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Home My WebLink About2024-02-28 Planning & Transportation Commission Verbatim Minutes_______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Planning & Transportation Commission 1 Verbatim Minutes: February 28, 2024 2 Council Chambers & Virtual 3 6:00 PM 4 5 Call to Order / Roll Call 6 6:01 PM 7 8 ROLL CALL 9 Chair Summa: Good evening everyone and welcome to the regular meeting of the Planning and 10 Transportation Commission of Wednesday, February 28. If you could call the roll, Ms. Dao. 11 12 Administrative Associate Veronica Dao: Chair Summa? 13 14 Chair Summa: Present. 15 16 Veronic Dao: Vice-Chair Chang? 17 18 Vice-Chair Chang: Here. 19 20 Veronic Dao: Commissioner Akin? 21 22 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Akin: Here. 1 2 Veronic Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 3 4 Commissioner Hechtman: Here. 5 6 Veronic Dao: Commissioner Lu? 7 8 Commissioner Lu: Here. 9 10 Veronic Dao: Commissioner Reckdahl? 11 12 Commissioner Reckdahl: Here. 13 14 Veronic Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 15 16 Commissioner Templeton: Here. 17 18 Veronic Dao: We have a quorum. 19 Oral Communications 20 The public may speak to any item not on the agenda. Three (3) minutes per speaker.1,2 21 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Chair Summa: Thank you so much. So the first thing that we do this evening is public comment 2 and that's an opportunity for people to speak to items that are not on our agenda. I'm not 3 seeing any hands but do we have anyone in the room? 4 5 Veronica Dao: No. I have no speaker cards or raised hands on Zoom. 6 7 Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions 8 The Chair or Commission majority may modify the agenda order to improve meeting management. 9 Chair Summa: Okay. Then well move on to agenda changes, additions and deletions. 10 11 Veronica Dao: There are no changes or deletions or additions. 12 13 Chair Summa: Thank you. So knowing that, we'll move on to official City reports, please. 14 City Official Reports 15 1. Directors Report, Meeting Schedule and Assignments 16 Chief Planning Official Amy French: Yes, good evening. First of all, I wanted to thanks – give 17 some appreciation to 2 members of the Commission that did come to this weekend's San 18 Antonio Corridor Visioning outreach or open house rather. So thank you for that. It was well 19 attended. And we're looking forward to having a presentation from the students probably that 20 same March meeting that we were considering having a joint meeting with the Council. So stay 21 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. tuned. It'll be scheduled soon enough. One item that wanted to just touch base on is about the 1 joint session that we had been planning for March 18 with the Planning Commission and 2 Council on Housing Element revisions. That has been now set for April 15. I think at least 6 of 3 you said you're able to come on April 15 to that. And just to give a brief update about the 4 Housing Element, we are taking time right now to work with the HCD, our assigned reviewer, 5 and building a successful relationship, talking about the changes we're going to make. That's 6 one of the reasons we pushed it off to April, is because we're working towards topics like 7 affirmatively furthering fair housing and program development. So this doesn't guarantee the 8 HCD finding of substantial compliance but we think this effort is significantly improving the 9 likelihood that we will get our certification. So this is all happening. We had a question earlier in 10 the week about do we know how many units we're going to modify there and we don't have 11 anything at our fingertips at the moment. But again stay tuned. Know that we are working hard 12 and closely with our HCD reviewer to get us to the finish line. So that's – and then I do have 13 something up here showing the upcoming dates. One thing I wanted to ask is if I could have a 14 show of hands and maybe I'm putting you on the spot but if March 13 might possibly get a 5 15 PM start so we can handle – we have a Density Bonus Ordinance that we think is a quick 1-hour 16 kind of State law mandate stuff tweaking an ordinance. Because we have a hard start time of 6 17 PM, for this re-, for the Caltrans presentation about the – with a joint meeting of the Planning 18 Commission and Human Relations Commission and given the topic, we don't know how many 19 audience members we will have. I'm kind of thinking it might be good to start early but I know it 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. can be hard for some commissioners to get here that early. So I guess maybe let us know so we 1 can figure out what we'll do about that. And we do have our Retail Study Session 2 Recommendations Part 1 also targeted to go after the Caltrans presentation. And then these – 3 showing on the screen and it's in the packet as well, the upcoming items for Planning and 4 Transportation Commission. Let's see. This month coming up, March is Bryna, is the 5 representative to Council and so I'll be sending out what I know at this point on the Council 6 Agenda for Bryna to represent. And then I guess with transportation is [Rafael here to 4:51]... 7 8 Female: [Inaudible 4:51]. 9 10 Amy French: ...[inaudible 4:52]. 11 12 Assistant Transportation Director Sylvia Star-Lack: He's having some difficulty connecting but I 13 can provide 1 update. And if he can send me some more in the next minute or so, I'll give those 14 as well. I was going to talk about something else. So I just wanted to make sure the Commission 15 was aware that – well as you know, Caltrans manages State Route 82, El Camino Real and it is 16 recommending adding bike lanes as part of its upcoming repaving project of the state corridor – 17 of the state highway. To engage residents and businesses about this Caltrans project, Caltrans is 18 hosting a community meeting tomorrow night at Paly followed by several other opportunities 19 to share feedback. Community input will inform the Counsel discussion tentatively set for April 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 and here is the schedule. So tomorrow's meeting is at Palo Alto High School Media Arts 1 Center atrium and that will begin at 6 PM. There will be a Joint Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory 2 Committee and City School Transportation Safety Committee meeting on Thursday, March 7 at 3 6:30 at the Mitchell Park Community Center. And then [I don't 6:19] – there will be a joint PTC... 4 5 Female: Mm-hm. 6 7 Sylvia Star-Lack: ...HRC meeting on Wednesday, March 13 at 6 PM here. And then the Council 8 meeting on April 1. There's also a web form on the City's website that is entitled – well the 9 website is entitled City Issues Letter to Caltrans SR 82 El Camino Real Bikeway Project. That web 10 form allows the public to provide feedback to Caltrans and City staff about the bike lane 11 proposal. That webpage includes the draft bike lane plans as well as the correspondence 12 between the City Manager and Caltrans about the proposal. That is all I have. 13 14 Female: Thanks. 15 16 Chair Summa: Thank you very much for that. Anything else, Ms. French? 17 18 Amy French: Nothing else. Just again if you all look at your calendars and think to let me know if 19 5 PM is doable, at least for a quorum, let me know – thank you so much – for March 13. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Chair Summa: Thank you. Any questions? Go ahead. 2 3 Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you for the report. So on March 13, I can be here at 5:00. But 2 4 or 3 months ago, I think we had another joint session with the Human Relations Committee and 5 it started at 5:00 and I remember when we met with them, my impression and I think some of 6 the other commissioners were under the impression that 5:00 because that was kind of the 7 time they were used to meeting but they were under the impression that that was the time we 8 were used to meeting and none – nobody was really expressing enthusiasm for meeting at 5. So 9 is the reason we're talking about it here because you think we're just going to so late in the 10 evening that we'd rather end at 10 than 11 or... 11 12 Amy French: Yeah. I guess I was thinking the Planning and Transportation Commission could 13 meet first at 5 and then 6 would be the start of the meeting with the HRC and that would be an 14 undetermined amount of time based on we don't know how many would show up or online 15 commenting and I don't know how large that discussion would be. And then we do have the 16 meeting material after that is probably maybe 2 hours' worth – I don't know – between the 17 presentation on the retail study and discussion. So I [just 8:42] – I'm trying not to get us going 18 past 10 is my goal. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. That's very helpful. So, I... 1 2 Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 1:50]. 3 4 Commissioner Hechtman: Right. I think you're right because... 5 6 Female: Yeah. 7 8 Commissioner Hechtman: ...that's part 1. 9 10 Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. It's just part 1. Is it necessary to split them up? Can you do 11 retail study all on the next day? 12 13 Amy French: Yeah. I mean if it's not doable, if 5:00 seems to early then we'll – we could – the 14 thing is we have a lot, if you might have noticed, on the upcoming meetings, so I'm a little 15 nervous to put everything on that second March meeting. And we do have a timeline for that 16 project. So given the interest in this topic and we might have folks from the community that 17 want to come and speak to those recommendations as well, that we – the consultant was 18 thinking we'd have 2 meetings on those. And then we have the parking recommendations as 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. well. So those were going to be bundled on the second meeting. We can talk a little bit further 1 later on this item. 2 3 Commissioner Reckdahl: But splitting into 2 meetings gives us a chance to give them action 4 items or have them come back and answer questions and I think this is going to be very 5 irritative so it might be good to still keep it split. 6 7 Female: [Yeah 9:59]. 8 9 Commissioner Templeton: That may be the case. I'm mainly thinking about the many weeks of 10 not meeting and now we're jammed. So I'm just thinking about like – my feedback would be 11 let's plan a little bit better and, and I'm not – I'm also not sure if we need to come in early or 12 not, if it's a problem. I'm pretty flexible in my schedule at that point in time but – yeah, it is a 13 concern of how it's being positioned to us. It's just [inaudible 10:37]... 14 15 Amy French: But... 16 17 Commissioner Templeton: ...question. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Amy French: ...perhaps it's distasteful. You know things do come upon us at the last minute and 1 we do our best to get them on the agenda, [so 10:43] many things we weren't aware of until 2 very recently and we have to suddenly get them on an agenda. So that's part of what we deal 3 with... 4 5 Commissioner Templeton: Totally understand that. But to say that the reason we need to come 6 in early is because we have too much stuff to do right now at the same time is... 7 8 Female: [I misspoke. So sorry 11:00]. 9 10 Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. Well it's just – it's confusing and my wish, my hope is that we 11 can get on a regular cadence that doesn't require coming in early or skipping meetings or 12 getting jammed with the schedule because we do – we're here to serve the City... 13 14 Female: [Inaudible 11:17]... 15 16 Commissioner Templeton: ...so... 17 18 Female: Thanks. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Summa: Commissioner Akin? 1 2 Commissioner Akin: Hi. Quick question for Miss Star-Lack. Has Caltrans given us a schedule for 3 the meeting at Paly tomorrow? Do we know how long it'll last? 4 5 Female: [Inaudible 11:32]. 6 7 Sylvia Star-Lack: Yeah. Sorry. We think it will go for about an hour and a half but there is some 8 flexibility in there. They've got about a 20-minute presentation and then we wanted to leave 9 ample time for questions as well as time for folks to walk around and look at the large format 10 plans. 11 12 Commissioner Akin: Great. Thank you. 13 14 Chair Summa: Anyone else? Okay. Seeing no one, we can move to our first item, which is a 15 study session on Safe Streets for All Action Plan. 16 17 Study Session 18 Public Comment is Permitted. Three (3) minutes per speaker. 19 20 2. Safe Streets for All (SS4A) Action Plan Collision Analysis 21 22 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Summa: An update and mostly an update, not really looking for a lot of feedback, though 1 Ms. Star-Lack would always be happy to hear questions or comments. 2 3 Sylvia Star-Lack: Yes. Great. Thank you so much, Commissioner. So good evening, 4 Commissioners. I am Sylvia Star-Lack, Transportation and Planning Manager in the Office of 5 Transportation. I bring you tonight some interim deliverables from our Safe Streets for All 6 Safety Action Plan. These are our collision analysis and the high injury network. Our goal tonight 7 is to – as Chair Summa noted, our goal is to share this information with you so that you're 8 aware of the work that's being done and this work that will form the basis of our Safety Action 9 Plan. We're not really looking for a lot of feedback on the content. However, if something is 10 unclear or confusing, we'd like to know about that as this work will eventually appear in the 11 Safety Action Plan and we want it as legible as possible for the community. Ashelee Takushi and 12 Alexandra Lee-Gardner from our Fehr & Peers consultant team are joining us online for this 13 item. Ashlee will make the presentation. And Ashlee you're up; take it away. 14 15 Fehr & Peers Consultant Ashlee Takushi: Thank you so much, Sylvia. And thank you, 16 Commissioners. Let me share my screen. Are you all able to see my screen? 17 18 Female: Yes. