 20
_______________________
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
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number
of speakers.
property they hope to build. Do you see a lot of cars? Do you see cars parked in them? You see 1
a few nice people walking along the sidewalk. Well, that’s not the reality of that location and I 2
think that all of you on this Committee are familiar with what is along Byron, which is narrow 3
and parked all the time. University which is a main thoroughfare and busy all the time with very 4
little parking available and Middlefield which certainly doesn’t have parking available. And my 5
heart goes out to anyone that’s going to live there and have to ingress or egress onto 6
Middlefield. That’s really all I have to say, thank you. 7
8
Vice-Chair Summa: Thank you so much. Our next speaker, please. 9
10
Ms. Klicheva: Our next speaker is Christopher Reem an Christopher Reem gets 10 minutes 11
because he… there are five people who donated his time to him. 12
13
Mr. Christopher Reem: I do have a request, we had wanted to have Leah Prince speak before 14
me. Is that possible? 15
16
Ms. Klicheva: Yes, that is possible. 17
18
Mr. Reem: Could you call (interrupted) 19
20
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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: Would you like… absolutely, yes so our next speaker is Leah Prince. 1
2
Ms. Leah Prince: Hi, can you all hear me? 3
4
Vice-Chair Summa: Yes, we can hear you, go ahead. 5
6
Ms. Prince: Okay great, thank you. Good evening, my name is Leah Prince and I am the land use 7
attorney representing the Hamilton, the senior community. As outlined in my letter and 8
affirmed in the letters from residents. The density and intensity of which this project is 9
proposed is simply too much. As proposed, the project is six and a half times the maximum 10
allowable zoning density. The project is more than three time the maximum Comprehensive 11
Plan density. It is one and one-half times more dense than the highest identified anywhere in 12
the City in the draft Housing Element. Compared to the Hamilton, it is more than three times as 13
dense. It is closest in density to, but still exceeds the density of Lytton Gardens, a project which 14
provides a significant public benefit by serving low to moderate-income elderly and disabled 15
persons. 16
17
Second, the proposed affordable housing is woefully inadequate to justify such a significant 18
increase in density and the in-company increase in height, site coverage and FAR and decrease 19
in setbacks. The project proposes 20 percent affordable. To put it into perspective, State Law 20
_______________________
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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.
mandates that the City grant a 35 percent Density Bonus for a project that proposes 20 percent 1
low-income units. With a maximum Comp Plan density for 20 units, this would result in a 27-2
unit project. A much smaller project and I would do want to note in response to Commissioner 3
Chang’s question. I do have a footnote in my letter outlining what State Law would allow in 4
exchange for various levels of affordability. 5
6
If approved as proposed, the City would be allowing a far greater density increase than that 7
mandated by State Law. Further, the affordable housing makes a de minimis, less than one 8
percent dent in the City’s RHNA goals. Again, little benefit to the community and perhaps even 9
a burden to the neighboring seniors. By any measure, this project is proposed at an 10
unreasonable high density and the Hamilton encouraged the PTC to recommend the project’s 11
density be significantly reduced before it can move forward. 12
13
Finally, the project adds general office, however, office is not permitted. General office, unlike 14
the existing medical office, provides no benefits to the seniors living here. It simply adds 15
intensity. Thus, the Hamilton encourages the PTC to recommend the office be removed from 16
this project and not move forward as currently proposed. 17
18
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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 the last thing that I will note as well is the letter I submitted it intended to be a comment 1
on the Notice of Preparation and highlights issues such as traffic and air quality that need to be 2
considered as this moves through the environmental review process. Thank you. 3
4
Vice-Chair Summa: Thank you. Next speaker please and I think if it’s a group of speakers you 5
should probably list all their names. 6
7
Ms. Klicheva: Okay, got it. 8
9
Vice-Chair Summa: Thank you. 10
11
Ms. Klicheva: So, our next speaker is Christopher Reem. Christopher Reem was kind enough to 12
let Leah Prince to talk first and the people who donated their time to Christopher is Lee Roy 13
Barnes, Nanny Martin, Gene Park, Peter Stirick [note - phonetics], thank you, and Justin Forbes. 14
15
Vice-Chair Summa: Thank you, go ahead. 16
17
Commissioner Hechtman: Microphone. 18
19
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1. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
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Ms. Reem: Hear me? There you go. Got a really get it close huh? Okay, I’ve been a resident of 1
Palo Alto for 51 years. Moved here in 1971. Back then, bought a house for $33,000 and thought 2
I had really made a mistake. I went $2,000 over my budget, but things have changed now as we 3
can see hearing all this. 4
5
I moved into the Hamilton four years ago, having gotten a little bit older, and found it a very 6
pleasant place to live. I’m a little scared by this project, what it might do to the neighborhood, 7
and that’s why I am opposing it. And I’ve talk to many, many people in the Hamilton and it’s 8
close to unanimous. There was one women who didn’t want to get involved in it. Close to 9
unanimous opposed to it. 10
11
I wanted to, at this point, just hit on a couple what I think are very obvious points. First, the 12
tree, everybody has been talking about the tree. I agree it is a magnificent coastal live oak tree. 13
If you don’t know what we’re talking about, please go down University Avenue sometime, just 14
look across the parking lot between the two dental buildings and you’ll see that tree. It's 15
incredible. The tree’s in the center of that block, it’s got a 50-inch diameter trunk, what is that? 16
About like this, that’s the trunk. The applicant’s own arborist says it has a 90-foot canopy. It’s 17
huge and it’s beautiful. Their arborist says that it has a high rating on suitability for preservation 18
and so they recognize it needs to be preserved, but I don’t think what they’re planning is going 19
to preserve that tree. Now I’m not an arborist but I’d read a little bit on this. The… apparently 20
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you have a Tree Protection Zone, which I think is calculated one in two ways. One is that you 1
take ten times the diameter and that becomes what you… you come out with, what is it, it’s 42-2
feet radius. Okay, apparently… people are nodding over there because you guys obviously know 3
this better than I do but I also seen some place where you measure where the canopy is and 4
they’re pretty close. A 90-foot canopy would be a 45-foot radius so take… we’re pretty close 5
there. On all their drawings in their application, they have a little dotted line around this live 6
oak tree and the building comes right up to it. That radius is only 30 feet, so we’re 15 feet 7
intruding into the building, and that’s the actual building. Imagine the limbs out there and you 8
saw the buildings has all these balconies. You know perfectly well they’re going to cut back that 9
tree quite a bit if you’ve got a balcony there. Oop, I can’t get out on the balcony because 10
there’s a limb right there up against the building. So, they’re going to cut it back a lot. 11
12
Also, you have to appreciate, I’m not a construction man but I have to assume that then you’re 13
doing some construction, it’s going to go a little bit beyond where the architect drew the line 14
and that’s going to hurt the roots I’m sure. 15
16
One of the things I worry about is that is it going to fall over. They’re going to be cutting off 17
roots on one side and on that same side they’re going to be cutting off large limbs. Is that going 18
to unbalance it and then the roots aren’t going to be able to support it and it’s going to crash 19
into the Cardinal Dental building and also into the side of the Hamilton? We have 14 units on 20
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number
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that side of the building looking out at this tree. They admire it, it gives them nice afternoon 1
shade, but they’re not going to like it if the damn things crashes into them, which I think is 2
going to be a possibility based upon a way this plan has been written. So, what I’m going to ask 3
is that you please have your City arborist really look into this and I just heard about lidar 4
tonight. I had not heard about that before but really take a look at the plan because they’re 5
going to have to do things like dig in constructions and cutting off those limbs because they’re 6
intruding into the building, and how far back are they going to go? They’re not going to just cut 7
them off at the edge of the building. They’re obviously going to cut them off a lot further back. 8
So, I’d appreciate that if you could urge your City arborist to really look into that. 9
10
Shifting over to parking. They say there’s 110 units required or spaces required. I will accept 11
that, but I count the spaces on their drawings and I see 82 spaces. Now I think they said they 12
had 87 and that may be because there’s some ADA access isles which somehow either you get 13
credit for those as parking spaces but of course, they’re not really parking spaces. So, if you’re 14
driving a car and you live there, what are the odds that you’re going to be able to get a parking 15
spot because you can’t park in an ADA aisle, that’s for sure? So, where are they going to… 16
they’re 28 spaces short from what they say is they’re required to do. Where are those 28 cars 17
going to park? They’re not going to be able to park on Byron, I can tell you that. There is no 18
place to park on Byron when you go there. At night, yeah maybe but not during the day. Also, I 19
have a little thing about… I don’t completely understand it but they have this trash company 20
_______________________
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,
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number
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that’s going to be doing a lot of stuff. Apparently, it looked like they were going to take up a 1
couple, two, or three, parking spots. Keep that in mind. I would like your review to looking into 2
that parking. What’s going to happen on parking, which is tough in downtown already? 3
4
And then, what… Reckdahl, Commissioner Reckdahl, you brought up a favorite of mine and that 5
is Middlefield Road, the garage, it’s not the entrance it’s the exit. Where are you going to go 6
when you get in your car down in the garage? Why’d you get into the car? Well, I need to go to 7
Stanford or I need to go downtown or I’m going to go out to the Baylands or go to San 8
Francisco. Go out to the freeway or I’m going to go up to that big Safeway in Menlo Park. You’re 9
always going to want to turn left. Left onto Middlefield, less than 100 feet from the traffic light. 10
Anybody want to take some bets on how many traffic jams you’re going to have on those two 11
roads? I mean on Middlefield which will then lead to traffic jam on University. It’s going to be 12
terrible, I tell yah. 13
14
Office, moving to office, why would you want to have another office put in there? The whole 15
thing you’re fighting for is trying to meet the, what is it, RHNA? Is that how you pronounce it? 16
RHNA rules which I understand are based upon how many offices there are and you have to 17
have housing. Well, if you add all this housing or this office space, you’re not helping yourself. 18
19
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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,
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number
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Density, well Ms. Prince went over that and I think her letter goes in that in great detail which 1
you ought to really take a look at. 2
3
And finally, I was very surprised when I took a look at the… well, it turns out, it’s not the most 4
recent. The number three filing I guess where they had what I’ll call the party deck and if you 5
look at that you’ve got a tv screen up there with eight lounge chairs. A double lounge set up 6
where eight people can be watching a football game or something. Two barbeques with 7
counter spaces for those barbeques, 10-person tables, on and on and on. If I was 25 years old, 8
I’d love it, but as Ms. Gilbert said this is senior corner. It’s going to be pretty raucous and it’s not 9
appropriate. So, ask your, on your draft EIR, look into that noise factor. Thank you very much. 10
11
Vice-Chair Summa: Thank you, Mr. Reem. 12
13
Ms. Klicheva: Thank you, our next speaker is in Zoom, and its Alan Brauer. 14
15
Mr. Alan Brauer: Yes, my name is Alan Brauer and I’m owner of 630 University Avenue which is 16
directly across the street on Byron from this proposed project. And I have three questions, two 17
of which have already been touched on by a couple of the other speakers but specifically noise 18
and driveway access, particularly during construction. Yeah, our building 630 University is 19
largely used by mental health professionals, therapists, where piece and quiet is essential. And 20
_______________________
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2. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number
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I’m quite concerned about what kind of noise mitigation measures the construction is going to 1
employ to minimize the impact during, [unintelligible] during the day, which is when 2
construction would happen. So, as not to make therapy difficult if not impossible. 3
4
Second question is where are all the construction vehicles going to be parked and is that going 5
limit the access to Byron Street? There are obviously several driveways on Byron Street, 6
including of course Hamilton and I’m wondering what kind of mitigation measures they are 7
going to use for that? 8
9
And then the third is a question, is the proposed zoning change allowing the Exception for 10
medical office space the area south of Middlefield? Is that Exception for this project only or a 11
general zoning change? Thank you. 12
13
Vice-Chair Summa: Thank you. 14
15
Ms. Klicheva: Vice-Chair Summa, that concludes oral communications for this item. I do not see 16
any raised hands and I don’t have any speaker cards. 17
18
Vice-Chair Summa: Okay, thank you very much. We’ll bring it back to the Commission then and 19
I’ll just ask who would like to start us off. Do you want to take a break? Unless the 20
_______________________
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the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number
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Commission… I have a request from the Commission to take quick break. Would that… would 7 1
minutes be… 5 minutes would be acceptable to the Commission if that’s alright with everyone? 2
So, we’ll reconvene in 5 minutes. 3
4
[the Commission took a short break] 5
6
Vice-Chair Summa: Okay Commission, we’re all back so (interrupted) 7
8
Commissioner Chang: [off mic] Commissioner Templeton. 9
10
Vice-Chair Summa: Commissioner Templeton is not back yet, but she’ll be back any second so 11
why don’t we go ahead and start with Commissioner comments? 12
13
Commissioner Reckdahl: I have a couple of questions for Staff. 14
15
Vice-Chair Summa: Okay, Commissioner. 16
17
Commissioner Reckdahl: Has the City arborist… I mean the tree was mentioned, has the City 18
arborist reviewed this at all, reviewed the tree? 19
20
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Ms. Foley: Yes, the Urban Forestry Department reviewer has looked at this as a part of the Staff 1
review. I can look up if that review is considered complete or if there are still items that are 2
being addressed but in general, it is an ongoing review. 3
4
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay and… 5
6
Ms. Foley: So, protecting this tree is definitely a priority for this project and so I can’t 7
necessarily speak to the specifics but we would not be moving forward a proposal that was 8
likely to be significantly damaging. 9
10
Commissioner Reckdahl: Thank you. The next question about TDMs, it mentioned TDMs in 11
there. Is that for the residential parking or is that for the business, the office parking? 12
13
Ms. Foley: For both. 14
15
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay and so we get 20 percent reduced parking. I understand if you 16
have an office, you can encourage trips to be taken with public transit for example. I can see 17
that being potentially effective but you not only have to encourage people to… for residential 18
portion. Encourage them to take public transit but also not own a car and I don’t see a TDM 19
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being effective for residential car ownership. Do we have any experience with that? Has it been 1
effective in the past? 2
3
Ms. French: Typically, we’re doing the TDMs… a TDM program have not been around that long 4
so in my experience with them has been related to non-residential projects but having said that 5
for a PC. You know, we have all the options on the table for the City to impose conditions and 6
such. 7
8
Commissioner Reckdahl: So, we have done TDMs for residential before? 9
10
Ms. French: Like I’m saying I’m not very familiar if that’s done… been done before. I have not 11
been involved but I’m just saying with any PC, and this is a PHZ, we have options to explore that 12
and look into that. 13
14
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay, thank you. Okay, that’s it for now, thank you. 15
16
Vice-Chair Summa: Commissioner Chang. 17
18
Commissioner Chang: Vice-Chair I know you were holding your questions, so I wanted to see if 19
maybe you wanted to go first before I launched into my further detailed questions. 20
_______________________
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1
Vice-Chair Summa: No, you go ahead, I’ll go last. 2
3
Commissioner Chang: I was wondering if you could… if Staff could please explain lidar and how 4
that works with respect to the tree roots and all that? I mean not technically how it works but it 5
is. Like I don’t… 6
7
Ms. Foley: So, it is a survey of where the tree roots are located with the intent of being able to 8
have… so, the TPZ is like an estimate of where the tree roots probably are. By having the lidar, 9
we will have a more specific understanding of where the tree roots are actually located, both in 10
terms of breadth into the property as well as depth. There are certain standards in the arborist 11
report and in our Urban Forestry Code regarding how tree roots are handled near excavation. 12
We encounter this very frequently in projects, even for like single-family houses and stuff. And 13
so there will be mitigations and standard best practices regarding what type of excavation. If, 14
you know, if has to be hand tools or something the closer you get to potential tree root 15
encounters. 16
17
Commissioner Chang: Okay and I missed it earlier so you said the lidar has not happened yet, 18
correct when you referred to it? Or is it in progress or we don’t know the results? 19
20
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Ms. Foley: It’s in progress. 1
2
Commissioner Chang: Okay, we don’t know the results. Yeah, great, thanks. A question, I 3
wanted to follow up because I had just watched the City Council pre-screening and a number of 4
City Council Members had asked whether it would be possible… whether this… the residents in 5
this development would be able to buy parking permits in the RPP. And I just… you know that 6
was a questions posed to Staff at the pre-screening and I didn’t know if there was more 7
information about the feasibility of potentially excluding this development from that. Because if 8
I’m going to live in this building and know that I cannot park. Then I’m going to do it only if I’m 9
happy without a car, but if I think I can park and buy a permit. Right then I’m going to be like oh 10
okay, I can park on the street. And so, there’s been… I think there’s data out there that says if… 11
you can actually incentives less car use and this is a great location for that. So, I wanted to see if 12
it’s actual… actually possible to exclude this from street… from the RPP program? Do either of 13
you know? 14
15
Ms. French: Again, I think because it’s a PC, it’s a legislative project, and quasi-judicial, there are 16
options here. I think we haven’t had experience to do that because RPPs are generally from the 17
ground up of the adjoining neighborhood that want to be in an RPP. So, this would be 18
something to explore with… 19
20
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Commissioner Chang: I mean because what I had heard in the Council’s discussion was that we 1
would need to redraw the boundaries of the RPP and there might be difficulties carving out one 2
corner from it. And that that… and it would potentially run into problems with respect to 3
precedent and so I didn’t know from a legal perspective if you have any perspective? 4
5
Mr. Caio Arellano, Assistant City Attorney: Yes, Caio Arellano, Assistant City Attorney, thank 6
you. It is… I guess my answer is possibly… I don’t… I think the way we ought to look at it and the 7
way we ought to consider Residential Parking Permit is yes, what we have now might have to 8
change. But in looking how we balance parking demands for new developments with the 9
existing Residential Parking Program is we would have to really look at it in combination with 10
the proposed TDMs or proposed TDM. And really just do a holistic approach on how it is we 11
would manage parking demand in the permit program, what the project provides from an off-12
street parking perspective and how the TDM fits into that. But in terms of saying point blank, 13
we would exclude a new development from being able to participate in the RPP. I think the 14
answer to that is no. 15
16
Commissioner Chang: No, we can’t? Sorry. Okay, thank you. 17
18
Commissioner Hechtman: If I could just interject on that point because I think on the Sobrato 19
development we had very recently. I thought that that exclusion was actually apart of the 20
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overall proposed project. So that’s where I thought you were drawing from that because that 1
suggested to me it can be made a Condition of Approval because the concern there was similar. 2
Right, that we don’t want to overflow parking outside the boundaries of that particular project 3
area in North Ventura. 4
5
Commissioner Chang: Yeah, that… I mean the reason I’m asking the question is because yeah, 6
there’s that proposal that we’ve seen on Sobrato where the residents are excluded. They’re 7
required to park in their garages or on the property, but then this is a little bit of a different 8
situation because with respect to the Sobrato. It's not a question of carving out just one little 9
corner I believe. It's like the boundaries of the RPP are a little bit different and at least that was 10
the point that was brought up in the Council meeting. So, I… that is a question that I would still 11
have about kind of the feasibility of doing it either from a… I don’t know enough about RPPs, 12
nor the RPP in effect in this area, but it’s… it would alleviate some of the concerns about the 13
density where we to be able to do something like that. And might kind of incentivize that 14
we’re… there’s concerns about density, there’s concerns about traffic, and safety and 15
greenhouse gas emissions. All of it would… it put the incentives in the right direction where 16
we’re able to essentially to make it clear to somebody coming to live in the property that they 17
could not have a car. 18
19
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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
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Ms. French: So, I think with the Sobrato, that’s a Development Agreement, which as you know 1
that’s a negotiated people coming to the table and talking through, you know, negotiating. So, 2
in this case, we have another legislative document that is… has possibilities but it’s not a 3
Development Agreement per se. It’s something that gets explored so we certain hear you and 4
we can certainly look into that further. 5
6
Commissioner Chang: Thanks. That’s it for now because we’re keeping it to questions, correct? 7
8
Vice-Chair Summa: Questions and comments would be fine. 9
10
Commissioner Chang: So sorry, I do have one more if… I did have this really detailed parking 11
questions about the calculation so on Packet Page 117. On Packet Page 117 the Table Two 12
where it says that there’s 1.5 spaces per two-bedroom required. I… isn’t it two spaces that are 13
required? 14
15
Ms. Foley: Yes. 16
17
Commissioner Chang: And then similarly where it says 1.2 spaces are required per one 18
bedroom. I think it’s just one so. 19
20
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Ms. Foley: That’s correct and the plans accurately show that is the requirement. 1
2
Commissioner Chang: Oh okay, so these are just typos sort of or things that [unintelligible]. So, 3
then the calculation where it says that 70… I kind of did the math with the other numbers and it 4
indicate that its 71 required instead of 73. So, I wondered if there was a different perhaps 5
because how does the ADA parking factor into the parking requirement? What ADA parking is 6
required, if anything, over and above the parking requirement? 7
8
Ms. Foley: So, typically the ADA parking is included in the required parking but I think, and the 9
applicant can clarify since the intent was to have the spaces be unassigned. They are including 10
the ADA parking as separate from the required but that’s not typically what our Zoning Code 11
requires. 12
13
Commissioner Chang: Wait, sorry, could you repeat that again? It… they’re keeping it separate 14
from (interrupted) 15
16
Ms. Foley: Yeah, they’re including the ADA spaces as an addition to the required spaces. Even 17
though that’s not how the Zoning Code would typically break it down. So, 71 spaces are 18
required but the applicant is noting 73 as being required in the plan set because they are 19
including the two ADA spaces in addition to the per-unit spaces but that is not a requirement. 20
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Commissioner Chang: Oh, well because I thought that the 73 resulted as a… the 73 required 1
was as a result of the incorrect math. The incorrect assignment of spaces per unit. Right, if using 2
1.2 and 1.5 instead of 1 and 2. 3
4
Ms. Foley: The (interrupted) 5
6
Commissioner Chang: Maybe the applicant can help? 7
8
Ms. Foley: Well, no, I mean the 73 is just from the plans separate from the text. 9
10
Commissioner Chang: Oh, I see. 11
12
[note – unknown female speaker:] I was just going to say that yeah, Emily everything you said is 13
correct. 14
15
Commissioner Chang: Okay, thank you. So, then I guess my comment about this is it’s quite a 16
bit… so originally when this was first presented to Council. It was a reduction of spaces from 17
115 to 103 which was a 10 percent reduction and Council has certainly asked the applicant to 18
look at a TDM but it’s a pretty drastic reduction. And so, it… that was… I’m concerned about 19
that without… especially as I look at how the parking is assigned to the… I’m not quite… maybe 20
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the applicant again can speak about whether the parking is assigned to the units or whether it’s 1
just going to be a free for all? Like first come first serve for the residents because right now in 2
the table it sort of implies that the parking is assigned to the unit. So, it says 47 studio units get 3
43 spaces, and then six, two-bedroom units get eight spaces and then 12 one-bedroom units 4
get six spaces. And it’s just really concerning to me because if I think about a one bedroom with 5
a couple living there. We’re saying that they’re going to have… you know, lets hypothetically 6
say that there’s 12 one bedrooms and that there’s 24 people living there and but there’s going 7
to be six spaces for them. Right, even if it’s one person living in each of the one bedrooms, only 8
half of them are going to have cars? So, I’m just wondering how that’s all going to work. 9
10
[note – unknown male speaker:] I’ll try to answer your question. So, the idea is there’ll be 11
assigned spaces, so it’s like an opt-in. Its when you come in and lease a unit you’ll say I’m 12
buying this unit with my… buying this space with my unit but you’re correct. Not all units will 13
have a space available. To your point earlier (interrupted) 14
15
Commissioner Chang: Okay, so it will be assigned but it’s not necessarily assigned in this way 16
where 47… oh sorry, 43 spaces are associated with 47 units. It's kind of when I rent 17
(interrupted) 18
19
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[note – unknown male speaker:] So, when you rent, you opt-in. So, it was like you were saying 1
before. it is true, the idea is to incentive some people to not own a car. 2
3
Commissioner Chang: Right, okay. Then can you… one more question because I was asking… I 4
was kind of raising this earlier with respect to the affordability then. The affordability is 5
attached to the units but the parking spaces are not attached to the unit in any way. Is that… so 6
it’s decoupled, correct? So, when I… if I rent an affordable unit, do I get an affordable parking 7
space option, or do I not… or are the parking spaces completely decoupled in which they’re 8
market rate and so the poor resident who’s poor and commuting some place to their job can’t 9
afford the parking space. 10
11
[note – unknown male speaker:] That is a great question. I think that’s something we’re 12
definitely willing to hear ideas on that because you’re correct. If you’re decoupling it then we 13
should think through a process by which if you’re having an affordable unit. It’s perhaps offered 14
at a more affordable rate so you can potentially opt-in to that parking space. Just like someone 15
who’s in a market rate unit. 16
17
Commissioner Chang: Yeah, I was very concerned about that. In particular when I saw the… you 18
know I loved that you guys have an affordable two-bedroom unit but if I think about who’s 19
going to use an affordable two-bedroom unit. They’re going to put four people in there at least 20
_______________________
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if they can. Right, trying to stretch the affordability. Well, that means some kids and it's really 1
difficult to live without a car with children. 2
3
[note – unknown male speaker:] I agree. I think in the two-bedroom units for sure I think it’s 4
foreseeable that yes, a unit… a two-bedroom unit would come with a parking space. Again, it is 5
decoupled but perhaps we can come up with some method where (interrupted) 6
7
Commissioner Chang: yeah, so I just want to (interrupted) 8
9
[note – unknown male speaker:] [unintelligible] two-bedroom affordable unit. 10
11
Commissioner Chang: Make sure that we address it because otherwise it kind of guarantees 12
that we’re using street parking for some these units. 13
14
[note – unknown male speaker:] Yes, that’s a good point. 15
16
Commissioner Chang: Okay, thanks. I can keep going because I have so many questions but I 17
want to give some other people a chance to speak. 18
19
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Vice-Chair Summa: I’ll make some comments because no one… none of the other 1
Commissioners have their lights on. So, I’ve very concerned about the issues Commissioner 2
Chang just brought up and I will say that, unless I’m remembering incorrectly, the project… the 3
work force housing project on the corner of El Camino and Page Mill was not allowed… was 4
exempted from the Parking Permit Program. So, I think we can do that, whether or not it’s a 5
good thing I don’t know but I think we can do that. 6
7
And then I would like to point out that the President Hotel Apartments before the 70 units were 8
cleared out for the luxury hotel. They were mostly all of them buying permits, residential 9
permits. So, you know, we have to be very careful about making assumptions about what 10
people are going to do before they give up a car and I do think, to Commissioner Chang’s point, 11
it’s kind of a… people at lower income levels often have more need for a car and less ability to 12
pay for other modes of transportation that are going the direction they need to go. So, that’s a 13
big issue. 14
15
I believe… oh and I had a question about the tree. Was this application under the old Tree 16
Ordinance or the recently adopted updated Tree Ordinance? 17
18
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Ms. Foley: I would need to check with Urban Forestry to see if they are applying their new one. 1
Like it sometimes the cut-off for a new ordinance is tied to Building Permits rather than tied to 2
planning entitlements, but I don’t know off the top of my head which applies here. 3
4
Vice-Chair Summa: I think there’s some confusion about when… with that and it would make a 5
big difference I think because the new Tree Ordinance, full disclosure I was one of the citizen 6
groups that worked on it, has much bigger protections for trees. And I would want to… and I’m 7
sure it’s everyone’s intention to share that… to save that tree. I mean that’s my dental office 8
and that tree is really magnificent and it’s… it was their way before there was asphalt there 9