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Ashlee Takushi: Okay. Great. All right. So as Sylvia mentioned, my name is Ashlee Takushi and 1 I'm with Fehr & Peers. We are the consultant helping the City with creating the Safe Streets and 2 Roads for All Safety Action Plan. I wanted to first start off with a quick overview of my 3 presentation. We'll touch on the project schedule. The meat of today's presentation will be 4 focused on the collision landscape analysis summary and high injury network. And we will also 5 discuss po-, sorry – preliminary engagement feedback and the collision profiles. So to walk 6 through our project schedule, we have wrapped up the first task, which I'll be sharing tonight 7 and we have also started to develop the project list and comprehensive countermeasure 8 toolbox. To give a quick refresher on the Safety Action Plan's project objectives, they are to 9 create a vision statement, strategy and goal to reach 0 fatalities and serious injuries in Palo 10 Alto, develop partnerships between key stakeholders and the community to support this and 11 other safety efforts, prepare a data-driven analysis to understand collision history and patterns, 12 to identify program policy and practice opportunities to institutionalize safe system, and lasty 13 to prepare a comprehensive safety action plan that includes strategies and recommendations 14 built around the safe system elements. So moving on to the collision landscape analysis, to give 15 some background on the collision dataset, we are using UC Berkeley's TIMS database with 16 collisions polled between 2018 through 2022. Just as a note, 2022 data is still technically 17 considered preliminary data but we did want to show you the latest trends coming out of the 18 pandemic years. The data is inclusive of fatal and severe injury collisions also known as KSIs for 19 killed and serious injury collisions. Our database excludes property damage only or PDO 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. collisions and is inclusive of roadways throughout the city except for grade separated Caltrans 1 facilities. So looking at the trends over time the City started to see a decrease in collisions 2 starting in 2019, most noticeably with their KSI collisions. So as a reminder, 2022 data is still 3 preliminary but the data is showing a sharp decrease in total and KSI collisions. Looking at this 4 data a bit closer, here are the modal breakdowns for all collisions as well as the KSI collisions. 5 We like graphs here, so another way to look at this data is [through this 16:56] chart. 6 Pedestrians and bicyclists make up about 32 percent of all collisions but are overrepresented in 7 52 percent of KSI collisions. Primary collision factors or PCFs are cited by the responding officer 8 and are based on their judgment of what contributed to the collisions. PCFs do not include 9 contextual information related to the design of the location. That could have been a primary or 10 secondary contributor to the crash. The most common PCFs in Palo Alto for all collisions are 11 unsafe speed, vehicle right of way violations and improper turning while the highest PCFs for 12 KSIs are improper turning, DUIs and pedestrian-related collisions. Now looking at the collisions 13 by collision type, so broadside collisions and head-on collisions are 2 of the highest percentages 14 of KSIs. This gets into the discussion of kinetic energy risk and needing to design the roadways 15 in Palo Alto following the FHWA Safe System Roadway Design Hierarchy. This hierarchy 16 removes severe conflicts of road users moving at different speeds or different directions, 17 reducing vehicle speeds and increasing attentiveness and awareness. We will get into this a bit 18 more in more detail when I share the collision profiles towards the end of the presentation. So 19 moving on to the high injury network or the HIN, the HIN highlights the streets where there are 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. the highest concentrations of collisions. Sixty-three percent of collisions during the 2018 to 1 2022 time period occurred on 4 percent of Palo Alto streets. El Camino Real has the highest 2 proportion of collisions at 14 percent. The HIN shows the KSIs highlighted in red in the red 3 circles and other injury collisions in blue. For this project, we have also differentiated the 4 ownership of the HIN, so pink being Caltrans, yellow being city streets and green being county-5 owned streets. Moving on to some community feedback that we've heard, in October we 6 opened an online survey, a bit of an attitudinal survey, to get feedback to help the City and 7 decisionmakers understand the community's thoughts on what tradeoffs they are willing to 8 accept to create a safer network for all road users. We received 766 responses on the survey, 9 most of them coming from residents that live in Palo Alto. Some key themes that came out of 10 the survey is that overall a majority, about 60 percent of respondents, agreed to prioritize 11 safety over on-street parking and 85 percent strongly support eliminating traffic fatalities and 12 serious injuries in Palo Alto. This is a helpful metric showing that when roadway improvements 13 are identified, safety should be at the forefront. Once safety measures are identified as feasible 14 for implementation, then the conversations can be had around parking and other on-street 15 amenities. Ninety-nine percent of respondents also noted that they are willing to change their 16 driving behavior to reduce KSIs. The survey also included questions for specific areas within the 17 city. ECR or – sorry – El Camino Real was identified as having the highest percentage where 18 pedestrians and bicyclists do not feel safe, which is an opportunity to collaborate further 19 Caltrans. Other responses show that most feel safe in residential and key destination areas but 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. showing that none of them are meeting the 100 percent of feeling safe. There's still room to 1 create a safer roadway network. Moving on to summarize some of the response that OTS 2 received through email as well as a summary of comments received through the interactive 3 web map that was hosted by the [EPPTP 21:5] Project. We broke up the comments into 3 4 categories. It is bike and pedestrian facilities and access, road design and safety education. This 5 slide highlights the desire for enhancements along school routes and in the downtown area as 6 well as additional bicycle facilities and better separation between vehicles and bicyclists. 7 Related to road design there was a request for further road diet studies and creating better site 8 lines at intersections to make both pedestrians and bicyclists more visible to motorists. 9 Education was also mentioned as a need for all road users and also specifically to have 10 education and policy around electric bicycles. Moving on to the collision profiles, the 7 collision 11 profiles that I'll share with you all use collision data, contextual information as well as the 12 community feedback that you just saw to identify the types of locations that are systemically 13 correlated with a higher percentage of collisions. So the percent of KSIs related to these profiles 14 range between 6 and 15 percent. And just as some background information, over the 5-year 15 period, there were a total of 47 KSIs. Here is a quick overview of the 7 profiles. With each 16 profile that I'll be discussing, I will share a few countermeasures that address the profile. The 17 report that will come later this year will include a more robust and comprehensive list of 18 countermeasures that are in line with the safe system elements and also follow the roadway 19 design hierarchy of removing severe conflicts, reducing vehicle speeds, managing conflicts in 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. space and time as well as increasing attentiveness and awareness of both motorists and 1 pedestrians and bicyclists. The first profile that I'm sharing today is residential arterials. There 2 were 6 vehicle-to-vehicle KSIs over the 5-year period. Collisions are concentrated on University 3 Avenue, on Embarcadero Road and Charleston Road, Arastradero Road and Middlefield Road. 4 Ninety-six percent of these collisions occurred at an intersection. So looking at some potential 5 countermeasures to address this profile, the first is roadway lighting. Adequate lighting will 6 allow motorist to have better visibility of other roadway users. Protected left turning phase 7 reduces conflicts between left turn and through movements. Road diets, some of the benefits 8 can include the reduction of rearend and left turn crashes due to maybe having a dedicated left 9 turn lane, reducing right angle crashes as side streets motorists could cross multiple travel lanes 10 as well. Access management refers to the design, application and control of entry and exit 11 points along a roadway. This can include intersections with other roads and also driveways that 12 serve adjacent properties. So some thoughtful access management along a corridor can 13 simultaneously enhance safety for all modes – vehicles, pedestrians, bicyclists, those [who roll 14 25:57], facilitate walking and biking and also reduce trip delay and congestion. Designing 15 roadways to lower speeds, this could – redesigning our arterials could include lane reductions, 16 some curb extensions as well as lane narrowing. And lastly on this slide, signal timings for 17 arterial traffic calming, reducing cycle runs or diverting or – sorry – dividing an arterial into 18 smaller what we call coordination zones with each zone having its own cycle length and 19 potentially even abandoning coordination altogether could support traffic calming on arterials. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Moving on to DUI and alcohol-involved collisions, this profile represents 4 percent of all 1 collisions but 15 percent of KSI collisions. KSI collisions are [over 27:05] represented in in this 2 profile and highlight the dangers of driving while inebriated. Most collisions occurred at night 3 between Friday and Sunday and most did occur at intersections. Some countermeasures for 4 this profile include designing roadways to lower speeds as mentioned earlier, speed sensitive 5 rest in red. This works by detecting whether approaching drivers are speeding up to an 6 intersection and switching the light to red to slow them down. TDM measures and 7 partnerships, this includes measures to have curbside parking for transportation network 8 companies or TNCs or taxis and partnerships with them to provide safe ride home, bus safe 9 rides home – sorry – or working with businesses to also post some DUI education. And the last 10 1 is narrowing lane widths. The next profile is pedestrian-involved collisions on arterials at 11 night. The 4 KSIs associated with this profile occurred on [Query 28:23] Road, on El Camino 12 Real, University Avenue and Charleston Avenue. Ninety-one percent of all collisions as well as 13 50 percent of KSIs occurred on weekdays and also most at – occurred at intersections. Some 14 countermeasures that that have not been previously mentioned include high-visibility 15 crosswalks, so using thermoplastic tape to create ladder patterns at all crossings and tightening 16 intersections, so extending the curbs to create shorter crossing distances and this also helps 17 with the visibility of pedestrian. In the past 5 years, 3 people were killed or severely injured 18 while walking downtown. One KSI occurred in 2019 before slow streets and 2 occurred in late 19 2020 while the downtown streets were closed. Most of these collisions occurred during the 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. week and also occurred at intersections. Some countermeasures for this profile include 1 curbside management to address goods movement. This means identifying locations and times 2 for goods movement to not conflict with high-pedestrian activity times, leading pedestrian 3 intervals or LPI and LPI gives pedestrians the opportunity to enter the crosswalk in an 4 intersection approximately 3 to 7 seconds before vehicles are given a green indication and this 5 just provides motorists with more visibility of the pedestrian. Pedestrian scrambles, this is this 6 stops all traffic and allows people to cross from all corners of the intersection at the same time, 7 including diagonally. So pedestrian scrambles ensure that people crossing the street are able to 8 do so without any vehicle movement through the intersection. Restricting right turns on red, 9 this reduces conflicts between right-turning vehicles and pedestrians. And lastly road diets. I 10 talked about this earlier but in the pedestrian context, road diets provide an opportunity to 11 install pedestrian refuge islands, bicycle lanes, on-street parking or transit stops, traffic calming, 12 more consistent speeds and more of a complete streets environment that better 13 accommodates the needs for all road users. Moving on to this next profile, this profile shows 14 that the collisions between bicyclists and vehicles that occurred at 90-degree angles, also called 15 broadside collisions. This often includes bicyclists going straight through the intersection 16 colliding with right turn or left-turning vehicles. Seventy-four percent of these collisions 17 occurred on streets with existing bicycle facilities, which highlights the need for more separated 18 or protected facilities throughout the city. Potential countermeasures that I haven't mentioned 19 before, including separate bicycle signal phasing. So this provides priority to bicyclists' 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. movements and separates bicyclists from other conflicting vehicular movements as well and 1 protected intersections. These protected intersections keep bicycles physically separated from 2 motor vehicles up until the intersection. It provides a high degree of comfort and safety for 3 people of all ages and abilities. And this design can also reduce the likelihood of high-speed 4 vehicle turns, improve site lines for motorists to see bicyclists and also dramatically reduces the 5 distance and time during which people on bikes are exposed to these conflicts. We then looked 6 at bicycle-involved collisions with level of traffic stress, LTS 3 and 4. LTS is ranked from 1 7 through 4 with 1 being the most comfortable, so something like a class-1 dedicated bicycle 8 path. And we also overlaid the Safe Routes to School Walk and Roll bike routes, a little bi-, 9 slightly different than just the Walk and Roll routes that are posted online. The 2 KSIs for this 10 profile occurred at Embarcadero Road and Bryant Street and Meadow Drive and [Ulmer 33:40] 11 Street. I believe the only new countermeasure here is to improve facilities on parallel roads. So 12 on arterials or major streets where speeds are typically higher, we should consider improving 13 facilities on parallel roads to encourage users to take the less utilized vehicle routes. And this 14 last profile shows youth bicycle-involved collisions. We highlighted this as a profile because 15 youth-by-school collisions were a key concern for the community this year. Please keep in mind 16 that this data is from 2018 through 2022, so it does not include the last year of collision data. 17 The KSIs involving youth bicyclists occurred on Seale Avenue and El Camino Real. And 18 countermeasures for this profile include additional crossing guards, more class-1 and class-4 19 facilities on these Safe Routes to School Walk and Roll Bike Routes, youth education and also 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. focused interventions and enforcement based on hotspots and trends shown through the 1 collision analysis. So I know that was a lot of information for you all. But now opening it up to 2 any questions that you may have. Thank you so much. 3 4 Chair Summa: Thank you very much for your presentation. It's sobering to see those red dots 5 and connect them with actual accidents you remember. So I'm going to go out to my 6 colleagues. The first light I see is Commissioner Chang? 