based on the size of it. It’s much older than that, it’s really big, and so. And I’m not sure about 10
the raised deck above it and the picture that was shown. I know that was a different project but 11
the deck was cut very tight around the tree and I don’t know if it was at the right place around 12
the tree, or if it was big enough. So, I think we’ll need some really careful work on this tree by 13
the arborist and so it would be better for three if everyone agrees if it was looked at under the 14
updated ordinance. 15
16
And then I think it’s not… I don’t think it’s called lidar. I think its ground penetrating radar and 17
its used in construction. I don’t think it’s quite as… I think lidar… I could be wrong, you guys can 18
tell me, but that’s used for really intense archeological purposes and I don’t think it's used in 19
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number
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construction. Just so people… just so you know if somebody says GRP, that’s ground-1
penetrating radar so. 2
3
In general, I have a lot of concerns I think that the neighborhood does about this project and 4
I’m also concerned about the impacts of extending the ability to take what was medical office in 5
a larger area and have it become general office, and the impacts on residential parking and 6
that. 7
8
And also, I think Commissioner Reckdahl mentioned this and I think Commissioner Chang 9
touched on it but you know, a TDM really, if you read carefully, 18.52 I think its 050. You’re 10
supposed to provide proof before the parking reduction in allowed by the Director. There 11
should… it’s a pretty high bar as I read it and you can bring it up if you want to but I can read it 12
also. I typed it up but and one of the problems I think we’ve been having trouble knowing if 13
TDMs are working was because they were granted kind of on the hope that the plan would 14
work; as opposed to the pretty strict rules saying you have to know it’s going to work, you have 15
to show that it's going to work, you have to demonstrate it. There has to be a reason it’s going 16
to work and in the absence of people not having cars, regardless of whether they use them 17
every day, you still… you know, great if people could walk to their work or take public 18
transportation. I will note this is not within a half mile of the transit center but people still have 19
cars because they like to do other things that they can’t go to car to and not everyone is in a 20
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position to not own a car because of having young children or health issues. So, I’m pretty 1
skeptical about TDMs because we have no data on and I thin Ms. French mentioned this I think, 2
I couldn’t quite hear you, but we don’t have a lot of data on how TDMs work. We have none as I 3
understand it, so I would want to look really carefully again at 18.52 if I’m citing the right exact 4
thing; 040 or 18.52.050, adjustments by the Director. I would want to look really carefully at 5
that and make sure that we were looking at that correctly. 6
7
And I would also like to mention with regards to special setbacks on arterial streets. I believe 8
the purpose, though it’s been hard to find out when I’ve asked this many times, but we have 9
them on most of arterial or larger streets in the City. And I think they were put there, and I 10
think Ms. French is correct, for in the future if we needed to widen the streets because we were 11
car-centric at the time the decisions were made but guess what? We’re now really street 12
centric, to have multi-model streets that accommodate also non-car uses and we’d like those 13
bike lanes basically to be separate from pedestrian lanes which are sidewalks and we’d like 14
them to be separated when possible. So, I think we’re going to really need to retain those 15
special set backs on those streets as we want to have more bike riding and non-vehicle riding 16
and we want multi-modal complete streets as they’re called. So, I’m very uncomfortable with 17
making those decisions on an Ad Hoc, piece-by-piece basis without realizing the value of having 18
those setbacks in the future should we need to expand the streets for bikes. And I don’t think 19
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it’s a very good thing when bikes and pedestrians come into conflict either because I’m a real 1
walker, not biker and its… the threat of being hit by a bike going really fast is pretty real too. 2
3
So, I’m not… I also think that if you look at 18.38.150, special requirements for PCs and these 4
are requirements that are… that… they’re requirements when you chose to apply for a PC 5
development. These requirements exist for all of them and they do protect other adjacent 6
nearby uses from PCs with 150-foot height transition. That is still the case. It may in the future 7
be the case because we’ve kind of changed the way we think about Planned Community Zones, 8
PC Zones because we want to use them now to help build our housing demand. But it's still the 9
case that when they abut low-density residential, which is RM-20, or… and/or a residential PC 10
which would be the Hamilton, that that height restriction still exists. Now, I understand that’s a 11
kind of constrained site when you think of it from University to where it abuts the Hamilton or 12
the other little lot. So, it’s not that deep there right, so it would be kind of hard but these are 13
some of the reasons I think that despite how much I appreciate this project coming forward and 14
providing housing. For me, it would be more successful if it was scaled back in terms of its use 15
and by that, I mean being all housing and not having medical use and may be being more 16
mindful of setbacks. I think 45-foot height along University at 6 feet setback I think it is. That’s 17
pretty bizarre pattern for our City and I don’t think it would be attractive or welcoming and as 18
much as we want the housing. I think we have to think about putting more housing in more 19
places and not impacting negatively current conditions and future residents with projects that 20
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are just to impactful. So, I’d like to see this project scaled back in a lot of ways and I don’t think 1
it’s… I’m not interested in having office in this location, general office. 2
3
The medical exemption and professional exemption in this area was because it already existed 4
when the law was put in. So, we let them keep those uses and I think that was the right thing to 5
do and it’s become a very little attractive. I think some of the people that live near there call is 6
senior corner and because my dentist is there I do see how many seniors also use that and can 7
just walk to the dental offices there and some of the other medical offices. So, a change to 8
general office in this location in RM-20 does not seem desirable to me. I’d like to see more 9
housing and I’d like to, in a general way, see more concern about setbacks and height. And 10
really make sure that if we have a TDM it’s based on people not owning cars instead of a hope 11
that they’ll put their cars some place else than on-site because that’s… we just get problems 12
doing that. 13
14
So, I will leave it there for now in the hopes that some of my other colleagues would like to 15
speak. Commissioner Hechtman. 16
17
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you, so I’d like to start with a question. These two properties, 18
are they identified as housing sites in our new work on the RHNA? You know, are they among 19
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the 6,087 plus, do we know? I should of asked this with… we’ll if Mr. Wong was here I’d be 1
asking him. 2
3
[unknown female speaker:] Do you know? 4
5
Ms. French: I don’t have my Housing Element with me but I’ll (interrupted) 6
7
Commissioner Chang: [unintelligible – off mic] 8
9
Ms. Foley: Right but that’s based on the (interrupted) 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: Current. 12
13
Ms. Foley: The current stuff. 14
15
Ms. French: The 5th Cycle. 16
17
Ms. Foley: And you’re asking about the next one, correct? And so, we don’t have that 18
information. 19
20
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Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah, okay, I (interrupted) 1
2
Ms. French: I mean it’s true that many projects that were in a pending status or had… it 3
expressed interest by the time we set the sites. So, it may very well be on our sites inventory for 4
the 6th Cycle. 5
6
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay, I do think that that’s worth looking into because one of the 7
things we did on those RHNA sites is we are, as we move forward, we’re upzoning a lot of 8
properties to accommodate the densities that we’re projecting for those areas. And it looks like 9
in this Staff we’ve analyzed this proposal under the current zoning and the current Comp Plan 10
and that may be different as we move into the next RHNA cycle which is not very far away. So, I 11
think, again this is… we’re at the very beginning of a process here and so that’s something I 12
think Staff should take a look at. Go ahead. 13
14
Vice-Chair Summa: There is an interactive map that is fantastic that if Staff has time to look it 15
up right now. I don’t really but you can see right away whether it is. 16
17
Commissioner Reckdahl: I have it right here actually and all three properties… all three parcels 18
are on the list. 19
20
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Commissioner Hechtman: Okay so it could be that some of the information that we’re looking 1
at is true today but not true for our vision as approved by the City Council moving forward. And 2
so, I do think that needs to be folded into the analysis as we move forward. 3
4
So, I really kind of want to start with the process and just recognize that this is our first 5
introduction to this and in fact, what we’re asked to do tonight is provide initial feedback and 6
determine whether we want to recommend that it move forward to ARB. And I do think that it 7
should move forward to ARB, but according to the Staff report its… after it goes to ARB. It’s 8
actually going to come back to us later in the process to review a potential PC Ordinance and 9
I’m thinking by that time the environmental review will be farther along and we’ll have that 10
information. So, I think tonight we have, and I’ve read in some of the public comments, real 11
questions about the tree, and traffic, and those are things that City Staff already acknowledged 12
that need to be studied and we’re going to study those. 13
14
And incidentally, when I’m mentioning the public, I just want to thank the residents of the 15
Hamilton for coming out in force tonight. You know, since we started these meetings in person 16
after we were allowed to with the pandemic, we’ve had a very empty Chamber almost every 17
time. And so, it was refreshing to see so many people here, and also, of course, we appreciate 18
the sentiment you’re not here… you’re here with a purpose and you know, I’m… we heard the 19
messages of your spokes people so thank you for coming. 20
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1
So, I do want to talk next… well, I guess let me start big picture. So, when I see this 2
development as proposed what I see is the really the future of Palo Alto and the question is 3
that a near-term future or a long-term future? But in the long term, Palo Alto is going to 4
become more dense. We have the State putting pressure on us in the next RHNA cycle to 5
provide more than 6,000 units and while I am confident that we will come nowhere close to 6
that. When we don’t come close to that, what’s going to happen in the next cycle is there are 7
going to be penalties and one of those penalties could be that a project just like this when it 8
comes to us in the, whatever that is the 8th RHNA Cycle. It’s a ministerial act and we don’t 9
actually have leeway to approve it or to not approve it. It just gets approved like a current SB 10
330 and so I’m concerned about that and so we have to take these opportunity seriously. I 11
recognize that this one project at 65 units may actually one percent of our RHNA goals for the 12
next time and that’s not insignificant. And so, I appreciate the application coming forward and 13
giving us an opportunity to wrestle with these. I’ve been listening to my fellow Commissioners 14
and understand their concerns about the density and certainly from the public comments. 15
16
And I want to talk about density in a minute, but first I just want to talk about the office use. So, 17
there’s office there now and office in Palo Alto is valuable. Its medical office at this point, but a 18
couple of comments where the office should go away. I just don’t think that’s realistic. I think 19
that that’s a valuable asset for the property owners and part of the proposal they’re making I 20
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think the economics of it work because they retain office. Now whether that medical office 1
goes to general office, that’s kind of a different question and I do… and I have heard this called 2
senior corner and somebody mentioned the idea that it’s very convenient to have medical 3
offices. That’s a good relationship so that the seniors can easily get to those and so I don’t feel 4
strongly on the idea of allowing general office at this location. But I do feel strongly that 5
continuation of medical offices with residential above is an appropriate for this location. 6
7
Turning to the dwelling units per acre, I think this… in the context of this development that’s 8
really misleading and leading it's leading us to some skewed results. Because what… this is kind 9
of a new product type for Palo Alto, right? 47 studios, 12 one bedroom, 6 two bedrooms, so the 10
studios are about 37… 375 square feet and the two bedrooms are twice that. So, we want to 11
reduce the density, you turn the 47 studios into 23 ½ two-bedrooms and you’ve cut the density 12
almost in half. But it doesn’t give us what we want because we want studio units because those 13
can be affordable to people because of that smaller size. And so, I think that we might have to 14
look at this a different way than the dwelling units per acre because I don’t think it's leading us 15
in a productive way. 16
17
So, like I said, I like this project. I think it has possibilities. It did occur to me and not that I would 18
propose this but it did occur to me… oh, one other thing. I also appreciated the slide that 19
showed the surrounding environment with so many other four-story buildings. I don’t know 20
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how and I think Commissioner Reckdahl brought it up. That you’ve got the elevator here on top 1
with this deck which I think is… that’s a developer choice but I think the deck is there for open 2
space, right? So, it’s an amenity that they want to provide but it adds more height. But I’m not 3
overly concerned with a four-story building in this location because there’s so many four-story 4
buildings around it. 5
6
But it did occur to me that that design if you lop off the third… the fourth floor. That… first of 7
all, it reduces the height down to where it's really very close to the 35-feet mostly and then the 8
15 foot for the accessories. I think that you… that the… that doesn’t effect the parking garage 9
and so you are I think fully parked when you eliminate those 22 units. It solves some problems 10
but the downside is we lose 22 units. And so again, I’m not suggesting that, I’m just saying that 11
there’s a lot to be looked at here, a lot of good possibilities, and what I don’t want to happen is 12
to go out to that site in 3 years and see some lovely older medical office buildings. I’d like to see 13
something more. Thank you. 14
15
Vice-Chair Summa: Okay, so I have three people in line. I’m going to let Carrie Templeton go 16
first and then Commissioner Chang and then Commissioner Roohparvar. 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you, Vice-Chair. I too was excited about this project and the 19
potential that it represents. And you know, it’s interesting to hear some of the feedback from 20
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community members that were able to come tonight. Although, we don’t know that’s how 1
representative that sentiment might be of people in the area, but it’s really interesting to hear 2
that feedback. 3
4
What I’m thinking and what I’m worrying about is we’re right at the beginning of a shift in how 5
Palo Alto is going to handle requests for build-outs like this. So, this particular property is 6
coming in early. If it were a year from now or 18 months from now, we might be discussing very 7
different things. So, some of these suggestions are maybe the first time that we’re hearing it or 8
that some people in our community are hearing it. And I just want to point that out as 9
something for us to think about as what is going to be happening a year from now and is this 10
going to be a project we would be really excited about at that time versus maybe having some 11
hesitations now? With that said, I do think we have some… we’ve received some good feedback 12
from the community, from the questions that were posed tonight from the community 13
members and from the Commissioners. 14
15
Regarding the height, I think a year from now we wouldn’t be discussing height. This is not a 16
significant blocker because we’re going to have to be flexible on height at times. Especially in 17
the downtown area, so I’m not concerned about that. 18
19
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The location, it is what it is. I do think we can look at improvements for where to put the 1
driveways and things like that. That I would leave to the ARB however and maybe we can 2
discuss it in more detail after we’ve heard their discussion and when it’s brought back with a 3
little bit more information about the traffic patterns. 4
5
Density, again I think if I were to predict in 12 or 18 months, we wouldn’t be worrying about the 6
density. This is something that is actually pretty forward-thinking for Palo Alto. We don’t often 7
have proposals like this but as Commissioner Hechtman noted. One percent a really exciting 8
prospect, so being able to address a significant amount of our housing obligation with a project 9
like this. 10
11
Back to location, on the… some… one of the comments tonight addressed being supportive of 12
housing but not in this location. Referencing her residence is proximate, so I think that is again 13
something that’s a side effect of this being such an early proposal in our new shift towards 14
addressing our RHNA needs. We’re going to see projects like this all over the City and so I’m not 15
sure that it’s in any way specifically something about this location. We’re going to have this 16
issue a lot because our City is developed and we’re going to have to figure out where can we 17
put new projects. So, that’s just something to think about is this might be first or you know, first 18
in our new cycle but it’s not necessarily only going to happen here. We do have to think that… 19
anticipate it will happen a lot of places in the city. 20
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1
Regarding parking, you know I’m supportive of having some parking. Do I think we need to have 2
two for every apartment? I think the general guidance on this is shifting and it’s something that 3
we have to start thinking about more flexibly. But yeah, it’s not coming across as the biggest 4
concern with this project for me. 5
6
Medical versus general usage for the office space, there’s a lot of medical stuff in that part of 7
town. All along Middlefield and as we noted, there’s a lot of seniors living in the area. I’m not 8
convinced that forcing it to remain medical would actually be in the best interest of walkability 9
and quality of life for that are of town. Because they might… the community members there 10
might want to have some other things to do besides go to the doctor and I would just leave that 11
up to demand in my opinion. 12
13
So, what I do like about it is the efforts to make it beautiful, the efforts to have balconies and 14
high-quality materials, the landscaping proposals were very thoughtful, and yeah, in general, 15
I’m supportive of moving this project forward. I do think we need to irritate on it, as we often 16
do, but thank you for bringing it forward. That’s it, thanks. 17
18
Commissioner Chang: Okay, I think I’m up next so I’ll go big picture right now. So, I am… thank 19
you for the applicant listening to the feedback from City Council and putting more larger units. 20
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Some of the feedback really loud and clear from I think five out of seven Council Members at 1
the pre-screening was that they really wanted to avoid the Alta Local type workforce housing 2
type development. And so, I’m glad to see that there are more large units than there were 3
formally. 4
5
I think that this is, relatively speaking, an appropriate location for density, but as I mentioned 6
before, there are some negative side effects potentially because unfortunately the ingress and 7
egress for the parking and people kind of needing cars in this area. I know that we need to 8
change our thinking eventually but I think there are some pretty painful near-term 9
consequences. Particularly since our transportation infrastructure isn’t there quite yet and so 10
we need to think about how to incentives people to not have cars if they’re living in this 11
location. It is great though because it’s so close to downtown so you really could theoretically 12
not have a car, but I think one Council Member in the pre-screen had mentioned there’s a 13
dramatic difference between somebody who’s living there and then working downtown versus 14
living there and then working in the Google plex. They’re going to need a car there so, and 15
again as I mentioned earlier if somebody has children. It’s just difficult. I can’t really imagine 16
taking an hour to get from point A to point B because I’m trying to use a bus with a screaming 17
toddler so. 18
19
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I also think that this is an appropriate location for relatively more height and it’s fantastic that 1
these are rental units because we need more rental housing in Palo Alto. And really appreciate 2
the effort that the applicant has made to preserve the giant oak and also appreciated the 3
landscaping choices that were made. 4
5
I do have some pretty significant concerns. One is very much due to the location of this… these 6
three parcels, you know this property. It’s next to two arterials and I’ve very worried about the 7
setbacks and any unintended consequences as a result of allowing the property to be so… to 8
have such a small setback compared to what’s suppose to be there. There’s a number of 9
concerns that I have along… the reasons I’m concerned are one, I listen to kind of a Silicon 10
Valley bike superhighway discussion, and El Camino was discussed as a potential for a bike 11
superhighway as was Middlefield. And this was bike superhighway connecting all the way I 12
think from say Sunnyvale or even further south all the way past Redwood City. And if we make 13
decisions like this now that prevent us… all we need to do it put one building that’s just too 14
close to Middlefield. That would prevent us from having a bike super highway. So, I’m… and 15
that kind of relates to this transportation discussion where I’m saying that our infrastructure 16
doesn’t match our future needs. So, I’m really concerned about this particular location. It’s on 17
University, it’s on Middlefield. If we really want to look like Europe and have people biking 18
everywhere. I’m worried about having no setbacks. There’s also a safety concern, right like 19
when cars are going at pretty high speeds unfortunately on very narrow lanes on Middlefield 20
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and then they… at least further down there are sections of Middlefield where people have cars 1
upside in their lawns. And so, I worry again about having our building so close to the road. So, 2
the setback is a really big concern for me. 3
4
Also, I was looking at the general guidelines, like the Downtown… oh I think it was Packet Page 5
112, top of the… where… you know we’ve gone through some sort of planning effort before 6
where there were Downtown Urban Design Guidelines that were created. And granted, those 7
guidelines were created a long time ago but there’s a great point made at the bottom of the 8
first paragraph where there’s the idea to identify this block as an entryway into downtown. And 9
if anybody’s gone into Mountain View or Redwood City, there’s some pretty pronounced… you 10
can kind of tell. There’s an archway in Redwood City saying welcome to Redwood City or 11
welcome to downtown or something like that and this spot is the analogist location for our 12
downtown. It wouldn’t be further… it would be at Middlefield and University. It’s not going to 13
be further towards 101 because that’s all… and it’s not going to be further towards downtown 14
and so by completely going all the way up to the road there. We’re creating a kind of bizarre 15
entryway into downtown. I’m not sure that’s what we want as a City so that also concerns me. 16
17
So, the biggest concern I have is about sort of you know the letter… the public comment from 18
the attorney representing… Lee Prince, brought up some points that concerned me because I 19
did a little bit of research. I don’t know if the numbers that I got were right but I did some 20
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calculations trying to understand what the affordability would be of these really small units. 1
And as Commissioner Templeton had mentioned, this is kind of a new product, but 2
unfortunately, affordability in the… how affordability is calculated is not based on square 3
footage. It’s based on units and so when I was doing the calculations looking at the income and 4
rent limits for our county and what it meant in terms of affordability. I’m going to refer to… 5
where’d it go? Where’s the chart that has affordability in our Packet? There it is, Packet Page 6
120. So, I really appreciate the applicant pushing the affordability down into moderate and low 7
income. As I listened to the feedback from City Council, there were questions about what the 8
applicant thought market rate would be for one of these studio units. There was also several 9
comments, like I said before, about trying to avoid an Alta Local work force housing situation 10
where there’s a very minimal subsidy for the affordable units. And so… and what Councilmen 11
Filseth had actually said we might need to look at the moderate-income category as well. Not 12
just the work force housing above moderate income and so I actually sat down and did those 13
calculations. And for a studio, the market… for a studio with 80 to 120 percent affordability, so 14
that’s the moderate-income category, the rent allowed would be $2,355 to $3,537 a month. So, 15
up to $3,500, and then the bottom end would be $2,350 for, you know, I’m assuming a studio 16
has one occupant. If it had two occupants the rent would be even higher. So, we’re talking 17
about a studio with 387 square feet, and it's considered affordable at $2,355 a month if you are 18
a moderate-income person. All the way to $3,537 and so I’m concerned that that’s not actually 19
affordable because then I went onto Trueal [note – phonetics] and looked at rental rates. You 20
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can get a two bedroom two bath, admittedly not downtown, but a two bedroom two bath, also 1
admittedly older, in Palo Alto for $2,500 a month. And so, my concern is that we are not really 2
getting affordably units here and that’s supposedly the benefit that… the community benefit 3
that we’re receiving in order to allow a tremendous amount of density. And so, if the market 4
bares that for market rate, I have no problem with them packing the units in, but I don’t think 5
that it’s realistic to say that a unit that is under 400 square feet at… for $2,300 is affordable. So, 6
I’m very concerned that there’s a good chunk of the supposable affordable housing here that is 7
not actually going to be affordable. And we are going to create… like recreate or relive the 8
problem that we… we live the Alta Local experiment. So, it was the numbers when I calculated 9
the numbers that really made me hesitate in which… and if I don’t think that these units, these 10
four moderate-income units are affordable. Then really we’re getting 14 percent affordability 11
rather than 20 percent affordability. So, that’s the… sorry it took it so long but I kind of wanted 12
to explain some of the calculations there and I really… it was a big big stumbling block for me 13
when I realized what that actually meant. 14
15
And I have a host of other concerns related to sort of these little small units because that’s 16
what creates the density. If they were larger, I wouldn’t have the same affordability concerns 17
and I understand that we want more units because that helps us meet our RHNA numbers. But 18
we also want livable places that people… you know that… it’s not affordable is the bottom line. 19
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Now if a market rate unit, if there is a demand for that, that’s fine but these are not affordable 1
units and that’s my concern. Thanks. 2
3
Vice-Chair Summa: Commissioner Roohparvar. 4
5
Commissioner Roohparvar: Thank you, Vice-Chair. I’ll make comments brief. Thank you to the 6
applicant for coming here today with this proposal. I generally am in favor of housing proposals, 7
especially being so early in the process. I do really want see and explore the potential of what 8
this could actually become like when it comes back to us for decision-making. 9
10
A few points I wanted to make. For me, I look at this note as a Greenfield or something where 11
now we’re deciding whether to add office and residential. I view it as baseline office exists, so 12
do we want to get extra bonus residential? So, from my perspective, that’s how I’m looking at 13
it. 14
15
And then in terms of RHNA numbers, I appreciate that this could be potentially one percent of 16
our RHNA numbers, but we never meet our RHNA numbers. So, again, how I look at it is how 17
does… and I would be curious for when it comes back, like how does 65 units compare to how 18
much we actually build? Like what percentage of the actual builds is that because I’m willing to 19
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bet it’s closer to like 10, 15, 20 percent. We shouldn’t compare it to the 1,000 whatever that we 1
never actually but the average of what we do hit to understand what this means. 2
3
I think I’m not as concerned about the affordability issue just because I think supply and 4
demand will resolve that. I mean if the units at $400… 400 square feet, nobody can afford them 5
for $2,500 -$3,000 doesn’t make sense. They’re going to sit empty and like the prices are going 6
to have be lowered in order to kind of fill them. 7
8
So, that’s what I think about that, but overarchingly I’m very excited to see this through. I think 9
everybody on this Commission has expressed that they are supportive of housing. There are 10
concerns and details that were raised which I think can be… they’re going to change as this goes 11
through ARB and the Staff takes back and the applicant has heard all of our concerns. So, yeah, 12
I’m just generally very excited by the prospect of this and continuing to explore and seeing 13
what the project looks like when it comes back to us during the next round for decisioning. 14
Thank you. 15
16
Vice-Chair Summa: Commissioner Reckdahl. 17
18
Commissioner Reckdahl: I do agree with Commissioner Hechtman that units per acre probably 19
isn’t the right metric because that really distorts if you have small units. FAR or site coverage 20
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are probably a better metric. That said, in both those show that this is a really big project, and is 1
big project is that good or is that bad? You know, from the neighbor’s standpoint, I’m sure 2
there’s… they will be impacted by this but we also have 6,000 units that we have to build, and 3
uncomfortable is the new normal I think when it comes to housing in Palo Alto. And this makes 4
me uncomfortable but not terrible uncomfortable, so is that good or bad? 5
6
I’m a little nervous about preserving the tree but I think that’s solvable. I’m also nervous about 7
that driveway onto Middlefield but I think that is solvable. 8
9
I am skeptical about TDAs… TDMs and just the parking in general. It still, whether we like it or 10
not, is a car-centric environment. People, almost everybody owns cars and the people living 11
there almost all of them will have cars also and if they don’t part in the building. They’ll be 12
parking in the street and the streets are already clogged, so I… that makes me nervous. Ideally, 13
we’d have some type of TDM that’s effect. I think that’s wishful thinking. I don’t think we have 14
any data that shows that it’s… that it is effective but it’s something that is… I think is solvable 15
but not easily solvable. 16
17
The medical office, I mean there’s a medical office in it now, it’s well-used. There’s demand in 18
the neighborhood. The Smith’s had a letter in the back where they talked about the ceilings 19
would be too low for medical office. I’d rather see an extra foot or two of height and have 20
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medical office. I think the neighborhood would be better to have medical office there than just 1
some tech office. I understand that tech offices is going to be more lucrative, but from a 2
neighborhood standpoint, I think the medical office is buy a lot. They… there’s… its 3
convenience, the people who are going there don’t have to drive now so you’re reducing trips. I 4
think there’s a lot of really good things about having… keeping… retailing that medical office 5