7 8 Vice-Chair Chang: Sure. I had 1 really quick question. So on 1 of the slides you had mentioned 9 the term goods movement, does that refer to delivery trucks or what is it [inaudible 35:52]? 10 11 Ashlee Takushi: Yeah. So deliveries, Amazon. It could also be food deliveries, things of that 12 nature. 13 14 Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. And what was the recommendation again because I was stuck on the 15 term and I couldn't... 16 17 Ashlee Takushi: Oh, yes. Sorry. Let me go back on my slide. Sorry. One moment. Let me share 18 again. Sorry, [y'all 26:22]. Please bear with me. Zoom... 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Vice-Chair Chang: No... 1 2 Ashlee Takushi: ...is a... 3 4 Vice-Chair Chang: ...problem. 5 6 Ashlee Takushi: Zoom is a bit confusing. So I'm sorry. Can you please repeat your question? 7 8 Vice-Chair Chang: [It's 36:37] – so the question was the recommendation regarding goods 9 movement. I think it was... 10 11 Ashlee Takushi: [Mm-hm 36:41]. 12 13 Vice-Chair Chang: ...on downtown... 14 15 Ashlee Takushi: Yes. 16 17 Vice-Chair Chang: ...maybe. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Ashlee Takushi: So it was to have some curbside management policies in place and guidance in 1 place to address some of these delivery times as well as where they can park for deliveries. 2 3 Vice-Chair Chang: Mm-hm. I see. Okay. And then my other question is – so it's on my Packet 4 Page 10 but it was 1 of the first slides that you showed with all collisions and then KSI collisions, 5 the bar chart from 2018 to 2022 and you had... 6 7 Ashlee Takushi: [Mm-hm 37:19]. 8 9 Vice-Chair Chang: ...said that there's declining KSIs since 2019. But when I looked at the chart, I 10 had a very different interpretation, which is why was it so high in 2019 and 2020. And so I was 11 wondering is that decline when you noticed – when you highlighted that trend, is that 12 something that you've seen in other cities as well, so there's something larger going on or do – I 13 guess my real question is what's your hypothesis for – or do you have a hypothesis for what's 14 driving that? Because I wasn't so sure that there is a decline but rather that maybe 2019 and 15 2020 were particularly bad. 16 17 Ashlee Takushi: Yeah. So I think we've seen this decline during 2019 through 2021 for other 18 agencies as well because this was the pandemic years. So a lot of – there were less motorists on 19 the roadways and also I think the City has also – sorry, the City also closed streets during that 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. time to promote more pedestrian and bicycle activity as well. So that's 1 reason that we can – 1 that I can think of of why there was a decline in collisions and KSIs. But, Sylvia, if you have 2 anything else to add, please do so. 3 4 Vice-Chair Chang: If you're able to pull that slide up just so that everybody can see... 5 6 Ashlee Takushi: Sure. 7 8 Vice-Chair Chang: ...what we're talking about because that was exactly what called my 9 attention to it. I would have thought – I mean I remember during the early days of the 10 pandemic the streets were empty of cars because everybody was at home, so I would've 11 thought that it would result in unusually low KSIs... 12 13 Female: [Oh 39:14]. 14 15 Vice-Chair Chang: ...but instead what we see are higher KSIs in 2020 than in 2018 and that 16 shocked me. So – yeah. 17 18 Sylvia Star-Lack: Yeah. I think there has been some chatter in the transposition world about that 19 because we [would 39:30] – I think nationwide – and, Ashlee, you can correct me if I'm wrong – 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. I remember reading some articles that noted that because there were fewer people on the 1 road, people were speeding and that actually contributed to more KSIs. 2 3 Vice-Chair Chang: Thank you. 4 5 Female: [Inaudible 39:51]. 6 7 Vice-Chair Chang: That makes perfect sense because I also remember that and it also fits really 8 well with the all collisions versus the KSI data because there's fewer collisions overall in the 9 green... 10 11 Female: Right. 12 13 Vice-Chair Chang: ...but then many more KSIs and we know that speed is a big driver for that. 14 Thank you. That makes so much sense. 15 16 Chair Summa: Thank you. Commissioner Akin? 17 18 Commissioner Akin: Thank you, Chair. Just to start, a lot of my questions from the previous 19 session were answered in this and I wanted to say thank you for that. These are useful insights. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. I'm going to be picky about the statistics a little bit and then I have a question about collision 1 profiles. It's important to watch out for the unknown unknowns in situations like this and, for 2 example, on Packet Page 12, I see that 62 percent of injury collisions occurred on 4 percent of 3 Palo Alto streets. And it – a question that occurred to me is what volume of traffic flows on 4 those 4 percent of Palo Alto streets. If it's 62 percent or more, then perversely those are safer 5 streets. Now the point is not to say oh, well that justifies not doing anything on those streets. 6 The point is to say that the countermeasures you adopt should not push traffic onto streets 7 that are less safe. And a way that that could happen is what we already see as traffic increases 8 on University Avenue, that there's an increase in traffic that flows through Crescent Park and 9 Community Center and Professorville. So we don't want to, by adopting countermeasures that 10 cause the traffic to move rather than be reduced, create a perverse increase in the number of 11 hazards. So I would ask that, of course, you watch out for that but also be prepared to explain 12 in a footnote or an appendix or something how you've made sure that that kind of perverse 13 situation doesn't happen. Which leads me... 14 15 Female: [Inaudible 42:21]. 16 17 Commissioner Akin: ...to the collision profiles question, which is how you chose to do the 18 clustering that created the collision profiles because I can think of other ways to do it. So you 19 clearly had some goals in mind and it would be nice to see what those were. For example, the 1 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. that occurred to me was we see whole lot of our incidents are occurring at intersections. What 1 about the design of the intersections is interesting at those collision points? Could that be 2 justification for a collision profile? So it would be nice to see some justification for the ones that 3 you chose as well. Thank you. That's it. 4 5 Ashlee Takushi: Thank you so much. If I could follow up on that as well. Although these are 6 collision profiles that take into account a lot of the city's roadways, the countermeasures will be 7 tailored to the specific context of the roadways as well. So if in the report, when that comes 8 out, the list will be a bit more comprehensive and also pointed to specifically the roadways that 9 were highlighted for each of the profiles. So more to come. But thank you for bring that up and 10 we will keep that in mind as we continue work on this. 11 12 Commissioner Akin: Thank you. That's good to hear. 13 14 Chair Summa: Commissioner Lu? 15 16 Commissioner Lu: Thank you. I really appreciate this analysis and just have a few quick 17 questions. When analyzing incidents with people killed or serious injuries, were there any 18 notable distinctions or observations we could draw about incidents where people were killed 19 versus incidents were people were seriously injured? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Ashlee Takushi: I don't have that ans-... 2 3 Female: [Inaudible 44:19]. 4 5 Ashlee Takushi: ...-wer off the top of my head. We looked at – or there is a higher weight to 6 killed and severe injury collisions just overall as a group just because those are the ones that we 7 want to reduce to 0. So we did not look at them separately for our analysis. Also noting that 8 there were 47 KSIs in – throughout the city over the 5-year period. And just in other work that 9 I've done, it's definitely lower than some other agencies that I've seen. So when we're – when 10 we also wanted to create these profiles, we looked at the killed – the fatal and severe injury 11 collisions together. 12 13 Commissioner Lu: That makes sense as well. Thank you. Maybe a couple of quick ones. Will the 14 full survey results be available about people's transportation preferences, answers about things 15 like speeding cameras on El Camino and so on? 16 17 Ashlee Takushi: I believe that that will be provided as an appendix to this report. Yes. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Lu: Okay. Great. And maybe 1 question for staff, can you talk more about the 1 Vision Zero goal for 2030? Have we officially adopted that? The packet language seems to 2 suggest that we have? 3 4 Sylvia Star-Lack: We have not officially adopted it yet. We have talked about – we have your 5 input on that but we have not officially adopted it yet. That will be at Council. 6 7 Commissioner Lu: [Got it 45:59.] Just wanted to clarify the language. 8 9 Chair Summa: Thank you. Commissioner Templeton? 10 11 Commissioner Templeton: I want to thank Miss Star-Lack and her whole team for working on 12 this really important report that we hope will save many lives of adults and children in our 13 community. Thank you, Ashlee, for your presentation as well. I'm finding myself a little bit 14 struggling for words because we're by necessity approaching this very analytically but it's a very 15 emotional topic. So I want to go to the 2 slides about students and youth. One was about Safe 16 Routes to School and let's start there and then we can look the children – collisions involving 17 children. Could you please bring that up? 18 19 Female: Yeah. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. 2 3 Female: That's the right one. 4 5 Commissioner Templeton: So let's go to the solutions slide, the next slide. Could... 6 7 Ashlee Takushi: [Inaudible 47:18]... 8 9 Commissioner Templeton: ...you please advance? 10 11 Ashlee Takushi: ...lagging. Yeah. [Inaudible 47:19]... 12 13 Commissioner Templeton: There we go. 14 15 Ashlee Takushi: ...[inaudible 47:19]. 16 17 Commissioner Templeton: Oh there's a lag. I see. 18 19 Ashlee Takushi: Yeah. Sorry. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Templeton: Are these – can you explain there are no KSI crashes here or is it the 2 red circles represent – it's confusing. Is this – can you just clarify what – whether there's KSIs in 3 this network or not? 4 5 Ashlee Takushi: Yes. So there are 2 KSI bicycle collisions. 6 7 Commissioner Templeton: And where are they located? I don't see the red dots. 8 9 Ashlee Takushi: They are located – sorry. One moment. 10 11 Sylvia Star-Lack: I see it, Ashlee. It's 2018 Embarcadero Road and Bryant and 2019 Meadow 12 Drive and Alma. And I just want to be clear that even though this says Rock and Roll Bike 13 Routes, these KSIs were not – did not involve youth. 14 15 Commissioner Templeton: That's what I was trying to figure out because I hadn't heard of any 16 KSIs during that time frame in this location. 17 18 Sylvia Star-Lack: Right. So we just over-... 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Templeton: [Okay 48:24]. 1 2 Sylvia Star-Lack: ...-laid the map of our school routes, which are – which is kind of a proxy for 3 roads that we think are low stress. 4 5 Commissioner Templeton: Okay. Thank you for clarifying that, Miss... 6 7 Sylvia Star-Lack: Mm-hm. 8 9 Commissioner Templeton: ...Star-Lack. Let's advance to the children collisions slide with the 10 potential solutions. If we implemented all 4 of these things, would we have no red dots on this? 11 Looking back? I understand we can't predict the future. But would these 4 things prevent those 12 3 deaths or KSIs? Or do we know? 13 14 Sylvia Star-Lack: So these are listed as potential countermeasures. Any actual countermeasure 15 chosen would have to fit the context of that road or that location. I don't have the specifics of 16 all of these of these KSIs and so I can't really answer your question. 17 18 Commissioner Templeton: That's okay. And I recognize it's a little bit of a difficult question to 19 approach. But the reason I mention it is someone mentioned Vision Zero. That's been on my 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. mind here during this whole presentation, as how do we make this place not have KSIs for our 1 pedestrians and bicyclists. And when I have listened to this presentation, I'm feeling like I don't 2 have any surety that we would have solved the problems and I'd love to have that. Whenever 3 we do decide on the countermeasures, I think that would be a really helpful... 4 5 Female: Yeah. 6 7 Commissioner Templeton: ...conversation and a healing conversation and a comforting 8 conversation to have. I am – when I'm working on bicycle safety, I talk with an activist in our 9 community and sometimes I tell her I don't feel safe biking as much as I used to. And her 10 counterpoint is biking is safer than other types of vehicles and we have a very relatively 11 community to bike in and we want to encourage more of that. And... 12 13 Female: [Inaudible 51:08]. 14 15 Commissioner Templeton: ...it's a conflict in my heart of how do we address that because we 16 love our community and we want to make it safer to bike in, that we love our children and we 17 want them to be safe. So I will stop now. [I think I'm 51:21] on the verge of having an emotional 18 moment. But my point is let's make sure we're addressing the human side when we come back 19 and talk about how we're going to address things that have already happened and reduce the 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. likelihood of them happening again. It's not just a statistics game. It's not just making our 1 numbers better and the bar charts. It's people's lives. So thank you. 2 3 Chair Summa: Thank you. Commissioner Hechtman? 4 5 Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. So first, thanks to staff. This is a long coordinated process 6 and I think this is a great step in that process to have you collect the data, reveal it in ways that 7 are easily digestible, not just by commissioners but by members of our community and to start 8 connecting that data to solutions. Globally sort of macro at this point but realizing that as we go 9 forward, it's going to become micro and so I think that's terrific. I wanted to get a little bit of 10 clarity on a couple of things. If you can pull up the slide that had the high injury network. 11 12 Ashlee Takushi: Sorry. Let me pull that up and then I will share my screen. Sorry. Apologies. 