instead of converting it into regular general office. 6
7
But my biggest concern is the setbacks. I don’t think we should be changing setbacks as a piece 8
meal decision. I think we should be looking at it whole, as the whole system. We’re going to be 9
building a lot of housing and having good efficient transportation enables other housing. And so 10
even if we have to shrink back and we lose a few units. Overall, I think that extra, whether it’s a 11
right turn lane or a bus lane or a bike lane, that improves out efficiency of transportation. That’s 12
going to make it easier for other housing to come in and this is not the only spot in downtown 13
Palo Alto where we’re building. So, I really an uncomfortable as a piece meal changing these 14
setbacks. There’s good reasons for the setbacks and we have to be very careful just to not to 15
change it. As Commissioner Chang said, all it takes is one building to extend into that and all of 16
sudden that becomes much less usable but yet the zoning for everyone still remains having the 17
setback, and if someone else wants to build a house or some type of building. They will have to 18
keep that… this large setback, even though this extends into it. So, we are ruining that setback, 19
we really should make that a universal decision and not a one-by-one decision. 20
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1
But overall, it’s a lot of housing and that’s a really good thing. We are short of housing. I think 2
there’s merit to this design. I think we can make it work but as is, I’m not… I don’t think we 3
could build this as is. Thank you. 4
5
Vice-Chair Summa: Commissioners? Well, I’ll just say a couple more things and I agree with 6
Commissioner Reckdahl and it’s because we’re going to become a dense city that we have to 7
make these decisions right at this time. And there’s nothing wrong with the Hamilton and 8
Lytton Gardens and they’re much denser taller buildings. That’s not the problem. The problem 9
is all the other things that were mentioned and I would like to say that we not to long ago 10
approved a three-story all residential project on West Bay Shore. It’s a very different location 11
but it was going to make… it was going to pencil out for the developer. There was a project that 12
was rejected because it was in the wrong location but it was a great project. Colloquially 13
referred to as the Kato [note – phonetics] project in College Terrace which was basically it was 14
slightly over, a couple feet over the height limit for R-1 which is not significant. I agree these 15
little insignificant amounts of height difference aren’t perceptible from the pedestrian 16
experience but it was in the wrong place but it proved you could have three stories of housing 17
with no commercial and that it worked for people. And I don’t see this as the beginning of a 18
time when we’re going to disregard the conditions and impacts of the way we approve 19
buildings in Palo Alto just because we want to build a lot of housing. Like I said before, we’re 20
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going to have to build a lot of housing everywhere and not really big things that don’t fit in, in a 1
few places. That’s what I really believe. I believe those two projects I had just mentioned prove 2
that you can do that. I believe to not to plan for the future of multi-modal streets is incredibly 3
detrimental to what we want, including with greenhouse gas reductions. 4
5
I agree that we can work the tree problem out as long as we’re very careful about, but for me 6
also it’s kind of a deal breaker if I’m correct, and I think I am, about the ways in which this is 7
consistent with how the Director can reduce by 20 percent the parking without proof and 8
demonstration that the TDR [note – TDM] will work. Not just with oh, we’ll just go ahead and 9
plan on this. We don’t any data to show us how TDRs [note – TDM] have worked in the past. 10
And I just think that’s not consistent with following the law and I think we get into trouble in 11
Palo Alto and set a bad precedent when we let every project come in and craft… and I 12
appreciate that this zone is exactly for that. But there is also the fact that I do not think that it is 13
consistent with the existing laws or PCs that I mentioned. So, I think that this project would be 14
better fixed right now before it went further. I think we do everybody a disservice, and I’ve said 15
this for many years, including and mostly the applicants, when we get to this point with 16
something. There are so many Exceptions from the law and from our Development Standards 17
that are being asked for. That we get so far along in the process that nobody knows how to say 18
no anymore and it's… I don’t think we want everybody to build this project in that area. So, let's 19
think about how everybody is going to… lets plan better for the future instead of getting… I’m 20
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not dispirited about getting the maximum for our RHNA… next RHNA cycle out of this one 1
place. It just… we can’t do it. It won’t make any difference. 2
3
Anyway, so I am not going to… I am not in a position where I will support this as is. I’d like to fix 4
some of these things before we go on so that the applicant can know what to expect and also 5
the neighbors. So, I will entertain motions if we’re all ready. Oh, Commissioner Templeton 6
wants to speak again, sorry. 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. Just to clarify, I think I misunderstood what you just said 9
and I was wondering if you could clarify. I mean I don’t think we’re trying to get all the RHNA on 10
this site and I think one percent would make a difference. So, I… could you clarify by what you 11
meant by that just before we do the motion and then I’ll do the motion? 12
13
Vice-Chair Summa: Obviously, I don’t think we’re going to get 6,000 units on this site, but I 14
don’t think we have to start approving jobs that aren’t good for the people that live and 15
businesses nearby or the future residents of this building. This building is actually… it's really 16
nice that everybody has a balcony but it has almost no outdoor space and that’s an aspect of 17
the setbacks which we also want to preserve for fully multi-modal safe streets. 18
19
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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.
You know, Middlefield is a street that goes from one end to the other of Palo Alto and then 1
continues on through other communities. I guess it’s the idea of a superhighway, so I would like 2
to see some of these problems and inconsistency with current Municipal Code requirements 3
fixed before we go further but I will entertain motions. 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: Should we put the Staff motion up as somewhere to start from? I 6
mean the Staff recommended motion, do we have a slide for that? 7
8
Vice-Chair Summa: I think you should make any motion you like. 9
10
MOTION 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: Well, that’s the motion I wanted to start with if we had the slide, 13
that’s what I’m suggesting. 14
15
Ms. French: We’re getting it up on the screen. 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. 18
19
Vice-Chair Summa: Thank you for that. 20
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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 Templeton: And I anticipate that we’ll have some edits and adjustments so 2
fellow Commissioners please feel free to make amendments but. 3
4
Vice-Chair Summa: Do we have a second? Okay, Commissioner Hechtman seconds. 5
6
SECOND 7
8
Commissioner Hechtman: I’ll second. 9
10
Commissioner Roohparvar: Okay. 11
12
MOTION RESTATED 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you, so we’ve provided comments and feedback and we’re 15
recommending move it forward to the ARB. We’ve taken public comment already so I don’t 16
know that we have to include that in the motion. So, I move that we move this project forward 17
to the ARB with incorporating the comments that we’ve heard tonight about some areas to 18
look closer at and that we would like to see before it’s brought back to the PTC. Some adjusts 19
specifically in the area of the setback and parking. Thank you. Anyone want to add to that? 20
_______________________
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 Hechtman: If I can speak to my second? 2
3
Vice-Chair Summa: Please. 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay so I guess the thought I have, I was listening to Acting-Chair 6
Summa and I agree there is some tuning that needs to happen with this project. But the 7
alternative of not sending it to the ARB now is holding it here while they go away and do some 8
things and come. And then they have to go to… eventually, they have to go the ARB and so I 9
think we serve the process better having provided our concerns and comments. To not send it 10
to ARB and they can layer theirs on which will be… may be very different than ours. And then 11
the developers can look at this holistically with a broader set of things on their to-do list. Rather 12
than do it a piecemeal, so that’s why I favor this version of the process having provided our 13
comments and having the applicant team here to hear them. 14
15
Vice-Chair Summa: Commissioner Chang. 16
17
Commissioner Chang: So, I would want to tag something on to Commissioner Templeton’s 18
motion where she suggested that, I don’t know Commissioner Templeton maybe you can help 19
me out here with what you… you mentioned setbacks, parking (interrupted) 20
_______________________
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 Templeton: Setbacks and parking. 2
3
AMENDMENT #1 4
5
Commissioner Chang: I think the third thing for me is with respect to the... and this is a pretty 6
big deal for me, with respect to the BMR units. To look affordability relative to market rate and 7
the reason I think it’s important is because five out of seven Council Members gave the same 8
feedback. And then when I actually did the math, you know, it pretty much brought to light 9
exactly their concern. So, you know, I don’t want to churn these things and then we just stop it 10
because they didn’t… the Council did… you know several Council Members were sort of… were 11
pretty excited about certain aspects of the project. But I don’t think that one very large concern 12
of theirs was addressed by these more detailed plans and so that’s why I’d want to include a 13
statement about examining affordability relative to market rate. 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: So, that’s fine with me, I mean everything we included in our 16
comments is going to be included in this motion because part of it, it says to collect feedback 17
from the Commission and I’m sure that Staff also has collected that feedback from the Council 18
as well. However, if it will get your support then I’m happy to include that we want to see 19
improvements on the below market rate proposal. Is that what… how would you phrase that? 20
_______________________
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 Chang: I’d say the below market rate affordability relative to market. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: So, we want to see some updates to that aspect of this project that 4
incorporate the feedback that was discuss on Council and here tonight. Do you agree to that 5
Commissioner Hechtman? 6
7
Commissioner Hechtman: I do. 8
9
AMENDMENT #1 ACCEPTED 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. Great suggestion, thank you. Any other comments before we 12
vote? 13
14
Commissioner Reckdahl: No, I’m happy. 15
16
Vice-Chair Summa: So, for me, what I’m trying to avoid is our concerns about setbacks, 17
consistency with the Municipal Code with regards to the special requirements for Planned 18
Community Zones with the office. Those things will change the envelope of the building 19
certainly and so, I’m trying to avoid having something that ultimately can’t be built because of 20
_______________________
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,
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak from five (5) to three (3) minutes to accommodate a larger number
of speakers.
inconsistencies or policies that don’t exist or things we don’t agree with. I’m trying to give an 1
opportunity for that to be evaluated first. I just think it makes more sense in terms of our 2
process. I think we get ahead of ourselves sometimes, not trying to hold anything back I just 3
think it’s a better process. I don’t understand how… then if it came back to us and after 4
environmental review we said… I guess this is okay with some people, but we said oh it has to 5
be a totally different building because of the impacts and we’ve looked at some of these other 6
issues that came up. And no, we don’t want that… quite that much of variance from our 7
setbacks. I mean then it would have to change considerably, the project, and I note some 8
recent projects where we just… they take a long time, people call it the Palo Alto Process. I 9
don’t think Palo Alto’s worse than other cities but I do think it’s very hard when we have 10
projects that are asking for so many variations from what already exists, and understanding 11
that’s what the Planned Community Zone is but we’re not even really considering those special 12
requirements which are still in the Code. So, that’s my hesitation. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: May I speak to that? 15
16
Vice-Chair Summa: Please. 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. You know, you bring up some good points but I would 19
say this. I think we have signaled very clearly to the applicant that some of these things need to 20
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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.
change. We even called out a few of them in this motion more overtly than others. So, I think 1
the setbacks is an issue and if they go to ARB and haven’t addressed that. Then they’re going to 2
waste their money and their time. So, I think they’re already properly incentivized and we don’t 3
need to add another layer, another meeting with us. I think we’ve given them that feedback 4
and it’s their choice to incorporate it. 5
6
Vice-Chair Summa: Well, it’s going to come back to us anyway because it has to go through the 7
environmental process. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: Yes, of course. 10
11
AMENDMENT #2 12
13
Vice-Chair Summa: Are you willing add some of the other concerns; consistency with the 14
Municipal Code with regards to the special requirements 18.38.150 and 18.52.050? I mean 15
because it has to be… to be legal right now it has to be consistent with both those things. 16
Especially the special requirements for PCs that about other residential PCs or RM Zones so. 17
(interrupted) 18
19
Commissioner Templeton: So, you want to add legally compliant with (interrupted) 20
_______________________
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
Vice-Chair Summa: Yeah, with both of those sections of Code. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: I don’t have those sections of Code in front of me. Are they referred 4
to on a certain page? 5
6
Vice-Chair Summa: No, they weren’t referred to really so. 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: Well, can we just say legally… I mean I think it goes without saying 9
but it would get your support we can that it needs to be a legally compliant project. 10
11
Commissioner Chang: To with those pieces though. 12
13
Ms. Foley: So, is that the section that requires the 35-foot height limit? 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 16
17
Vice-Chair Summa: It’s 18.38.150, special requirements and it’s A through E. 18
19
AMENDMENT #2 NOT ACCEPTED BY THE MAKER OF THE MOTION 20
_______________________
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 Templeton: If it is height limit related I would be reluctant to incorporate that 2
because I want to see this go higher than 35 feet. 3
4
Vice-Chair Summa: Well but this is not an exception to another area of the Municipal Code that 5
a Planned Community application might ask for. This is a special requirement that still restricts 6
PCs. That’s the problem and it’s still in the Code, so I probably wouldn’t be comfortable with 7
the motion as stated. 8
9
Commissioner Reckdahl: I thought, was it Emily that said at the beginning that that part of the 10
motion was to waive that. Have any Exception for that, is that correct? 11
12
Ms. French: Yes, in the past there has been PCs that the PC action by Council was to vary from 13
the PC special requirements as part of the PC and that was determined legally. So, that would 14
be a legal (interrupted) 15
16
Vice-Chair Summa: Really? Wasn’t the last PC College Terrace Center? 17
18
Ms. French: There’s been several PCs in my 24 years and I recall somewhere that was the case 19
where the Council was able to approve basically a Variance to those special requirements that 20
_______________________
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.
are set forth in that chapter, the PC Chapter 18.38. So, that is a way to use the PC to vary from 1
the PC special requirements. 2
3
Vice-Chair Summa: Maybe our City Attorney could comment on that. 4
5
Commissioner Chang: Yeah, he talks good. 6
7
Mr. Arellano: I’m reviewing the ordinance now to try to sort this out. Just give me a minute, 8
please. 9
10
Vice-Chair Summa: Okay, thank you. Commissioner Chang. 11
12
AMENDMENT #3 13
14
Commissioner Chang: I was going to suggest that we have the attorney take a look at that. I 15
mean I think it’s a reasonable… I mean if it… I would… there’s a lot of good things about this 16
project and I think if there’s a way to add something that would address Vice-Chair Summa’s 17
concerns. It would be great, so maybe it could be an examination of compliance with this rather 18
than legal… you know, that just allows a little bit more flexibility. 19
20
_______________________
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 Templeton: Rather than deciding now on the spot, is that what you mean? 1
2
Commissioner Chang: Right. 3
4
AMENDMENT #3 ACCEPTED BY THE MAKER OF THE MOTION 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: I like that idea. I think would… it certainly needs more clarity 7
because you know Commissioner Summa [note – Vice-Chair Summa] (interrupted) 8
9
Commissioner Chang: Right so if we specifically called out that concern and just said… add it to 10
the motion that said something about an examination of those two pieces of Code as they 11
relate to this. That would be… right so not necessarily legal compliance with those pieces but an 12
examination of those pieces. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: That makes more sense to me because I feel a little bit unsure 15
because I do believe they were looking for that Variance. So, I guess first I would ask 16
Commissioner Hechtman how he feels about that and then see if that addresses Vice-Chair 17
Summa’s needs. 18
19
AMENDMENT #3 FAILED DUE TO THE LACK OF ACCEPTANCE BY THE SECONDER 20
_______________________
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
AMENDMENT #4 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: Well, I… it seems like the… I’m looking at the Code section and it 4
appears to have a basically a flat cap of 35-feet and the Staff report here described a building 5
that clearly exceeded that. I think all of it. I think the shortest of the parts was 35 ½ feet and so 6
my understanding in reviewing this application is that there was some way to build beyond 35 7
feet; or else Staff would have stopped it at the door and said we can’t even moving this forward 8
because it can’t be approved under outlaws. So, I mean but I think we have… I think one thing 9
this discussion has shown is whatever the workaround might be. Maybe it wasn’t clearly 10
enough described in the Staff Report for us to understand it. You know, whether it’s a waiver 11
process, an Exception process, or if it’s just one of the rules that can be bent in a PC, right just 12
like setbacks. Whatever it is and so I think the way to solve this, I know Staff has heard us, is 13
when this comes back to us. We’re really going to need a good understanding of why it’s 14
possible to go above 35 feet in light of the provisions of 18.38.150 B. 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: So, as an action item for Staff, rather than the applicant? 17
18
Commissioner Hechtman: Correct. 19
20
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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.
AMENDMENT #4 ACCEPTED BY THE MAKER OF THE MOTION 1
2
Commissioner Templeton: I’m comfortable with that. How do you feel Vice-Chair? 3
4
Vice-Chair Summa: The… I’m thinking about it and the other areas is 18.52.050 which is parking 5
adjustments of 20 percent and the requirements of that the… how persuasive and 6
demonstrative the proof that you’re going to be able to do that. That should come… that is the 7
way I read it. It’s also I’m not an attorney but that’s the way I’ve read that and that needs to 8
come before the TDM is offered. The TDM is offered only after that is demonstratively proved. 9
So, those are the two areas in addition to and I just think it’s interesting that Castilleja totally 10
respect the special setback. I haven’t seen those violated, but I haven’t seen every project that 11
Ms. French has seen over the years either so. 12
13
Mr. Arellano [note- phonetics]: Madam Vice-Chair? So, I did have a chance to review the 14
ordinance briefly, acknowledging the section that you cited. Acknowledging the section that 15
you cited on the special requirements. There was also language in the PC Chapter that 16
describes that the whole purpose of the PC is to provide some flexibility in applying these 17
standards and the Zoning Code generally where there’s a special public benefit. I’m not familiar 18
with some of the other projects that we have approved as a City under the PC Zoning. I’m… I 19
would like to take the discussion here as direction along with the question about the TDM 20
_______________________
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.
requirements and the Director’s ability to modify parking as action items for Staff to more fully 1
analyze for the PTC if and when it comes back from ARB review. 2
3
Vice-Chair Summa: Okay, thank you for that. 4
5
MOTION RESTATED 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: So, our motion now has called out several areas of primary concern 8
and we also want to include the whole discussion for other areas of concern that we’d like to 9
explore more in detail at the next PTC hearing on this project. Is that correct? 10
11
Vice-Chair Summa: Do we have anything in there about offices? I mean why are we 12
incentivizing… why are allowing office when we want housing in a zone that doesn’t allow… 13
that only allows medical and professional offices? I don’t understand that. We have example 14
recently and the West Bayshore project, the Staff actually did a study… a financial study to see 15
if it was really going to work financially and I thought it was a pretty compelling study. And they 16
did find that out so I would like to see a project that came back with three stories and whatever 17
else they’re looking for to make this happen on this lot because I do think the lot is constrained 18
in one direction. It’s not deep. I would rather see that. 19
20
_______________________
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 Templeton: Well, thank you for that feedback. I think we’ve incorporated quite a 1
few remarks and incorporated that you feel that way as part of the feedback for the applicant. I 2
don’t feel the need to pile on. It sounds like maybe we’re ready vote. 3
4
Vice-Chair Summa: Can the motion be read back? 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: Ms. French, do you have it or do you want me to try and remember? 7
8
Ms. French: I could try and then you can (interrupted) 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: Okay, thank you. 11
12
Ms. French: Correct me? So, it’s a motion by Board Member… Commissioner Templeton… 13
sorry? 14
15
[note – unknown speaker off mic:] [unintelligible] 16
17
Ms. French: I don’t have… I didn’t write it down. I don’t know if others here have done that but 18
is it (interrupted) 19
20
_______________________
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. Foley: I sort of have some notes. 1
2
Ms. French: Okay, it’s too… not high-tech enough huh? 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: It’s fine, it’s fine, they only do that at Council anyway so. 5
6
MOTION RESTATED 7
8
Ms. French: Well, it’s a motion by… I’ll just state the obvious. Motion by Commissioner 9
Templeton, seconded by Commissioner Hechtman to move the project forward to the ARB and 10
to incorporate the comments that have been stated tonight by Commissioners and adjustments 11
to setbacks and parking as well as the BMR units examining affordability relative to market rate 12
to improve upon the BMR proposal. Examination of compliance with special requirements that 13
we would return with an explanation to the PTC once we return back to the PTC as well as 14
proof of the 20 percent reduction, why they should be eligible for a 20 percent reduction in 15
parking? That’s what I have. 16
17
Commissioner Reckdahl: Can you make it clear that those last two are action for Staff as 18
opposed to applicant? 19
20
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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, Staff return with an explanation as well as proof that we might pull together. 1
2
Commissioner Hechtman: Sorry. I’m not supportive of rolling TDM into this motion. I mean this 3
is a big issue and have it’s interrupted and how our laws interpret it. I mean I’m understanding 4
the Vice-Chair to say it’s never been done right. You know, we’re not doing it right in Palo Alto, 5
the TDM. We’re not following our own Code. I’m not wanting to believe that, so what I’m 6
thinking is maybe there’s more than one interpretation of our Code and so this project has a 7
TDM associated with it if it moves forward. And I expect in the fullness of moving it forward, it’s 8
going to be analyzed and I don’t see a special task there to require some level of proof on the 9
front end that I don’t even understand how you can do because the nature of the TDM is we’re 10
having a traffic impact. We have to cut traffic down. We’re not sure exactly how we’ll do it, but 11
we have this toolbox and so first we’re going to try one tool. And if that doesn’t cut it down all 12
the way then we’re going to add a second tool and if that doesn’t work. We’re going to add a 13
third tool and get down there and there is quantification involved in those things over time. But 14
I don’t understand how you quantify it on the front end and so, I’m nervous about including in a 15
motion a requirement that doesn’t make sense to me. I want Staff to apply the laws of the City 16
of Palo Alto regarding TDMs to this project. 17
18
Commissioner Reckdahl: Could it be an explanation of how the TDM process would work? 19
20
_______________________
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,
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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 Templeton: I think… can I jump in here real quick? 1
2
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah, go ahead. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: I believe what Vice-Chair Summa was asking for was a rationale for 5
how come the Variances that are requested by the applicant are okay with or compliant with 6
Staff’s interpretation of the law. So, it was more… it was supposed to be more of a rationale, 7
like an explanation walking us through the perspective of why Staff thinks this is compliant. Is 8
everybody comfortable with that? 9
10
Commissioner Hechtman: I didn’t understand it that way but I’m… yeah, I think that’s kind of 11
what Commissioner Reckdahl just said too. 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: I just didn’t understand it that way. Yep, I’m okay with that. 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: Okay, alright so I hope that… you know I… thank you everybody for 18
collaborating on this motion. I hope it’s a better motion and I hope that we can go forward. 19
Thank you. 20
_______________________
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
Vice-Chair Summa: I think thank you everyone and I think we should just go ahead and vote. 2
Ms. Klicheva? 3
4
VOTE 5
6
Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Chang? 7
8
Commissioner Chang: Yes. 9
10
Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Hechtman? 11
12
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 13
14
Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Reckdahl? 15
16
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yes. 17
18
Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Roohparvar? 19
20
_______________________
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 Roohparvar: Yes. 1
2
Ms. Klicheva: Vice-Chair Summa? 3
4
Vice-Chair Summa: No. 5
6
Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Templeton? 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 9
10
Ms. Klicheva: Motion carries 5-1. 11
12
MOTION PASSED 5(Chang, Hechtman, Reckdahl, Roohparvar, Templeton) -1 (Summa) 13
14
Vice-Chair Summa: Okay, I’ll speak to my no motion but very briefly. I have noticed that from 15
my observation it would be better to fix some of these issues before a project goes too far 16
along. Year after year after year and I would prefer to move things forward in that direction but 17
I very much appreciate the applicant bringing this project forward. It is a good place for density, 18
it’s a question of how much and at what cost? And I also want to thank members of the public 19
_______________________
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.
for coming out tonight and the Staff. So, thank you very much everyone and we will move on to 1
our next item which is Item Number Five I think which is discussion about our own Bylaws. 2
3
Commission Action: Motion by Templeton, seconded by Hechtman. Pass 5-0-1 (Summa dissent) 4
(Lauing recused) 5
5. Discussion of Planning and Transportation Commission Bylaws to Add Bylaw(s) 6
Regarding Meeting Attendance 7
Vice-Chair Summa: So, Staff do you have a presentation on this? 8
9
Ms. Amy French, Chief Planning Official: Yes, one moment. 10
11
Vice-Chair Summa: Thank you. 12
13
Ms. French: Is that showing up the right way? Okay, so this is coming through ahead of the 14
training that’s offered on December 13th for the Planning… for all Boards and Commissions. So, 15
you are invited cordially to go to that training on the next laws, Brown Act, all of that, as to 16
remote participation. So, did I… am I (interrupted) 17
18
Commissioner Reckdahl: Can you repeat the date? 19
20
Ms. French: Not loud enough? 21
_______________________
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
Vice-Chair Summa: Yeah. 2
3
Commissioner Reckdahl: No, can you repeat the date and time? I want to get that down right. 4
5
Ms. French: Oh yes, it’s on the screen now as well. December 13th, this is a training that is set to 6
help the Board know about that AB 2449 which is on the screen about how Board Members can 7
participate remotely without making their locations available to the public. Only when there’s 8
just cause or emergency circumstances approved by the Board for remote participation. And 9
this reason is disclosed to the public so and that talks about the… this exception is may not be 10
used by a Member of the Board for more than three consecutive months or more than 20 11
percent of the regular meetings in a calendar year. A little bit of math there. Then if a Board 12
Member does make their location available, just like we did before COVID when you needed to 13
be on a business trip or what have you. To make the location, the hotel, or what have you, 14
available to the public and listed on the agenda that location. There is actually no limit under 15
State Law to how often a member attends meetings remotely. So, you can go beyond that three 16
consecutive months or 20 percent in a calendar year. 17
18
So, having said that, there is… we do have Bylaws for the Planning and Transportation 19
Commission and it’s really up to the Planning and Transportation Commission to consider some 20
_______________________
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.
sort of policy that would work for the Commission as to how many meetings a Commissioner 1
should do remotely for the working productivity of the Commission. 2
3
Now, I’ll say that this will be the… if you talk about this tonight to get to a decision. That would 4
be the first of the Commission’s that support the Planning and Development Services 5
Department and Transportation to do so. The Utilities Commission did proceed with some 6
discussion and tweaking of their Bylaws and they pretty much followed where the Council was 7
going with there. So, I did clip some of those and I have those on the screen if you would like to 8
see. This is a sample of one of your… some of their Bylaws that they began changing about the 9
remote attendance. 10
11
So, I can go through that if you’d like or you can start with the general discussion and then as 12
you… if you would like, I can share more of the Utilities’. 13
14
Vice-Chair Summa: Does anybody have a preference? 15
16
Commissioner Chang: I think general discussion of ours first. 17
18
Ms. French: And I don’t know Kyle if you have anything else to add as far any expectations. I 19
don’t get the sense that there’s an expectation that all of the Boards and Commissions are 20
_______________________
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.
going to follow along with the Council’s preference for their own members was three remote 1
meetings I believe. 2
3
Vice-Chair Summa: Okay, I think both Commissioners Roohparvar and Templeton have their 4
hands up. I don’t know who went first. 5
6
Commissioner Hechtman: We also have one member of the public still on remote and I don’t 7
know if that person might want to comment or these may be questions or comments from the 8
other Commissioners. 9
10
Vice-Chair Summa: And we don’t have… is there a hand in the (interrupted) 11
12
Commissioner Hechtman: No, her hand is not up. I can just see that she’s present. 13
14
Ms. French: [unintelligible- off mic] No hands up. 15
16
Ms. Klicheva: [unintelligible – off mic] 17
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.