13 14 Commissioner Hechtman: There you go. Thank you. So the diagram on the right side of the 15 screen, I think – I'm pretty sure is the same as figure 5 in our Staff Report, which is on Packet 16 Page 13. So I was curious following a question by Commissioner Akin regarding the 63 percent 17 of collisions on 4 percent of Palo Alto streets. Before the meeting when I was reviewing this, I 18 was trying to identify what those streets were and so maybe you could help me with that. I 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. mean is it – are we talking about El Camino, Middlefield, maybe San Antonio and 1 other. What 1 are the streets in the 4 percent? Or Charleston? 2 3 Ashlee Takushi: Yeah. So the HIN covers El Camino Real, Middlefield, Embarcadero, Charleston, 4 Oregon Expressway, University Avenue, San Antonio Road and a few others that gets into kind 5 of the 1-percent range. Those add up to the 63 percent. And then just looking at mileage of the 6 total roadway network, that's where we get the 4 percent of Palo Alto streets. 7 8 Commissioner Hechtman: Got it. So... 9 10 Ashlee Takushi: So – yeah – the... 11 12 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 13 14 Ashlee Takushi: ...mileage. 15 16 Commissioner Hechtman: All right. So it's a linear – basically linear calculation. So you're – for 17 example, El Camino is included and that's the whole length of it basically as it passes through 18 Palo Alto? Is that right? 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Ashlee Takushi: Yes. That's correct. 1 2 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. All right. So second question on this figure 5 looking at 3 Embarcadero, which is shown on this figure 5, I see 1 red dot and I'm wondering if that's how 4 many you see. It's over maybe Lou-... 5 6 Ashlee Takushi: [Inaudible 55:23]. 7 8 Commissioner Hechtman: ...-is area. Yeah, right there. 9 10 Ashlee Takushi: So this also took into account the severe injury collisions as well. So as you can 11 see, the blue dots are also are also spread throughout the whole corridor so that's why that was 12 another consideration for including this on the high injury network. 13 14 Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. And I have no issue with that. 15 16 Ashlee Takushi: [Inaudible 55:49]. 17 18 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Hechtman: I just want to make sure I'm reading this diagram right, which says 1 that on Embarcadero there was 1 KSI [or 56:00] actually 1 KSI on this side of the freeway. It 2 looks like there's another 1 on the other side of 101. Am I seeing the same thing you are? 3 4 Ashlee Takushi: Yes. Sorry. 5 6 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 7 8 Ashlee Takushi: [Inaudible 56:13]. 9 10 Commissioner Hechtman: Oh, go ahead. 11 12 Consultant Alexandra Lee-Gardner: If I could just add to part of the reason that Embarcadero is 13 on this network is that we consider KSIs and I think that there's another 1 hidden right by the B 14 in Embarcadero... 15 16 Commissioner Hechtman: [Inaudible 56:30]. 17 18 Alexandra Lee-Gardner: ...Road. But we – because there are KSIs and also whether the collision 19 – whether or not it was a KSI involved a pedestrian or bicyclist... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. 2 3 Alexandra Lee-Gardner: ...and youth and senior collisions were also weighed in this kind of 4 calculation. 5 6 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. Thank you. And as I said, I've got no issue with including 7 Embarcadero. I'm just trying to understand how many KSIs there were. And I do see that 1 8 that's hidden under the – near the B. Can you go next to the slide on the residential arterials, 9 which has its own map? There we go. So in this slide, it features Embarcadero and I see 4 KSIs 10 and this 1 has ignored east of the freeway, which is fine but – so I'm seeing 4 KSIs here and only 11 2 on figure 5. And so I just I want to – obviously the same data is driving all of these diagrams. 12 Some of them are you're peeling away data, like there's a similar 1 that you showed after this 13 that's alcohol related. So I understand why on Embarcadero there would be fewer red dots if 14 not all of these red dots were alcohol related. But this 1 I think is intended to show all of them 15 and so I just want to point out to staff to maybe help us understand why I'm seeing different 16 numbers or if it's because things are being hidden. Think about that in future versions of these 17 diagrams. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Sylvia Star-Lack: Yeah. I think – and, [Allie 58:20], tell me if I'm wrong – it looks like the data 1 query for this was actually vehicle-to-vehicle-only collisions and not all collisions. 2 3 Alexandra Lee-Gardner: That is correct but those would be included in the HIN network. So I 4 think it's just a matter of them being kind of hidden [inaudible 58:40]. 5 6 Sylvia Star-Lack: Yeah. They got – okay. It got – it's the layers of the dots on... 7 8 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 9 10 Sylvia Star-Lack: Okay. 11 12 Commissioner Hechtman: All right. So... 13 14 Alexandra Lee-Gardner: So we can move [inaudible 58:47] visible. 15 16 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. Just so other people won't be confused, right? 17 18 Sylvia Star-Lack: Thanks for that. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Hechtman: Let's see. Those are my questions. Thanks again. 1 2 Chair Summa: Thank you. I am not see-, oh... 3 4 Commissioner Reckdahl: [Oh 59:03]. 5 6 Chair Summa: ...Commissioner Reckdahl? 7 8 Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah. This will be somewhat repetitive but this is really good stuff. A 9 lot of the Staff Report had a lot of good data and not a lot of conclusions. I know that's 10 challenging to do but... 11 12 Female: Right. 13 14 Commissioner Reckdahl: ...best you can as you're sorting this data, we need actual data and so 15 if you can find some causation, find some ways to flush out the causation. That would be very 16 good. 17 18 Female: [Mm-hm 59:28]. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Reckdahl: I had some of the same concerns about, for example, on Charleston, it 1 shows a lot of dots on Charleston. I bike on Charleston. It's so much safer today than it was 2 before. 3 4 Female: Right. 5 6 Commissioner Reckdahl: And so volumes of those roads really play a part I think. Also like on 7 Packet Page 11, they talk about 16 percent of collisions are senior citizens. What percentage of 8 drivers are senior citizens? And maybe they're in family. Maybe they're bigger. I'm not sure if 16 9 percent is big or small for that. And so having the denominator for some of these things would 10 be very useful for trying to get out causation. That's all. Thank you. 11 12 Sylvia Star-Lack: Thanks. Thanks for that comment. I did want to mention something about 13 Charleston because I also saw those collisions and wanted to note that Charleston is still not 14 completed, that corridor. Charleston and Arastradero corridor is still not completed. We are still 15 waiting to stripe the bike lanes across El Camino Real. I also went through and looked at the 16 collisions that appear on this map and mapped them according to which part of Charleston was 17 completed at the time and the parts – essentially most of the collisions that happened were 18 happening on the parts that were not – had not been constructed on. So the more interesting 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. data, I think, will come in the future, once we have a completed corridor and then we can do a 1 real before and after collision analysis. 2 3 Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah. If we upgrade intersections, the same thing, look at before and 4 after. That would... 5 6 Sylvia Star-Lack: Right. 7 8 Commissioner Reckdahl: ...be really helpful for causation. 9 10 Sylvia Star-Lack: Yeah. I just – I found that this dataset, because of how we – because of the 11 construction period, it really kind of muddied the water. 12 13 Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah. 14 15 Sylvia Star-Lack: It's not really great. You can't really see what really is happening... 16 17 Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah. 18 19 Sylvia Star-Lack: ...on... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Reckdahl: But... 2 3 Sylvia Star-Lack: ...Charleston. 4 5 Commissioner Reckdahl: ...also Charleston, there's a lot of kids on Charleston and Aras... 6 7 Sylvia Star-Lack: Mm-hm. 8 9 Commissioner Reckdahl: ...-tradero, so you'd expect them to have accidents especially... 10 11 Female: [Inaudible 1:01:37]. 12 13 Commissioner Reckdahl: ...bicycle to bicycle. 14 15 Sylvia Star-Lack: Yeah. It's... 16 17 Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Sylvia Star-Lack: ...not clear. I can't tell from the data that we have right here how many of 1 these are – oh, wait. Hang on. Let me just – let me take a look here how many of these are – oh, 2 they are – are these bike collisions? They are bicycle involved. Okay. They are bicycle involved. 3 All right. Thank you. 4 5 Chair Summa: Thank you. I'm not seeing any other lights. So unless somebody – 1 of my 6 colleagues would like to add more. Thank you very much for the presentation. I think it's a good 7 start. I hope we can get to real specificity at locations. A lot of these things sound kind of like 8 boilerplate options and I think we need to look at these really – some of these intersections 9 very, very carefully. But I think that's a – I assume... 10 11 Sylvia Star-Lack: That's... 12 13 Chair Summa: ...that's... 14 15 Sylvia Star-Lack: That's the work... 16 17 Chair Summa: ...down the road. 18 19 Sylvia Star-Lack: That's the work that's coming. [Inaudible 1:02:40]. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Chair Summa: Yes. 2 3 Sylvia Star-Lack: Thank you. 4 5 Chair Summa: So [not – I know 1:02:41]. So that's not a problem. I was wondering if you 6 thought the survey response was good? Number of surveys... 7 8 Sylvia Star-Lack: I mean for a City-run survey, it actually... 9 10 Chair Summa: Seemed pretty high. 11 12 Sylvia Star-Lack: ...did well. Yeah. 13 14 Chair Summa: Yeah. Okay. And then I wanted to ask a question about lights – more lighting at 15 night and there are certain cities that don't have any streetlights. Around here I think they tend 16 to be sort of semi-rural places maybe and maybe that's the reason but like Saratoga and I think 17 Los Altos or Los Altos Hills. Los Altos Hills, I'm sure. Is there some way to understand the 18 correlation between lighting and safety? 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Sylvia Star-Lack: Ashlee, I don't know if you want to say anything about lighting and safety. One 1 thing I noticed just even in my own neighborhood in Midtown, sometimes there are a lot of 2 leaves on those trees that block the streetlights. So I have the same question as you and I 3 wonder about streetlight placement and trees and if you can – I've noticed when the trees 4 drop, I see more things on the – when the trees drop leaves, I find that the lighting is better on 5 the street. So that's a good question. And, Ashlee, do you have any feedback on that? 6 7 Ashlee Takushi: Not at this time. I think that is helpful information for us to kind of look into as 8 we prepare the report as well and to kind of include more information down the road. I know 9 that John Hopkins is also doing some studies about lighting and nighttime collisions. So I'm 10 happy to share those with the commissioners as well. 11 12 Chair Summa: Thank... 13 14 Sylvia Star-Lack: Thanks. 15 16 Chair Summa: ...you. That would be very interesting. And then I think that is it for me. I see that 17 Commissioner Templeton has her light on. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Templeton: Thank you, Chair. Sorry about that. I forgot to mention something. 1 But before I get into that, I just wanted to say that the lighting, the further you get away from 2 the highway, the more the lighting is a blessing and a curse and I encourage anybody who's 3 looking into it to look at maybe ways to do more with reflective surfaces to help us find the 4 roads easier and to see objects like cars or bikes. Don't need to say more about that right now. 5 But the other thing no one yet mentioned it but the patterns in the collisions and KSIs that we 6 saw show a need to improve the flow and safety of El Camino. So it was the first thing we talked 7 about today before we got to this agenda item, so I assume it's separate. But wow, that data is 8 very compelling. So just wanted to call that out. Thank you. 9 10 Chair Summa: Okay. Now I'm really not seeing any other lights. So I want to thank our 11 consultants and our staff for that presentation and we look forward to the next installment. 12 13 Sylvia Star-Lack: Thank you. 14 15 Chair Summa: Thank you very much. All right. So that means we're going to move on to our 16 action items. 17 18 Action Items 19 Public Comment is Permitted. Applicants/Appellant Teams: Fifteen (15) minutes, plus three (3) minutes rebuttal. 20 All others: Five (5) minutes per speaker. 21 22 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 3. 4075 El Camino Way [23PLN-00202, Palo Alto Commons]: Consideration of a 1 Planned Community (PC) Project Amending an Existing PC (PC-5116) to Allow 2 Additions to an Existing 121 Unit Assisted Living and Memory Care Facility. The 3 Additions Would Include 18 Assisted Living Units. Environmental Assessment: 4 Pending. Zoning District: PC-5116 (Planned Community). 5 6 Chair Summa: The first 1 we have is legislative but we're going to do disclosures for it. It was 7 suggested at premeeting that we should. And that's 4075 El Camino Way, Palo Alto Commons 8 Consideration Planned Community Project Amendment. So we can just go down the line 9 starting with Commissioner Templeton for disclosures if you don't mind. 10 11 Commissioner Templeton: I have no disclosures and I haven't been contacted in any way about 12 being within any kind of radius, although I live across the street in Barron Park, so I think it's 13 fine. 14 15 Chair Summa: Thanks. 16 17 Commissioner Hechtman: No disclosures. 18 19 Vice-Chair Chang: I visited the site today but I actually have a close family friend who's there 20 right now, so I've been there quite a bit in the last 2 months. That's the only disclosure. 21 22 Chair Summa: I also visited the site today. 23 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Lu: I visited the site and just walked around the block. 2 3 Commissioner Reckdahl: I visited the site but I had no conversations. 4 5 Commissioner Akin: I also visited the site. No other interaction. 6 7 Chair Summa: Excellent. Thank you. So we can go ahead and I believe Miss Kallas will be giving 8 us our Staff Report. 9 10 Female: Miss Kallas is uploading her staff presentation and... 11 12 Chair Summa: Thank you. 13 14 Female: [Yes 1:07:39]. 15 16 Female: [Inaudible 1:07:42]. 17 18 Planner Emily Kallas: Hi. Good evening. My name is Emily Kallas and I am the planner for this 19 project. This evening we're reviewing 4075 El Camino Way, a planned community amendment. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. This proposal which is an amendment to an existing planned community project allows for the 1 construction of 18 additional assisted living units to an existing 121-unit assisted living facility. 