Ms. French: Somebody was noticing that there was somebody attending the meeting that was 1
not a Commissioner. So, they weren’t… but there’s no hand up for that person. We could ask if 2
there’s anyone that wishes to (interrupted) 3
4
Commissioner Hechtman: Why don’t we do that? 5
6
Vice-Chair Summa: Yeah. 7
8
Ms. Klicheva: [unintelligible – off mic] 9
10
Ms. French: Maybe the hand will go up. 11
12
Ms. Klicheva: If anyone would like to provide public comment for Agenda Item Number Four. 13
Please raise your hand. I haven’t received any speaker cards. 14
15
Ms. French: Oh no, it’s Agenda Item Number Five. 16
17
Ms. Klicheva: Number Five, sorry, Agenda Item Number Five, discussion of PTC Commission 18
Bylaws regarding meeting attendance. No raised hands, Vice-Chair Summa. There is no raised 19
hand. 20
_______________________
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
Vice-Chair Summa: Thank you. Then Commissioner Roohparvar and Commissioner Templeton, 2
did you want to speak? 3
4
Commissioner Roohparvar: Yes. Thank you. Ms. French, I had some questions just to clarify this 5
and I just want to make sure I’m understanding this correctly. So, the Brown Act State Laws is 6
changing to say if you… yeah, if you don’t make your location available. Then you have to have 7
just cause. If you do, there’s no limit. So, if we decide like three or four or two or whatever, 8
where people can be remote. How is that… that’s not consistent with the Brown Act? Can you 9
just explain where are making the proposed changes? What am I missing? 10
11
Ms. French: Well, the thought would be that we take the Bylaws that we have in place and add 12
another section or item that would be the Commission’s self-imposed policy if you will that has 13
to be consistent with State Law of course. Meaning, if you’re disclosing your position and it’s 14
made available to the public. You know it’s… and you could refer to State Law and that would 15
be okay but it's this not advertising your location, not publishing your location. Just being in a 16
place that’s not advertised that gets into the hot water I guess with the new… I haven’t gone to 17
a training either. So, just to be perfectly clear. 18
19
_______________________
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 Roohparvar: So, is it the one where you don’t disclose that we’re trying to 1
narrow or the second part where you do disclose that we narrow or? 2
3
Commissioner Chang: Second part. 4
5
Commissioner Roohparvar: So, it’s the second part where it says (interrupted) 6
7
Commissioner Chang: Second part. 8
9
Commissioner Roohparvar: Okay, so it’s the second part where it says if you do disclose, there’s 10
no limit, but we’re trying to narrow it back like there’s that option. 11
12
Commissioner Chang: Correct. 13
14
Mr. Caio Arellano [note - phonetics], Assistant City Attorney: No. 15
16
Commissioner Roohparvar: Okay, that’s helpful and then (interrupted) 17
18
Commissioner Chang: No wait. 19
20
_______________________
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. Arellano [note – phonetics]: No, no. 1
2
Commissioner Roohparvar: No. 3
4
Vice-Chair Summa: City Attorney would like to jump in. 5
6
Mr. Arellano [note – phonetics]: Sure, yes, so let me sort of back up. 7
8
Vice-Chair Summa: If you could only speak a little bit louder, it’s hard to hear. I’m sorry. 9
10
[unknown male speaker off mic:] You’re volume [unintelligible] you just have to get close. 11
12
Mr. Arellano [note – phonetics]: So, allow me to back up. Before COVID the rule was you must 13
be present or attend… or you can attend remotely but if you attend remotely you must disclose 14
your location and make that location public. Basically, wherever you are, operates as an 15
extension as say, Council Chambers, right? So, you’re on a business trip, you let the clerk know I 16
will be attending via conference call at… from the Hyatt in lower Manhattan, and here’s the 17
address and that gets disclosed. And if for some crazy reason someone in lower Manhattan 18
wants to attend the meeting with you from your room. They could, that is the sort of the idea 19
of making your location public. 20
_______________________
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 Roohparvar: Got it. 2
3
Mr. Arellano [note – phonetics]: 16 years of practice I’ve never seen that happen but that is 4
what the law says. Now, COVID comes along, obviously, we make changes. We recognize 5
technology that exists and the need to continue meeting in a safe way. So, the law basically 6
suspended that requirement about publicizing your location and said everyone can meet 7
remotely. Members of the public can participate remotely. We still need to conduct our 8
business, we still need to conduct our business out in the open, and so you can do all of that 9
from the safety of your own home. 10
11
Now, recognizing this sort of second phase of COVID, they’re pulling some of that back, and so 12
if you want to continue participating remotely without publicizing your location. Then new law 13
says you may not do that for more than three consecutive months or 20 percent of the regular 14
meetings in the year. I don’t know what that number, what 20 percent of the Planning 15
Commission’s regulars meetings is but just sort of figure that that’s like the upper ceiling. 16
17
Separately, the Palo Alto City Council and the Commissions have adopted their own policies 18
saying we don’t know if three consecutive months means. We’re not going to do the math on 19
20 regular meetings a year. We are just going to say a specific number. You may not participate 20
_______________________
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.
or you may only participate in this number of meetings, in the case of the UAC that number was 1
three, without making your location available to the public. The question before you all is do 2
you want to follow suit; do you want to similarly adopt a specific number saying here’s how 3
many meetings that you can participate remotely without making your location available to the 4
public. Keep in mind, you can always participate remotely if you do want to make your location 5
available to the public. 6
7
Commissioner Roohparvar: That is very clear. 8
9
Mr. Arellano [note – phonetics]: Thank you. 10
11
Commissioner Roohparvar: Thank you for that explanation. 12
13
Mr. Arellano [note – phonetics]: So, I hope that helps for everybody. 14
15
Commissioner Roohparvar: So, we are not [unintelligible]… okay, I got it. We’re narrowing, we 16
defaulting and we’re expanding to bring in some of the… to like old COVIDs gone but we’re still 17
maintaining some of it. That’s really helpful. Okay, very, very clear now I get it. 18
19
_______________________
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.
Second question for you, what do you mean by make your location available? Is that... that’s 1
like actual address or is that city? It’s actual address, right? I just want to confirm. 2
3
Mr. Arellano [note – phonetics]: It is where ever you happen to be when you are calling into the 4
meeting or Zooming into the meeting. So, if that is your residence, you have to provide that 5
address and make that open to the public. If that is somewhere else, same thing, you would just 6
provide that information to the Planning Commission Staff who sets the Agendas. And we 7
would include that and you would actually take the Agenda for that meeting and tape that on 8
your door where ever it is you happen to be. 9
10
Commissioner Roohparvar: Got it, okay just… and that’s because of the rule that you said, so 11
any member of the public can join you in that physical location. 12
13
Mr. Arellano [note – phonetics]: That’s right, that’s right. 14
15
Commissioner Roohparvar: That’s really helpful, thank you. 16
17
Ms. French: Actually, I have a question that I’m… again because I haven’t received training. 18
Typically, we publish our Agenda at least 72 hours in advance of a meeting so I have a question 19
about do we have to put the address of the Commissioner that tells us 72 hours in advance 20
_______________________
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.
where they’re going to be? Do we need to actually put that address on the Agenda and publish 1
that? 2
3
Mr. Arellano [note – phonetics]: Yes, yes. 4
5
Ms. French: So, you couldn’t just call the same day and say oh, now I’m in this location. 6
7
Mr. Arellano [note – phonetics]: Right. 8
9
Ms. French: You have to tell us 72 hours in advance. 10
11
Mr. Arellano [note – phonetics]: Right and so that is when you see this language just cause or 12
emergency circumstances. That sort of contemplates that oh if there is a family emergency. I 13
need to travel to a sick parent or something like that. It is not 72 hours in advance, you don’t 14
violate the Brown Act because of the fact that you need to participate remotely to attend to 15
that emergency. 16
17
Commissioner Roohparvar: Thank you, got it. Thank you, this is… I mean it's my last year so it 18
doesn’t but it’s so fascinating. Thank you. 19
20
_______________________
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 Summa: Any other questions or comments? 1
2
Commissioner Templeton: Yes, I still had my hand up. 3
4
Vice-Chair Summa: Oh, I forgot. Go ahead. 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: So, it sounds to me like this law says disclose your health issues or 7
disclose your address or quit. Is that right? Like is that what just cause is? 8
9
Mr. Arellano [note – phonetics]: I think just cause is meant to just to be a broad term to mean a 10
good reason. I would not extend that to say you must disclose publicly why it is your are not 11
attending. I think you could convey that reason to the clerk or the Board, but if there’s a 12
question… further question about that. You’re legal counsel, me or Albert in this case could 13
answer that for you, but the disclosure of what is your just cause or what is your emergency 14
circumstance, that’s not required. 15
16
Ms. French: Perhaps the piece of this that says approved by the Board, I don’t know if that… 17
where I got that from, but generally the Board could have an understanding about what a just 18
cause typically could be. You know an emergency business trip and like the family conditions 19
and just kind of agree that that makes sense and so yeah. 20
_______________________
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 Templeton: So, my concern and where I’m a little frustrated because I don’t 2
know how to handle this and we haven’t had a chance to talk about it as a group so maybe this 3
is the opportunity. Is when I did come back in person for a meeting, I was told we were going to 4
be meeting outside, we were going to social distance, and we would be masked. None of those 5
were actually the case and I haven’t been back since because I’m concerned about health 6
issues. And our seats, unlike other public venues, are within 6 feet of each other and we go for 7
hours and hours of exposure to our neighbors. So, it is not a constant policy on our Board to 8
mask. I see that Staff is masked and some of our Commissioners are masked but to me, that’s a 9
health issue. And if one of us gets COVID and isn’t sick but is transmitting. It’s very likely that we 10
would be transmitting it to people in our proximity which is the other Commissioners. And 11
when I did try to discuss that with some of our Commissioners, I was told that vaccines stop it, 12
but that’s not the case. I have gotten COVID from being in proximity to others, not necessarily 13
on this Board, but other people who weren’t masked. And I’m vaxed, I’m boosted, its… that’s 14
not the determining factor anymore. We’ve seen that this virus is pretty dangerous and it 15
causes long-term health side effects. So, I’m trying to figure out if we do want… if it’s really 16
important and if it looks like it's in a bill passed by the Assembly that maybe that is very 17
important that we get together in person. What can we do to keep each other safe and not 18
being able to have that conversation and not having answers on that has been the primary why 19
I’ve not come back in yet after that one incident. So, the question is that just cause? 20
_______________________
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 Reckdahl: Commissioner Reckdahl. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: Hold on, I was hoping for an answer from legal. 4
5
Vice-Chair Summa: Oh, I’m sorry. 6
7
Mr. Arellano [note – phonetics]: So, the way the statute defines just cause does include a 8
contagious illness that prevents a Member from attending in person. I’m just reading directly 9
from the statute. There’s no… and I read that directly from the statute, there is no case law 10
interpreting what that means. Does that mean only if you are in fact sick with that contagious 11
illness may you use this just cause exception? Or does that mean there are contagious illnesses 12
that we are concerned about getting and that is your just cause from continuing to participate 13
remotely? 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: Right and I wouldn’t have to legally disclose that. 16
17
Mr. Arellano [note – phonetics]: Yes, I do not… there is no clear answer on that question. It is 18
not something that has been tested or vetted by the courts. But, you know, if that is a concern, 19
there is always again that second option. Provide your location to the clerk of the Board or clerk 20
_______________________
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.
of the PTC, that address is included on the Agenda, and you tape the Agenda to the outside 1
door of wherever it is you have to be participating from. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you for that clarification. 4
5
Commissioner Reckdahl: In my opinion is that we should be as lenient as possible. If people 6
want to be remote, we should let them be remote. I don’t… I personally like being in. I think it… 7
I’m more productful when I’m in, but I think it’s everyone’s decision, and if they can use Zoom, 8
more power to them. So, I don’t think we should be doing anything more than the State 9
requires us. 10
11
Vice-Chair Summa: Commissioner Chang. 12
13
Commissioner Chang: I also agree with Commissioner Reckdahl. I don’t think we need to go 14
beyond the Brown Act. I… enough said on that but I also wanted to be responsive to 15
Commissioner Templeton’s desire to have a discussion about what would… you know, I think 16
that we’re all colleagues. And so, we… it would be good for us to have a conversation about 17
what safety measures we could take in order to make every one of us feel comfortable. 18
19
Vice-Chair Summa: Commissioner Hechtman. 20
_______________________
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 Hechtman: Thank you. Could I see the… there was like the sample language with 2
the fill-in-the-blanks. So, I’m thinking similarly to my colleagues and frankly what I’m thinking is 3
we’re about to a point at least one new… have appointed at least one new Planning 4
Commissioner because Chair Lauing is being elevated. And I want the person selected to be the 5
most qualified and not the person can tolerate some unnecessary public attendance limitation. 6
They may have… I mean all of us during the pandemic had a lot to offer and got our business 7
done when we were wholly remote. 8
9
I agree with Commissioner Reckdahl, I’d like to be here but the Commissioners who aren’t here, 10
we have two tonight, and other nights we have different Commissioners who are appearing 11
remotely. They’ve always been productive and so I think maybe I think about this differently 12
than the Council. So, what I’d like to see here is the number of days slash percentage of regular 13
meetings a Commissioner may attend remotely within a calendar shall be the maximum 14
amount allowed by law. And just leave it at that, so that we are as lenient as we can possibly 15
be. And it does… this idea that to avoid having to have just cause I have to basically tell people 16
they can come to my living room if I’m going to work out of my house because that’s what’s 17
involved. As a practical matter, I wonder if anybody would ever actually do it and if they did, I 18
think I could say you know what? I’m not feeling well tonight, I’m not going to attend this 19
meeting. Right and then they don’t have to come in, but it is a quandary and it’s kind of what’s 20
_______________________
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.