2 There's no change to the overall building height proposed. However, some of these proposed 3 additions would slightly encroach into the daylight plane. It's also important to note that 4 assisted living, although many people live there, these are not considered housing units 5 towards our housing goals and assisted living is considered a commercial land use. This map 6 shows the location of the project along El Camino Way, which is near El Camino Real but its 7 own street. There's also a slight frontage of this building on West Meadow Drive and to the rear 8 of the property are single family houses along Wilkie Way. In terms of process, this is the same 9 planned community process that a new planned community or planned home zoning process 10 would be going through. This project had a Council prescreening in August and shortly 11 thereafter followed with filing their formal application. This is the first of the Planning and 12 Transportation Commission meetings after which the next steps would be to go to the 13 Architectural Review Board. After the Architectural Review Board gives a recommendation, it 14 would return to the PTC before going to Council for a final decision. This shows the site plan. 15 The highlighted areas are the additions to the building. Most of these are filling in existing 16 stepped-back areas to a height of 3 stories in most places, although 1 of them is only 2 stories. 17 Additionally, 2 new additions that include first-floor additions are proposed on the side that is 18 closest to the neighboring Goodwill store. The total addition is approximately 6,800 square 19 feet. It would have an up to 1 foot, 8 inch encroachment into the daylight plane and I have 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. some diagrams that better illustrate that later in the plan or later in the presentation. But no 1 change to the maximum building height or setbacks adjacent to the single-family homes are 2 proposed. This shows the project elevation as seen from the street. There are no additions on 3 this elevation, so this 1 mostly just shows the color changes and the architect will go into more 4 detail on this during their presentation. But this shows the elevation closest to the single-family 5 homes. The areas outlined with the dashed lines show the areas of the addition. This is one-half 6 of the rear facade. It is very long. And then on the next slide, it has the rest of the façade but I'll 7 give everyone another minute before moving on to the next slide. Then, as noted, this slide 8 shows the same view just further down the block. To the extent possible, the windows have 9 been oriented to not face directly into the single family yards, although this is primarily through 10 just following the existing precedent set by the other units. Additionally, you can see the 11 outlines of existing and proposed landscaping that will also help shield windows from those 12 views. This side shows the daylight plane protrusions as were per presented at the Council 13 prescreening. As you can see, there were several instances where the daylight plane protrusion 14 exceeded a full story's height. This is more than 10 feet. But the plans have been modified and 15 so what is in front of us this evening is an improvement where the maximum daylight plane 16 protrusion is limited to 1 foot, 8 inches. This is only 2 views. There are several views in the plan 17 set as well as key plans that show the – like where along the building these sections are taken 18 from. Another consideration for the neighboring single-family houses was the effect of the 19 shadows of the addition into neighboring yards. And so the plan set includes diagrams from 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. March, June and December demonstrating the impacts. This 1 is the largest impact during the 1 winter evening hours, specifically around 4 PM, with the left side showing what the existing 2 conditions are and the right side showing what the proposed changes would be outlined in red. 3 Other zoning considerations, since this is a planned community amendment, they are proposing 4 to make changes that go behind the development standards that the existing planned 5 community allows for. As noted, the daylight plane protrusion, also the interior yard setback 6 adjacent to the Goodwill store would be reducing from 8 feet to 6 feet. The density would be 7 increasing by the proposed 18 units. The rock coverage and FAR would increase by 8 approximately 700 feet and 6,800 feet respectively. And the parking is being studied. However, 9 per the required number of parking spaces for the use, there is an adequate number of parking 10 spaces currently provided. We have received a number of neighbor comments that are included 11 in the report and have been emailed to the Planning Commission over the last couple of days. 12 Some that I wanted to highlight were concerns about noise, both construction noise and 13 operational noise and a noise study is being prepared. Neighbors have expressed the desire for 14 the setbacks adjacent to the single-family homes to be maintained as is and to consider having 15 the addition be on other parts of the building. As noted, concerns about the shadows and lastly 16 concerns about parking and a parking study is also being prepared. The recommended motion 17 is that the Planning and Transportation Commission provide feedback and recommend moving 18 the project forward to the Architectural Review Board. This concludes my presentation and the 19 architect and owner team from WellQuest has also prepared a presentation. Thank you. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Chair Summa: Thank you very much. So we have another presentation? 2 3 Female: [Yeah :16:26]. 4 5 WellQuest Living Steve Sandholtz: I'm Steve Sandholtz with WellQuest. We are the 6 manager/operator of Palo Alto Commons and the Avant and are here representing WellQuest 7 and the Reller family that owns the property. I think you're all familiar with this community and 8 the service and care that it provides to seniors in Palo Alto. It's been an important of the senior 9 care service offering here for 35 years. And it is time for the property to get upgraded a little 10 bit. And we're in the process of doing that. So if you've been to the community recently, you've 11 recognized that we are doing construction. We're doing some renovations right now to 12 maintain just the quality of the community and make sure that we can maintain a very high 13 service level to the residents there for an extended period of time. So we're investing in the 14 community to make sure that it can continue to serve the senior population here in Palo Alto to 15 the best ability possible. When we presented this to City Council in August, we got a number of 16 comments and feedback that we have tried to be responsive to over the last few months in 17 both amending our plan and doing community outreach and studying impacts like parking and 18 other things that the addition we're now proposing would have. Recognizing the concern of the 19 back neighbors and what we would be doing if we expanded the building in that direction, the 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Council asked us to consider growing in other ways. They were very supportive of adding 1 additional units, recognizing the need for additional senior housing units in the marketplace. 2 And we did undertake that study. They primarily asked us if we could add a fourth floor but on 3 the front of the building that would have less of an impact. And unfortunately, that is just not 4 an economically feasible way to grow because it involves major changes to the entire building 5 structure and so it was not a viable way for us to proceed. But we did begin looking for ways 6 that we could accomplish the expansion, add some additional units with less impact on the 7 neighbors. As a result, we did come up with 3 locations, 2 that are kind of behind the Goodwill 8 building and 1 that's really anterior to the project between the Avant building and Palo Alto 9 Commons where we would add units that are basically coming from the ground up. So 7 of the 10 proposed additional 18 units are new from what our initial plan represented by putting – 11 building – adding additional structure in those locations. We then were trying to be responsive 12 to the need to get out of the daylight plane as much as possible and so we eliminated some 13 units along the back and we shrunk some units along the back so that we could bring them back 14 further from the property line and get out of the daylight plane. Whereas before we were 15 intruding 8 to 10 feet into the daylight plane. Now there's 5 locations along the back of the 16 building where we do intrude but it's limited to a maximum of 1 foot, 8 inches as was 17 mentioned in staff's report. I believe you've received a copy of our presentation on this. And I 18 won't belabor it because I think you're pretty familiar with what we're proposing. I'll just 19 mention a couple of quick highlights. It would take the total project that is currently – it is 121 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. units in Palo Alto Commons but with the Avant, it's a total of 165 units today, so the addition 1 would take it to 183. The existing parking spaces today are 99. With the additional units, our 2 parking requirement is 90, so we are sufficiently parked. I already mentioned and staff 3 mentioned as well the changes that we've made. There is an intrusion to the daylight plane but 4 we've minimized it to what's really just the parapet above the roofline in a few locations across 5 the back of the property. Additionally, we looked at a few different things. With the existing 6 parking, is it fully utilized today and the answer is no. We typically have about 30 empty parking 7 stalls. Our population doesn't drive for the most part. We provide transportation services for 8 our residents. And we also did an analysis of how your employees get to work and 60 percent 9 either use public transportation or rideshare. So when we looked at the additional staffing that 10 would be required to service up to 18 additional apartments in the project, we're probably 11 adding 2 staffing people per shift. Our largest shift has 52 people on during the middle of the 12 day. And if we used kind of the same utilization of public transportation and ridesharing, we're 13 probably talking about the need for 1 additional parking stall for the staff after the expansion. 14 We currently have 30 open stalls, so we still adequately – still have 29 spaces after the 15 expansion. We've also proposed to add some bike parking, an additional 6 spaces for our 16 employees that choose to get to work in that fashion. The City Council encouraged us to do 17 some community outreach and so we have reached out to our neighbors. We had an open 18 house a few months ago that we invited Council and neighbors to come. I'd love to say that we 19 had complete agreement with our neighbors as to the impact of this project. That wouldn't be 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. the case. But we have listened to their concerns. We're looking to take additional measures. 1 There's a lot of mature trees along the back property line that screen and shelter the Palo Alto 2 Commons building from our neighbors. We're proposing to plant some additional trees that 3 would further screen the building additions from our neighbors' perspective. So we're trying to 4 listen. It is our intent to be a good neighbor. We've been in the community for 35 years. I think 5 we have a good reputation and want to maintain that and that's very important both to 6 WellQuest and to the family. I won't go through any of the other slides in greater detail. But we 7 have a number of exhibits that kind of show where the building is growing what we've done to 8 kind of adjust to [stray 1:23:37] out of the daylight plane as much as possible. But happy to 9 answer any questions you might have about Palo Alto Commons and our proposed expansion. 10 11 Chair Summa: Thank you so much for your presentation. And I do see that Commissioner 12 Hechtman has a light on. Oh, no. It was a legacy light. So I thought we would go to clarifying 13 questions first and then to the public and then we'll bring it back to – for discussion. So 14 Commissioner Chang and then Commissioner Akin. 15 16 Vice-Chair Chang: Hi. Thank you so much for the graphics. It is helpful to see them in the form 17 that you have presented versus the plans. 18 19 Steve Sandholtz: Yeah. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Vice-Chair Chang: So my first question is about the daylight plane and this is with respect to 2 what was in our packet and also I'm going to say it's page A5.7 in the plans. So this is the – it's 3 the elevations that show the daylight plane and many little diagrams. So if you look at Packet 4 Page, I think it's 49, it seems that there's a different daylight plane being used. So 1 is at a – 5 they're at different angles. I think you can see it even in the – and so I can't tell looking at these 6 2 diagrams how much of the change is due to using a 45-degree line versus a 30- or 60-degree 7 line, depending on which way you're going at it. And the reason I'm asking about it is because it 8 would make a pretty big difference in terms of what protrudes into the daylight plane. 9 10 Male: [Inaudible 1:25:52]. 11 12 Vice-Chair Chang: Yeah. Slide 9. So slide 9 shows 2 of the little drawings that we have in our 13 packets. 14 15 Male: [Inaudible 1:26:28]. 16 17 Planner Kallas: So they are all supposed to be 45 degree angles. That is how the daylight plane 18 is measured. So... 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Vice-Chair Chang: Well I was under the understanding that with a PC that's abutting a 1 residential property that the daylight plane is supposed to be at a different angle. So if you look 2 at Packet Page 49, that's the other angle. It's not a 45-degree line. It's a 30-60-90 triangle if you 3 look at – rather than a 45. So it's like for every 3 feet and the slope is different. 4 5 Female: [Inaudible 1:27:34]? 6 7 Female: Okay. 8 9 Vice-Chair Chang: You can even see it looking at the drawings. It's a different slope. 10 11 Male: Yeah. 12 13 Commissioner Reckdahl: So compare Slide 9 with Packet Page 40-... 14 15 Female: [Inaudible 1:27:53]. 16 17 Commissioner Reckdahl: ...49. 18 19 Female: [Inaudible 1:27:54] Slide 9 [inaudible 1:27:56]. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Reckdahl: Slide 9... 2 3 Female: [Inaudible 1:27:57]... 4 5 Commissioner Reckdahl: ...versus... 6 7 Female: ...[inaudible 1:27:58]... 8 9 Commissioner Reckdahl: ...Packet Page [40 1:27:59]. 10 11 Female: ...[inaudible 1:27:59]... 12 13 Commissioner Reckdahl: [Yeah 1:27:59]. 14 15 Planner Kallas: Well I mean there's 2 – there's different – the angle is rel-, or I think the angle is 16 all the same. 17 18 Vice-Chair Chang: The angle's different. It's... 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Planner Kallas: They're different [inaudible 1:28:13]... 1 2 Vice-Chair Chang: ...very different and... 3 4 Planner Kallas: ...[inaudible 1:28:14]. 5 6 Vice-Chair Chang: ...I'm concerned because there is, in our code, with respect to PCs that are... 7 8 Female: [Inaudible 1:28:23]. 9 10 Vice-Chair Chang: Well – yeah. That's my question. Are they supposed to be the same picture 11 because if they are and the building design hasn't changed... 12 13 Emily Kallas: So these are both proposed at 2 different points along the building. So one is 14 showing a part of the building where it's a 2-story addition. The other one is showing where it's 15 a... 16 17 Female: [No 1:28:49]. 18 19 Emily Kallas: ...3-story addition and there's 6 other... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Vice-Chair Chang: So... 2 3 Emily Kallas: ...scenarios... 4 5 Vice-Chair Chang: ...take 1 section. 6 7 Emily Kallas: ...shown in the... 8 9 Vice-Chair Chang: Right? 10 11 Emily Kallas: ...plans. 12 13 Vice-Chair Chang: Take Section G for example, which is... 14 15 Emily Kallas: Yeah. 16 17 Vice-Chair Chang: ...the same section, same point and it's an earlier proposal, if I understand, 18 and the current proposal and the slope is different and I don't think the building is different 19 because there's 2 floors existing and a third floor added on top of it. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Female: [Inaudible 1:29:13] G [inaudible 1:29:15]. That's still G. 2 3 Vice-Chair Chang: It's... 4 5 Female: [Inaudible 1:29:33]. 6 7 Vice-Chair Chang: Right. So if you look at Section G, there's 2 floors of... 8 9 Female: [Inaudible 1:29:40]. 10 11 Vice-Chair Chang: ...existing and then a third floor that goes on top of it right up to the edge of 12 the current existing. So that has to be the same building design as in Section G on the plan set 13 A5.7. And so that means there's been no change, if I understand corre-, is that correct, Mr... 14 15 Steve Sandholtz: Sandholtz. 16 17 Vice-Chair Chang: ...Sandholtz, Steve? 18 19 Steve Sandholtz: Yeah. As far as I know we have used 45... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Female: [Inaudible 1:30:10]. 2 3 Steve Sandholtz: ...degrees as the measurement angle for the daylight plane in all of our 4 analyses. 5 6 Vice-Chair Chang: Then because this is the – so the other 1 that I'm looking at that's not a 45 7 degree angle... 8 9 Female: [Inaudible 1:30:24]. 10 11 Vice-Chair Chang: ...is where there's – that's – so that was an attachment that looked like it 12 came from a letter from Irwin Partners. 13 14 Steve Sandholtz: This is Daniel Bowman... 15 16 Female: Okay. 17 18 Steve Sandholtz: ...of Irwin... 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Female: [Inaudible 1:30:38]. 1 2 Steve Sandholtz: ...Partners. 3 4 Female: Yeah. 5 6 Steve Sandholtz: He's our architect and maybe... 7 8 Female: [I was 1:30:39]... 9 10 Female: Yeah. 11 12 Steve Sandholtz: ...he can answer... 13 14 Amy French: And I... 15 16 Steve Sandholtz: ...that [inaudible 1:30:41]... 17 18 Amy French: ...was... 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Steve Sandholtz: ...[inaudible 1:30:41]. 1 2 Amy French: ...going to jump in. I'm sorry. But we are trying to look at what you were looking at 3 and it seems that there was something in the packet from an earl-, it pulled off the web that 4 was from September... 5 6 Planner Kallas: Yeah. This is the older... 7 8 Amy French: Old... 9 10 Planner Kallas: ... plan set. 11 12 Amy French: ...set. 13 14 Vice-Chair Chang: Right. So I understand that that's the older plan set. That's probably what was 15 shown to City Council, correct? 16 17 Female: Yes. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. So my question is where it looks like there was a major daylight plane 1 incursion, for example in Section G, there is no longer a major daylight plan incursion in the 2 new Section G and the only difference there is not in the building design but it's in the slope of 3 the daylight plane line. So my question is what is the correct slope that should be used 4 because... 5 6 Female: [Inaudible 1:31:28]. 7 8 Vice-Chair Chang: ...if you use 1 slope the daylight plane incursion is awful and if you use the 9 other slope the daylight plane incursion is not as bad. 10 11 Irwin Partners Architects Daniel Bowman: Yeah. So I could answer that 1. So originally – yeah – 12 it was the wrong slope and we corrected it, so Section G might not have any building design 13 different because it is way under the daylight plane but there are other sections. We did pull 14 the building back at least 6 to 8 feet in certain sections. 15 16 Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. That's helpful to understand. Thank you. 17 18 Daniel Bowman: [Yeah 1:32:00]. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Vice-Chair Chang: So then my question for staff is a follow on to that – is according to my 1 understanding of PC Code, it says that we're supposed to not being using a 45 degree but a 30-2 degree line if it's a PC next to a residential. 3 4 Amy French: So – yeah. Sec-, I'll jump in. Our Title 18 Chapter 1838150, Item E... 5 6 Vice-Chair Chang: Right. 7 8 Amy French: ...talks about daylight plane when it's a PC next to an R1 or RE or R2, then it's got 9 this daylight plane that starts at 10 feet and then [it 1:32:37] increases at a slope of 3 feet for 10 each 6 feet of distance. So that's the... 11 12 Vice-Chair Chang: [Correct 1:32:43]. Right. 13 14 Amy French: ...applicable daylight plane. 15 16 Vice-Chair Chang: Which is not a 45 degree line. And so but I'm wondering whether the current 17 new drawings are using the correct daylight plane per our code. 18 19 Female: [Inaudible 1:33:07]... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Male: [Inaudible 1:33:08]. 2 3 Female: ...[inaudible 1:33:08] to the daylight plane and... 4 5 Male: Yeah. 6 7 Female: ...I think that's [inaudible 1:33:11]. 8 9 Male: [Inaudible 1:33:11]. 10 11 Female: [Inaudible 1:33:12] used for the encroachment area. 12 13 Female: [Inaudible 1:33:15]. 14 15 Female: [Inaudible 1:33:17]... 16 17 Female: [Inaudible 1:33:17]. 18 19 Female: ...[inaudible 1:33:18]. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Male: [Inaudible 1:33:19]. 2 3 Female: [Inaudible 1:33:19]... 4 5 Male: ...[inaudible 1:33:20]. 6 7 Female: [Oh 1:33:21] 8 9 Daniel Bowman: So our PC originally is the 10 feet out to 45 degrees and that's where that 45 10 degrees came from, is the original PC. And then it's possible the municipal code does say – yeah 11 – the 2 to 3 but under the... 12 13 Vice-Chair Chang: So I don't have the language of the original PC in front of me but does staff 14 know if that daylight plane is specified in the PC? Because 1 of my biggest questions was what 15 has changed since the initial – since the current building was built [inaudible 1:33:59] step-back. 16 Those step-backs that are built into the building were built there for a reason. And this is the 17 same question that Council Member Lauing asked and so I'm just trying to look at all the 18 drawings and trying to figure out... 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Male: Sure. 1 2 Vice-Chair Chang: ...what I'm looking at. 3 4 Amy French: So I'm not intimately familiar with the drawings. I do see that this code section 5 could have some level of interpretation and I don't have the answer. But if it's considered 6 residential in the past, the PC may have been considered residential and, therefore, that's what 7 the past daylight plane was. And how we look at this use is commercial because it's assisted 8 living rather than residential per se. So that's when you have to look at both parts of the 9 paragraph here in the code. But I don't have the answer about how the plans match. 10 11 Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. Well so that's – hopefully when we look at this again, we'll have more 12 information on that. My follow-up question and the reason why I was actually delving into this 13 level of detail is what I was – I'm trying to look at the – what Council had seen in a prescreen 14 and then understand what you guys have shaved off. And so I was wondering if you could show 15 us 1 of those elevations where there are red sections and show us which were the areas where 16 you have pushed back 6 feet or have removed units or – and if you could go into a little bit 17 more detail there because we'd – can't – there's nothing in what we've seen where we can... 18 19 Male: Right. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Vice-Chair Chang: ...see the difference [inaudible 1:35:42]... 2 3 Steve Sandholtz: Right. [Inaudible 1:35:42]... 4 5 Vice-Chair Chang: ...[inaudible 1:35:42]. 6 7 Steve Sandholtz: ...the prior submittal so you're looking at this but you can't tell what changes 8 were made. 9 10 Vice-Chair Chang: Correct. 11 12 Steve Sandholtz: Yeah. The locations, were we moved it back by 6 feet. 13 14 Vice-Chair Chang: Yeah. So if you could step us through that, that would help us understand 15 and help us put City Council's comments into perspective. 16 17 Female: Yeah. 18 19 Female: [Inaudible 1:36:03]. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Daniel Bowman: In your packets A2.3A, there are some units in it on the top left that – they 2 have been pulled back at a 45-degree angle. Originally they were more of a square shape of 3 unit and so it has been significantly pulled back on at least those 2 units. And that's just an 4 example. There were other units that have been, pulled back to being less square and being 5 more with a 45-degree cut. 6 7 Vice-Chair Chang: Thank you. What I was really wishing for was sort of that A5.7 view of before 8 and after to – so that we could see what was done for the daylight plane. Second question – 9 clarifying question is around parking. So when I visited the site today, I counted 7 spaces – 6 or 10 7, I think depending on whether you're counting the – there's a special ADA vehicle space. And 11 so but I had seen in the packet that there's actually supposed to be 14 visitor spots. So where 12 are the additional 7 visitor spots right now? 13 14 Male: Are they in the garage? 15 16 Steve Sandholtz: They're in the garage. So they're... 17 18 Vice-Chair Chang: Insi-, behind the gate or in front of the gate? 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Steve Sandholtz: Behind. 1 2 Male: [Yeah 1:37:43]. 3 4 Male: [Inaudible 1:37:44]. 5 6 Vice-Chair Chang: Oh, so they're not really accessible as visitors – for visitors to use? Is that 7 correct? 8 9 Steve Sandholtz: I'm going to check with – we're fortunate to have to have Li Li here who is our 10 executive director at Palo Alto Commons. 11 12 Female: [Inaudible 1:37:59]. 13 14 Steve Sandholtz: Yeah. [Inaudible 1:38:06] access to the garage. 15 16 Palo Alto Commons Executive Director Li Li: Yeah. We have the visitors to access to the garage 17 and also there are about 9 at the front and also another additional 8 before [inaudible 1:38:18] 18 gate. So those are a total 17, which is accessible to the guests as well. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. Because right now those spaces that are in front of the gate had big 1 signs that said staff or employee parking only or something like that. So I'm just – I just want to 2 know where these spaces are supposed to be that are referred to. But that – so it sounds like 3 it's supposed to be those spaces that are in front of the gate? 4 5 Li Li: Correct. 6 7 Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. 8 9 Li Li: Yes. 10 11 Vice-Chair Chang: Thanks. And then final question regarding parking, the applicant presentation 12 talked about 99 spaces and that those 99 spaces are for Avant and Palo Alto Commons in 13 combination. Is that correct? And so with respect to – this is a question to staff – with respect 14 to how things are parked for just Palo Alto Commons, is the parking ratio still good with the 15 addition of the 18 units? Or are we allowed to look at the site as a whole because the reality of 16 how the parking functions at – when I visited the site [inaudible 1:39:41] Avant parking and Palo 17 Alto Commons parking and they are... 18 19 Emily Kallas: Correct. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Vice-Chair Chang: ...separate. 2 3 Emily Kallas: The parking is separate as indicated on the coversheet of the plans. The 4 requirement for this side is 57 and that is what is provided. 5 6 Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. Thank you. That's it for my questions right now. 7 8 Chair Summa: Okay. Commissioner Akin and then Commissioner Hechtman. 9 10 Commissioner Akin: Thank you, Chair. Well that's a tough act to follow. One of the 11 disadvantages of using vegetation as a privacy screen is that because it's closer to the property 12 line it tends to increase shading on the adjacent properties. So the question I had is whether 13 you considered using either privacy glazing or trellises in front of the windows to provide 14 privacy other than planting vegetation, which might cause more shading. 15 16 Steve Sandholtz: We haven't looked at that in any great detail. Most of the vegetation that is 17 providing screening right now is existing. The new trees that we're planting sit back off the 18 fence line as well, so they're not right on the fence line like some of the existing trees. But I 19 don't know that we've looked at any other screening. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Chair Summa: Thank you. Commissioner Hechtman? Oh, no. 2 3 Male: [Inaudible 1:41:16]. 4 5 Chair Summa: No light? I don't know. It's a mystery. Commissioner Templeton? Okay. There 6 must be a mouse turning on my lights up here. Back to – so thank you for that clarification. I will 7 say it appears to me in the code the calculation for daylight plane when it abuts – a lot line 8 abuts a low-density residential, it's very clear and there's only 1 way to interpret it. And I – 9 though I'm not the mathematician that some of my colleagues are, it does seem like it hasn't 10 been done correctly. And so that's a problem because then the incursion into the daylight plane 11 is even greater than [what was 1:42:10] already there. The parking also is kind of a mystery. 12 When I did a site visit, there were not 14 visitor parking spots. There were 6 and 1 ADA van and 13 there's a little circulation space left over but that's what's marked in the front, from my 14 observation. And the parking garage was open into the gated portion and looked to be 100 – it 15 was 100 percent full. So I don't know really how many spaces [this are 1:42:43] because your 16 slides have 99 and I think Commissioner Chang reckoned that that was probably both buildings 17 and this building has to be parked separately and the Avant has to be parked separately. And 18 then also this says in the Attachment B on the table – zoning comparison table, it said... 