a Hobbesian choice. I think that’s what they call it, so but that would be my suggestion is that 1
we use that language. 2
3
Vice-Chair Summa: Commissioner Roohparvar. 4
5
Commissioner Roohparvar: Thank you. I agree with that sentiment. I did want to speak what 6
Commissioner Templeton said. I agree that we should have a discussion around precautions. I 7
was also boosted and vaxed and got COVID and it’s been months now. Like five, six months 8
where I’m dealing with long COVID symptoms and in and out of hospitals and seeing doctors 9
and trying to figure out what in the world is going on. So, I would also like really appreciate 10
having that conversation around precautions because people have different living situations as 11
well. Like I live with somebody who is immunocompromised and can’t get vaxed etc. So, I 12
wanted to be cognizant not to bring that back to my house. So, I would love to have that 13
conversation if the team is willing to engage. 14
15
Vice-Chair Summa: Thanks, so I’ll say that I would never want to basically discriminate against 16
somebody who had a health restriction that kept them from coming in here and that’s the way I 17
see this. If you… and I think we’re all in agreement which amen and if you want to have a 18
discussion right now tonight or another time about if we could… if we were all willing to mask, 19
would you be… come in and would we be willing to do that? I’m happy to do that. I pretty 20
_______________________
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.
much, some of you may know, I was running for City Council and I pretty much gave up wearing 1
a mask because I was campaigning. It just wasn’t going to be… it just wasn’t going to happen 2
and it’s much harder to hear people with masks on for me. So, but I would never want to 3
discourage anybody from either participating on this body or for applying to it because of a 4
health reason basically. So, do you want to discuss masking or do you want to just leave it is the 5
way it is for now or? And I don’t know what happens exactly with that incident Commissioner 6
Templeton so I can’t speak to that so. 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah I… first of all, you guys can’t see but I am tearing up hearing 9
how supportive you all are. It means a lot. It’s been a hard year with COVID and the after-10
effects they’re real. So, I hope that nobody has to suffer from that, but I don’t think that 11
anybody was anything other than jubilant that we were back, right? I think people wanted it to 12
work out but I spent that whole meeting in fear. I was very concerned for my health and the 13
health of the other Commissioners and you’re right, it is hard to hear when we have masks on. I 14
think… I’m comfortable with people taking their masks down to speak because it’s an isolated 15
incident. We can distance ourselves during that moment. The problem is the duration. It’s 16
different than campaigning in crowds and things like that when you’re outside when you’re not 17
around people for a long period of time. The more you’re sharing the same air, the more risk 18
increases, so you know, it’s a public health issue that we’re all dealing with. And it just so 19
happens the physical structure of our seating arrangement in City Hall is just not super 20
_______________________
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.
conducive to distancing and the durations of our meetings makes it hard to minimize our risks. 1
So, I think masking would be fine and demasking for the period of time you need to speak is 2
fine. But anyway, those are some suggestions. I really appreciate everybody being so supportive 3
and flexible and we can try and find a way to get everybody together in a safe way. 4
5
Vice-Chair Summa: Commissioner Chang. 6
7
MOTION 8
9
Commissioner Chang: Can I just make a process suggestion? So, obviously, the Brown Act does 10
whatever the Brown Act says and we cannot be more lenient than that. So, I wanted to suggest 11
that with respect to what’s in our Bylaws we say… I would like to move what Commissioner 12
Hechtman had suggested. We have… we make… so essentially we’re as lenient as we can be. 13
14
And then with respect… then after we vote on that. I think we should have a discussion about 15
what our… I don’t think Commissioner Templeton is suggesting that we would put something 16
like masking in the Bylaws. Right, so that’s just a collegial discussion that we have, so I’d like to 17
suggest that we make a motion, vote on it, and then have the discussion what our normal are 18
going to be. 19
20
_______________________
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.
SECOND 1
2
Vice-Chair Summa: I’ll second your motion. 3
4
Commissioner Chang: Fantastic. 5
6
Vice-Chair Summa: So, we can have a vote on that, please. 7
8
Mr. Arellano [note – phonetics]: Would you like to restate the motion or I can help? 9
10
Commissioner Hechtman: I’m happy to restate what I said before. Can you pull that slide up, 11
just so I can (interrupted) 12
13
Ms. French: Sure. 14
15
Mr. Arellano [note – phonetics]: And I can make it, even more, plain English for you. 16
17
Commissioner Hechtman: What kind of lawyer are you? 18
19
MOTION RESTATED 20
_______________________
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. Arellano [note – phonetics]: If I’m understanding the discussion correctly the motion could 2
be to add a Section 5.5 to the PTC Bylaws stating as follows: “Commissioners may attend 3
remotely to the extent permitted by State Law”. 4
5
Commissioner Chang: So, moved. 6
7
Vice-Chair Summa: Second. 8
9
VOTE 10
11
Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Chang? 12
13
Commissioner Chang: Yes. 14
15
Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Hechtman? 16
17
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 18
19
_______________________
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: Commissioner Reckdahl? 1
2
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yes. 3
4
Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Roohparvar? 5
6
Commissioner Roohparvar: Yes. 7
8
Ms. Klicheva: Vice-Chair Summa? 9
10
Vice-Chair Summa: Yes. 11
12
Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Templeton? 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 15
16
Ms. Klicheva: Motion carries 6-0. 17
18
MOTION PASSED 6(Chang, Hechtman, Reckdahl, Roohparvar, Summa, Templeton) -0 (Lauing 19
absent) 20
_______________________
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
Vice-Chair Summa: Okay so do we want to have a broader discussion about… I guess the 2
question would be for everyone here and most particular Commissioners Roohparvar and 3
Templeton. Would you prefer to do what you’re doing now or would you prefer that we all 4
wear masks to some extent and come back and be with us and have all the fun of being in the 5
room? 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: Either one is fine with me. I’m… I feel a lot more focused because… 8
when I’m on the Zoom because I can actually see you all and when I’m over on the end of the 9
dais I don’t actually get to see you. But I’m happy to come in if we can have some norms around 10
(interrupted) 11
12
Vice-Chair Summa: And other Commissioners, how do you feel about it? 13
14
Commissioner Hechtman: So, I’m happy to wear a mask up here on the dais except when I’m 15
speaking. I mean I’m obviously I’ve been comfortable not doing that but I’ve got no problem 16
doing it. I still wear masks when I go to the grocery store and when I go to… if I’m… and we’re 17
still eating outside. If I have to use the restroom, go through the restaurant, I’m putting on a 18
mask and it’s just in this particular capacity I felt it was… since we have this public aspect to this 19
_______________________
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.
work that it was appropriate to not do it. But I’m more concerned with the comfort of my 1
fellow Commissioners and so I’m happy to do that. 2
3
Commissioner Chang: Absolutely, I’m happy to do whatever it takes to make it so that if you 4
want to come in, you can come in and feel completely comfortable so. 5
6
Commissioner Reckdahl: I spent two years masked up. It’s a pieces of cake, it’s like riding a bike, 7
so yeah no problem at all. 8
9
Vice-Chair Summa: Ditto and I have one on my wrist at all times. I don’t leave home without 10
one. Any other comments? 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: Well, I think it will be especially important in the winter you guys. It’s 13
going to be a bad one so. Giselle [note – Commissioner Roohparvar], did you want to weigh in 14
at all? Are you (interrupted) 15
16
Commissioner Roohparvar: No, I agree with everyone’s sentiment and I appreciate… I really 17
appreciate this discussion. 18
19
_______________________
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 Summa: Thanks, okay well then I think we’ll move on since we’ve already taken a 1
vote and chatted and we have more items. 2
3
Commission Action: Motion by Chang, seconded by Summa. Pass 6-0 (Lauing absent) 4
Approval of Minutes 5
Public Comment is Permitted. Five (5) minutes per speaker.1,3 6
6. October 12, 2022 Draft Verbatim and Summary Meeting Minutes 7
Vice-Chair Summa: Number Six which is approval of minutes. So, from October 12, 2022 draft 8
verbatim and summary minutes. So, I guess we can vote for both at the same time. 9
10
MOTION 11
12
Commissioner Hechtman: I will move approval as revised. 13
14
Vice-Chair Summa: Do I have (interrupted) 15
16
SECOND 17
18
Commissioner Reckdahl: Second. 19
20
Vice-Chair Summa: Please conduct the vote. 21
_______________________
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
VOTE 2
3
Ms. Madina Klicheva, Administrative Assistant: Commissioner Chang? 4
5
Commissioner Chang: Yes. 6
7
Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Hechtman? 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 10
11
Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Reckdahl? 12
13
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yes. 14
15
Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Roohparvar? 16
17
Commissioner Roohparvar: Yes. 18
19
Ms. Klicheva: Vice-Chair Summa? 20
_______________________
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
Vice-Chair Summa: Yes. 2
3
Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Templeton? 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 6
7
Ms. Klicheva: Motion carries 6-0. 8
9
MOTION PASSED 6(Chang, Hechtman, Reckdahl, Roohparvar, Summa, Templeton) -0 (Lauing 10
absent) 11
12
Commission Action: Motion by Hechtman, seconded by Reckdahl. Pass 6-0 (Lauing absent) 13
Committee Items 14
None 15
Commissioner Questions, Comments or Announcements 16
Vice-Chair Summa: So, the only thing that’s left is Commissioner comments… I forget what it’s 17
called… announcements, reports, and does anybody have anything they would like to add? 18
19
_______________________
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. Amy French, Chief Planning Official: I’m not a Commissioner but I do have a report out from 1
our transportation Staff who was not quite following the 5:00 pm start time. So, I’ll just say that 2
Rafael says to mention that we have a contract On-Demand Shuttle Service is going to City 3
Council on December 5th. So, if a Planning and Transportation Commission Member is 4
interested in knowing more, he said we can arrange for Office of Transportation Staff to come 5
speak to the Commission at a future date. So, that’s the announcement, thanks. 6
7
Vice-Chair Summa: Commissioner Chang. 8
9
Commissioner Chang: I’m definitely interested, I would like to hear that about that. I don’t 10
know if anybody else does. 11
12
Separately, I have questions, so I had held my questions of Ms. French. Ms. French, you had 13
mentioned that there’d be a couple things coming to City Council that were kind of PTC related. 14
Do you know if they’ll come before the end of the year? So, the things you mentioned were 15
ADU Code changes, 575 Los Trancos, and the Permanent Parklet Ordinance. 16
17
Ms. French: Yes, those we have tentative dates for. It’s possible that one or more can be 18
pushed off into the new year but we’re still in the belief that we can get that report written and 19
reviewed and published. So, those three, the 575… well, the Mercedes it’s coming up on the 5th. 20
_______________________
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 575 Los Transco and ADU which was targeted for the 12th and the Parklet Program for the 1
19th. 2
3
Commissioner Chang: Thank you and then my other question… my Commissioner comment is 4
several, I don’t know, maybe last year, we asked if or I asked if it would be possible to rotate 5
the order of our votes each time we take it. 6
7
Vice-Chair Summa: I know. 8
9
Commissioner Chang: So, I’m wondering if that would be possible since we had a process 10
discussion about COVID comfort. I was wondering since I am always the first person to vote if it 11
would be possible if the rest of the Commission would agree to rotating that honor? 12
13
Vice-Chair Summa: Sounds good. We did have that discussion before. Anyone else? 14
15
Commissioner Reckdahl: I have one comment. I live near the Wilkie Way bike bridge, they are 16
doing a test there. I wanted to ask transportation tonight but they were not here but I’ll ask 17
them next time. It gets slippery because it’s wood when it gets wet and so they put non-stick 18
paint on one end of it and some non-stick plastic strips on the other and they want feedback. 19
_______________________
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, if you’re a biker, go by, take a look and give feedback, but we’ll find out if they have good 1
feedback next time. Wilkie Way Bridge, yeah (interrupted) 2
3
Vice-Chair Summa: Wilkie Way? 4
5
Commissioner Reckdahl: Between Mountain View and Palo Alto. 6
7
Vice-Chair Summa: And I had… oh sorry. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: No, go ahead, I’ll go after you. 10
11
Vice-Chair Summa: I had something to report and that was that Chair Lauing was invited to a 12
focus group for City Commission Chairs tomorrow and it’s one of two to discuss with 13
Commissioner Chairs to discuss closures on Romona Street and Cal Ave. And the invitation 14
came from a Staff member I don’t know, Ozzy Archea [note – phonetics], I think is probably the 15
way to say it. So, he suggested I go to the first one and whoever is… the second one I think will 16
be next year. Whoever is Chair next year could attend but I’ll attend if that’s alright with 17
everybody this year and it’s tomorrow? 18
19
_______________________
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 Templeton: That sounds good. Speaking of bridges, thank you for bringing that 1
up Commissioner Reckdahl. We have if you recall, we had seen about the Newell Street Bridge 2
renewal project on PTC I want to say a few years ago. And Senator Becker is going to be 3
presenting some State funds to the City at City Hall on Saturday morning at 10 am that pertain 4
to that project. So, if you’re interested and if you’re around, hope to see you there. 5
6
Commissioner Reckdahl: You said Saturday at 10? 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: Saturday at 10 in front of City Hall in King Plaza. 9
10
Vice-Chair Summa: Thanks. Anyone else? 11
12
Ms. French: I’ll just say another piece of information that flew in from Staff is just to note that 13
the Planning Commission may be interested in. We do have 24 Transportation Demand 14
Management Programs that are in our system that are monitored. So, just a number to be 15
aware of in our system. 16
17
Vice-Chair Summa: Good, thank you for that information. Is anyone else want to share? I guess 18
that’s it and so I will call this meeting adjourned at 9:30 I think. Thank you, everyone. 19
_______________________
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.
Adjournment 1
9:30 pm 2