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Female: Packet Page? 1 2 Chair Summa: Packet Page 27. It says 57 spaces required and 57 there. But then on Packet Page 3 22, it says the applicant clarified that of the 55 spaces on the site, 41 are dedicated to on-site 4 staff, 14 are for visitors, and it doesn't – the numbers don't add up. So I think – and the parking 5 in this specific area is really crazy because I'm sure you know El Camino Way is solidly parked all 6 the time. And in fact, El Camino in that location on both sides is fully parked. And when I went 7 there, I had to park on Wilkie Way and Wilkie Way is pretty parked up also. I had to go to the 8 very end of Wilkie Way. But you can see where we need some assurance about this location, 9 that it isn't going to have parking issues and – you have 1? Oh. So I think we need to clarify both 10 the daylight plane requirements under our current code, not whatev-, because they're asking to 11 amend a PC. So we open up the PC – original PC and amend it but it has to be done according to 12 our current laws. And then the parking really needs to be sort of understood better and 13 unpacked. It doesn't feel like there's 14 visitor spaces. And everything is totally parked. The 14 Goodwill is totally parked. I mean it's really a difficult parking situation on that little street. And 15 I think everybody who's ever been there trying to get something done knows that. It's also a 16 very sensitive area because it's a bike route and it's a crazy 1 – safe bike route. So those are my 17 main concerns and I think they coincide with the concerns of the Council last August and you 18 have made improvements and we really appreciate you wanting to add more capacity and 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. fixing the building up and – but we have to get these 2 things right. So those are my concerns at 1 this point. Do I have other comments? 2 3 Male: [Inaudible 1:45:34]... 4 5 Chair Summa: [And 1:45:35] questions? 6 7 Male: …[inaudible 1:45:35]. 8 9 Chair Summa: Oh, yeah. Go ahead. 10 11 Male: [Inaudible 1:45:38] I'm just pointing out that's all we're doing right now before public 12 comment is... 13 14 Chair Summa: Yeah. I know. 15 16 Male: ...is our technical... 17 18 Chair Summa: Okay. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Male: ...questions. So I don't have any. 1 2 Chair Summa: Okay. 3 4 Female: [Inaudible 1:45:46]. 5 6 Female: [Inaudible 1:45:48] this... 7 8 Emily Kallas: I just wanted to provide clarification on the parking numbers. So because for the 9 purposes of the zoning code ADA spaces count as 2 parking spaces and as the plans indicate, 10 there's 2 ADA spaces. So there's 55 parking spaces but it's counted as 57 parking spaces. 11 Additionally, the information provided by the applicant, while very helpful to give us an idea of 12 what's going on, is not the same as the parking study that I mentioned in my presentation as 13 being prepared, which will be prepared by 1 of our transportation consultants. 14 15 Chair Summa: And, I'm sure that parking study will be useful but we didn't have it for this... 16 17 Female: [Correct 1:46:36]. 18 19 Chair Summa: ...meeting. Anyway I think if there's... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Amy French: Sorry. And I have 1 more... 2 3 Chair Summa: Oh... 4 5 Amy French: ...thing... 6 7 Chair Summa: [Yes 1:46:39]. 8 9 Amy French: ...to add. 10 11 Chair Summa: Sorry. 12 13 Amy French: Because the earlier question was about that code section or how that related, so 14 we did locate the original PC for Palo Alto Commons and that was called residential and so that 15 section of the code that says if it's at least 60 percent residential then then daylight plane is the 16 same identical to the daylight plane of the most restrictive residential district. So that's why 17 back in the day this was cons-, Palo Alto Commons was called residential in the PC ordinance. 18 19 Vice-Chair Chang: To clarify though, has the use changed since then, so it was... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Amy French: No. It's the same use. 2 3 Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. But for the purposes of the PC – the initial PC, it was called... 4 5 Amy French: It was... 6 7 Vice-Chair Chang: ...resi-... 8 9 Amy French: ...called out... 10 11 Vice-Chair Chang: ...-dential. 12 13 Amy French: ...as residential. 14 15 Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. 16 17 Amy French: Housing residential [per 1:47:31] the elderly. 18 19 Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Chair Summa: Do you have a... 2 3 Commissioner Lu: Oh, I... 4 5 Chair Summa: ...question? 6 7 Commissioner Lu: ...just want to confirm the bottom line of what you were just saying with 8 regards to the daylight plane. So you were saying that the daylight plane would be the most 9 restrictive residential daylight plane? 10 11 Amy French: It would be identi-, if this – well it was considered residential. So back in the day 12 when the Palo Alto Commons came about, the daylight plane, because it was at least 60 [some 13 1:47:56] percent residential, could be identical to the daylight plane requirements of the most 14 restrictive residential district abutting each such side or rear lot line. 15 16 Commissioner Lu: The most restrictive... 17 18 Amy French: So it [inaudible 1:48:10]... 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Lu: ...[inaudible 1:48:10] because... 1 2 Amy French: ...match... 3 4 Commissioner Lu: .. it's abutting... 5 6 Amy French: ...the R1. 7 8 Commissioner Lu: ...the R1 then it would match the R1? I... 9 10 Amy French: Yes. 11 12 Commissioner Lu: ...see. Got it. 13 14 PUBLIC COMMENTS 15 Chair Summa: Okay. If there are no other clarifying questions, I think we should go to the 16 public. And you will get 5 minutes and I think there's at least 1 group of 5 and you get 15 17 minutes. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Veronica Dao: Yes. First is a group of 5, Kevin Ji speaking on behalf of Janis L., Edwin Ong, Celine 1 Wang and Katie Peterson. 2 3 Kevin Ji: Hi, Commission. This actually brings back some memories because actually in college I 4 worked on a TIMS dataset project. So I just want to call out the previous project as being really 5 cool. I did a TIMS analysis for the TAMC, the Transportation Authority of Monterey County, and 6 it's still on their website and used for SB 1 grants. So I just wanted to say that was super-cool to 7 see staff prepare that in the last section. But my name is Kevin and I am a resident of 4072 8 Wilkie Way. I'm directly behind this property here. And I definitely would not say I am up to the 9 Palo Alto Municipal Code as much as commissioners here as well as staff. But I just wanted to 10 highlight some of the concerns that I have both kind of from a code perspective but also from 11 my personal experience having grown up in this house. First, I'd like to point out some of the 12 meeting information that was provided to City Council as of the August 27. I just want to call 13 out specifically in the Comprehensive Plan land use designations that in Policy L6.8 that we 14 should support existing regulations that preserve exposure to natural light for single-family 15 residences. And I also had a more clarifying question. I saw that in this document that Zoning 16 Code Section 18.38 for planning communities requires public benefit. I believe – and totally 17 correct me if I'm wrong – that when we're making amendments to planned communities that 18 we also need to abide by some of these zoning code sections in terms of this. So I just had a 19 clarifying question. I don't know about [that 1:50:30]. I'll continue with my minutes. But 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. primarily I want to circle back to what Commissioner Chang said. Most of my personal impacts 1 are from the daylight plane. I'll call your attention to Title 18.6060 – sorry, I don't really know 2 exactly the numbering – Section 4 Subsection B that massing and orientation of buildings that 3 respect and mirror massing neighborhood structures by stepping back upper stories to 4 transition to similar small scale buildings, which are the R1 neighborhoods that we live in today. 5 And that Subsections E suggests or recommends eliminating sun and shade impacts on abutting 6 properties such as ours. Just want to put a personal note that I loved growing up there and 1 of 7 the main activities I used to do with my parents was gardening in my backyard and so I would 8 love to continue being able to do that and hopefully the shade impacts would not cause harm 9 there. I also want to call out some of – I think I saw this but I totally – [I would refer 1:51:37] to 10 staff about this – that when building in some of these zones such that they are over 20 feet 11 higher than adjacent R1 neighborhoods that there needs to be a certain step-back. I saw that 12 somewhere in the code. Can't find again. I'll defer to staff if – and it's a very long code. I – [this 13 1:51:55] first time looking at it was last night, so please bear with me with this. I don't look at 14 the municipal code for fun. I hope none of you do either. Maybe you do if you're on this 15 Commission. So just please bear with me as I'm navigating through this. And these concerns 16 were also outlined as Commissioner Chang said by Council Member Burt, Mayor Stone and 17 Council Member Veenker at the last City Council meeting. I also want to personally talk about 18 some of the parking overflow. Sorry I'm picking on Commissioner Chang a lot. But 19 Commissioner Chang mentioned earlier that she came to – she [inaudible 1:52:29] does do 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. visits at Palo Alto Commons. And I'd say that my experience kind of visually and having lived 1 through this environment is that it's less about – as I know the planners have mentioned the 2 folks themselves there don't really drive as much. But it's mostly about the visitors. Like 3 hopefully if there are folks who are living there that there is at least 1 person that's interested 4 in visiting them. And so I think that the parking spaces should be considered on that kind of 5 methodology as opposed to the folks that are actually living there. And we've seen some 6 personal experience that there are significant parking collisions. We saw the – and Chair 7 Summa also had that experience when trying to visit as well – that as some – like when I try to 8 come to my – back to my house, there may not be any parking. And we feel that it's a – it's 9 pretty difficult and a little bit of public nuisance on our street, which is a little bit difficult to 10 manage. I also wanted to call out – I don't know which commissioner mentioned about the Safe 11 Routes to School – as someone who grew up here K through 12 that that was 1 of my primary 12 biking corridors. So I just want to call out whoever – whichever commissioner called that out. I 13 think that was really important to me. One of the other concerns that I haven't heard 14 mentioned today yet so far is about the noise. So 1 of the things that [inaudible 1:53:56] our 15 house, we don't have a HVAC or an AC system, and so we primarily focus on keeping the doors 16 open and reducing energy consumption during the summer months to keep cool. But 1 thing 17 that's been particularly bothering my family, at least, is the noise caused by the HVAC systems 18 during the summer. I know that there's a 73 decibel limit for the noise. I'd encourage – I don't 19 know if this is the right place to call for it – for a noise study, particularly in kind of the peek 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. months where we see significant energy in HVAC noise. And I think in my – I really want to 1 specifically mention during the peak time because if we measure, for example, in March, maybe 2 no one is using the AC or the heater. But I think it's specifically about those peak months. So 3 those are some of my primary concerns. I also want to call out that I'm really empathetic 4 towards the assisting living community and that it's not as much about preventing from 5 building. I think that there are lots of my fellow neighbors here present tonight and we'd love to 6 continue working with them on what that looks like. I think that as City Council has 7 recommended in the past to look towards larger buildings on the non-R1 adjacent side, I think 8 the neighborhood would love to be more involved on some of those discussions. Right now 9 based on my reading of the comments that the company provided, it seems like it's primarily 10 costs that are an increment but I'd highly want to call the attention of the Commission that the 11 costs while we are sympathetic towards the costs of these facilities, it's a significant public – at 12 least it's a harm for the neighborhood to have significant shade on some of the backyards in 13 looking at some of the diagrams. So I'm currently spending a significant portion of my time in 14 the ADU on my property of which the primary window is facing the back lot. With this daylight 15 encroachment, some days I'll have very few hours of daylight that will be entering my ADU – 16 the ADU room that I'm currently spending significant portions of time in. And I believe that this 17 – I would prefer to keep it in the [current stair 1:56:31] – the kind of setback setup that we have 18 today. One final comment, 1 of our neighbors recently sold his property which was on the 19 street and he's been living here for over 50 years and 1 of the reasons for the move was 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. because of this. And he was the 1 who – if you go through the comments, it started kicking off 1 the discussion with the neighborhood back in August. And so when he said he was living here in 2 the 80s, there was a kind of a good-neighbor agreement with Palo Alto Commons that we 3 would maintain the stairstep, like the reason why we initiated the stairstep methodology was 4 to help preserve the daylight for the neighbors. And so now we're hoping to continue working 5 with Palo Alto Commons as 1 of our neighbors in good faith. Thank you, Commission, for your 6 time. 7 8 Chair Summa: Thank you very much. 9 10 Veronic Dao: Next is Mona He. 11 12 Chair Summa: Thank you. 13 14 Mona He: Thank you, Commissioner. Oh, [inaudible 1:57:44]. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank 15 you, Emily. 16 17 Chair Summa: You really need to... 18 19 Mona He: [Inaudible 1:57:48]. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Chair Summa: ...talk into the microphone. 2 3 Mona He: Oh, okay. Thank you, Commissioner, and thank you, staff. I met Emily actually in 4 person in November when I visited the Planning Department. So I – my name is Mona and I live 5 in 4040 Wilkie Way. So I'm the 1 actually got directly impact. So I just want to point at 6 something. Kevin said very great, a lot of a information representing [us 1:58:14]. This is better? 7 Okay. So I currently try to respond to the letter. Actually Palo Alto Commons had a respond 8 letter regarding the City Council meeting on November – no – August 8. I actually was attending 9 this meeting as well. So I clearly remember the Council were [directly 1:58:36] requesting to do 10 the study of possible build a fourth floor [turning to 1:58:41] El Camino side to not build or not 11 have a impact on the residential on our side. But in terms – when the letter – what they were 12 saying is they could build like a – say they do 4 story, they can build to 22-23 units and then 13 they [inaudible 1:58:59] the 14 units again to include ours. So I think that they totally don't get 14 a idea what City Council was trying to achieve, is for them to build in the front and it doesn't 15 have impact on the residential area. So the reason they're respond for the 4 story, they say oh, 16 it's the economic, costs too much for them. They are for-profit organizations. We are the 17 resident and so we can't fight for the bigger corporation to make money but they cannot by 18 saving money at expense of our residents. We lost our privacies. We're la-, our shade. The 19 shadow casts into us. [Inaudible 1:59:47]. I sent a email to Emily [and 1:59:49] include the 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. picture from my house. I don't know if you guys were able to see the pictures. It's on the – I 1 think it should be a part of the meeting agendas. If you – this is about 10 feet. So if you're 2 standing here, you see the houses over there. I pretty much – all I see is the building. And if I sit 3 into my backyard, there's no light. And because I took the picture at about 12:00 – at the time I 4 taking the picture when they have the [posts up 2:00:14]. So it's also a c-, so that's what I'm 5 kind of upset, is like where they were saying they'll try to – working with our residents, we try 6 to create a win-win situation. But to me, right now we're lopsided. We are the losing side 7 because there's no benefit provided to the neighborhood and they provi-, they actually have 8 increased the traffic. There's also we lost our [property 2:00:41] – the privacy. And then the 9 building a tree, like Commissioner [Akin 2:00:47] says, building a tree is causing more shade and 10 we won't have a sunlight. We won't have a sun. I don't want to have trees. I want to have sun in 11 my yard. I can set a back and then just enjoying the sunshine. But I – once the building 12 increased, we lost that [inaudible 2:01:06] permanently. So at initial the projects, 1988, the 13 reason they build this step is they are trying to [accommodate it 2:01:16] because I talk people. 14 They have original owners. So they talk about talk about they're doing this is for steps, so that 15 allowed us at least to have some sunshine coming to our side. There's no shadow casting our 16 sides. We have some sun. But whatever the time were agreed upon and then the building was 17 built that way. Now it's completely reversed. So Palo Alto Commons says oh these is a 1 story 18 and then let's just put it up, there's 3 stories. So they add from 1 story to 2 story and 3 stories, 19 so the – my backyard directly, I will have a 4-unit add. So used to be there's a 1 story but now 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. that 1 story going to become strictly up to 3 story. And then all these 2 story building going to 1 be all 3 story. It's going to be gigantic block of a building overshadow and overcast overlooking 2 my yard. So I mean this is just so – how do I say it? It's just a – I feel like it's like a corporation of 3 exploited us. We're the residents. We're the residents. We're being there for years, for 4 generations. The people, they were pushing out because the potential expansion. They have to 5 sell their house. They lived there for generations. And there's people, they selling their – 6 [they're 2:02:37] actually worked here and they were Palo Alto School District teachers. 7 [They're 2:02:42] move out. They're selling the house. So what is the Palo Alto Commons bring 8 to our neighborhood. And I actually talking to their staff parking on my street. I talked to them. 9 I said oh, where do you guys work. Oh, we work in Commons. I said why did you park here. We 10 have no space to park. That is even before... 11 12 Chair Summa: Thank you so... 13 14 Mona He: ...they... 15 16 Chair Summa: ...much. 17 18 Mona He: ...actually starting proposing that. So... 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Summa: Thank... 1 2 Mona He: ...the traffic is already there very jammed. 3 4 Female: Yeah. 5 6 Chair Summa: Thank you... 7 8 Mona He: Thank you, thank... 9 10 Chair Summa: ...so much. 11 12 Mona He: ...you for hearing me. 13 14 Veronic Dao: Next is Ziming Weng. 15 16 Ziming Weng: Hello, community. My name is Ziming Weng. I'm sorry I didn't – this is my first 17 time here. Didn't prepare for this. But I would love to – I live in the neighborhood [inaudible 18 2:03:46] Wilkie Street. And I totally agree with the community member concern. Actually this is 19 my concern [inaudible 2:03:55] Kevin and the lady also mentioned. One is the sunlight. I think 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. that's very important for human being healthy. And then the – another is [for 2:04:08] living, 1 will be privacy and the parking. And I think the parking is really difficult at this date – at this 2 time – at this date [especial 2:04:19]. People mentioned – Kevin mentioned the [inaudible 3 2:04:23] of the parking will be – also should include the visitor and that should be considered as 4 the needs for the parking [when they 2:04:34] parking [a lot 2:04:35]. And then I agree also the 5 – when we [inaudible 2:04:44] get home, sometime it's really difficult to find the parking spot 6 and we – every family, they should have the [inaudible 2:04:53] enough spot. But [inaudible 7 2:04:55] we end up it's harder to find the parking and we have to park far away. So thank you. 8 9 Chair Summa: Thank you very much. 10 11 Veronic Dao: Next is Jenny Chen. 12 13 Jenny Chen: Hello. My name is Jenny Chen and I'm a residence of 4072 Wilkie Way. My son 14 already speak several points over there. And I [record 2:05:28] whatever he said. The points of 15 the plane [inaudible 2:05:39]. What's the term... 16 17 Male: [Inaudible 2:05:41]. 18 19 Jenny Chen: ...for that? Huh? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Male: Daylight plane. 2 3 Jenny Chen: Daylight plane. Yeah. Well we study for that just to try to figure out what will 4 impact our property. And, the – 1 more thing I [inaudible 2:05:55] talk about the daylight plane 5 and talk about parking. But I also talk about and some emotional, like my neighbor just sold 6 their house, they mentioned. And then I want to say I talked to them. They retired as Palo Alto 7 School District teacher. They try to enjoy their life and – but they can't. So they have no choice. 8 I just talked to them right before they sell the house. They [inaudible 2:06:25] we don't like to 9 sell the house but they cannot do anything because they can foresee their future retirement in 10 life. There's no sun and then while right now at least they can maybe capture some capital and 11 then buy some house on the beach. So that really – that devastated for us current residents. So 12 this is the only thing I want to emphasize. Thank you. 13 14 Chair Summa: Thank you. Okay. 15 16 Veronic Dao: Next is Garrett Chan. 17 18 Garrett Chan: Good evening, Commissioner. My name is Garrett Chan. I live on 4069 Wilkie 19 Way. I have lived there for over 30 years. I raised my family there. My 2 boys are grown. I think 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. my neighbors have really shared a lot of concern I have as well. As I sit right now, I am opposed 1 to the project [at its 2:07:29] design. Commissioner Summa, you've mentioned already parking 2 issue. I have the luxury of taking daily walk and I see cars that belong to their staff, of the 3 Commons, and the parking is an issue on the El Camino Way, on East Meadow and on Wilkie 4 Way. And as Kevin said, in coming home, you can't find a parking space. So parking is an issue. 5 Number 2, all the renderings, all the elevation, they look great on paper but when you actually 6 see it in person, it's very imposing. A couple months ago, the developer did a mockup using 2 X 7 4 framing and everything and when you – when it's up there, you look at it, it's very imposing. 8 They mentioned our neighbor [Sean 2:08:20] and [Sherrie 2:08:21] moved away already and 9 that was 1 of the big reason. So like I said, [I'm not going to bore 2:08:27] you with all the other 10 concern that's been shared already but that's 2 of the concern. My last concern had to do with 11 property value. So we've been there a long time. The company here is for profit and what they 12 do – yeah, they could do it other way, redesign it, cost more money but it shouldn't be on our 13 back. It shouldn't be at our cost to do this. Thank you. 14 15 Chair Summa: Thank you. 16 17 Veronic Dao: Next is Yanfeng Wang. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Yanfeng Wang: I'm Yanfeng Wang. [Inaudible 2:09:21]. Oh. I'm Yanfeng Wang. [Inaudible 1 2:09:27] first a time coming in to the Palo Alto City Hall. I'm [inaudible 2:09:33] I can come here 2 [inaudible 2:09:35]. Let me tell you my story about I buy the house. I got the house 4060 Wilkie 3 Way 30 days before [inaudible 2:09:52] the price is under 150,000. I'm really happy, happy. I 4 already go to work, clear the [inaudible 2:10:07] because I know the market [inaudible 2:10:09] 5 but I get the price. Until last night, oh, I know what's why. Second is now I truly understand the 6 original owner. I truly understand. My agent told me the owner loved his house very, very, very 7 but he didn't told me what. Right now I understand [he said really 2:10:51] he loved his house. 8 [Inaudible 2:10:53] put a stick what's, what's, what's even the pin [inaudible 2:10:58] even the, 9 ceilings [are 2:11:03] crack, everything repair. I really appreciate [inaudible 2:11:09]. [I asked 10 the question 2:11:18] is this house is on the 45 degree angle. The [inaudible 2:11:19] high 11 building. I think my ADU only 3 [inaudible 2:11:28] 3 feet to the fence. And also the 50 degree, 12 maybe [onto 2:11:36] the fence 10 feet [is not enough to go 2:11:42] 30 feet, so really close, 13 very close. And before the owner has a tree. It's about – it's really high. He keeps it high. So 14 anyway [inaudible 2:12:03] pipe dream [inaudible 2:12:04] 3 days [inaudible 2:12:07]. But right 15 now when I know this story, I really feel [inaudible 2:12:13] to my [originally 2:12:16] owner. 16 He's a very excellent professor, very excellent teacher. The agent [has a focus] [inaudible 17 2:12:26] student. [Inaudible 2:12:32]. He's this [professor 2:12:36], the student, so they know 18 each other very much. So what's – that's why he said the owner loved his house, loved his 19 house very, very, very. Thank you so much. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Chair Summa: Thank you very much. 2 3 Female: [Inaudible 2:12:59] the house that they sold... 4 5 Chair Summa: Thank you. 6 7 Female: ...[inaudible 2:13:03]. 8 9 Chair Summa: Okay. 10 11 Male: [Inaudible 2:23:07]. 12 13 Veronic Dao: Next is Lily Lee. 14 15 Lily Lee: Good evening, members of the Transportation Commission and staff. I'm Lily Lee and I 16 live at 4080 Wilkie Way. I've been a resident of Palo Alto since 1997 and I've lived in this house 17 since 2003 and I've raised my children there. I love this community and would love to stay here 18 for the longer term. I appreciate the chance to offer comments. I appreciated the open house 19 that my family attended. And I have had the same concerns that you've heard from other 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. residents tonight and so we share those with the Palo Alto Commons. And even though they 1 offered opportunities for mitigation, we still oppose this project. So first, when we moved in, 2 we were concerned about the privacy and the shading and the parking and the noise. So let me 3 go through each one 1 by 1. So for the privacy, we do have, in spite of some vegetation, a very 4 direct line of sight from the residents there. And although the – we talked with Palo Alto 5 Commons about shade trees when they pointed out the diagrams that we got to review, it 6 showed that there's very little space for planting any new shading. And in addition, that makes 7 worse the shading in our backyard, so it makes it harder for us to enjoy our time back there and 8 also very hard to grow plants for the last 20 years. So as far as noise, before we moved in, we 9 were warned by some of the neighbors that some of the residents could sometimes become 10 distressed and loud and so we have sometimes experienced that. And if more people move in, 11 then there's a greater chance of more of that. In addition, the traffic and parking, my kids have 12 biked to school every day. And there are many, many children who do. The more visitors we 13 have to visit the residents, if there's going to be an increase, then that will increase the traffic 14 and cause more safety hazard to children biking. And in addition, we have talked with people 15 who have visited who do park right in front of our house or our neighbors' houses. When we 16 talked with the Palo Alto Commons representatives about that, they said oh, those visitors 17 should know that they could park under the building; however, they don't sometimes. So we 18 expect that with increased numbers of people living there that these problems would 19 corresponding increase. So we do support housing for seniors. When we discovered how much 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. the – it cost to live there, we saw that it's not really affordable to low-income seniors and this 1 really is a profit-making corporation. So I just want to conclude by thanking you again for the 2 chance to express our opposition to this project. Thank you. 3 4 Chair Summa: Thank you very much. 5 6 Veronic Dao: Next is James Porter. 7 8 James Porter: Hi. Thanks very much for opportunity to talk to the Planning Commission. I'm 9 James Porter. I also live at 4080 Wilkie Way. I am, ugh – it's been a while. I'm a 30-year resident 10 of Palo Alto. And we've been in our house for the last 20 years. I'm going to echo what a lot of 11 people have already said and just try to add a little personal touch to it. When we bought our 12 house, we went to the backyard, looked up at the Palo Alto Commons and said wow, this is a 13 massive structure and we could see people in rocking chairs. We could see lots of direct lines to 14 residents. And that was okay. It didn't feel that oppressive because there was a step-back or I 15 guess some people call it like a staircase kind of thing, so it was never – it didn't feel like a big 16 monolithic block. My first fear when I looked at the project and looked at the plans is that that'll 17 be erased as a lot more units are brought kind of back toward our yard and that step-back will 18 kind of go away. So that's kind of 1 concern. Secondly, there's 18 units. I guess 7 or 8 are kind of 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. on our part of the block. That's going to be additional folks that have direct visibility into our 1 yard, into our family room so there's that. 2 3 Female: [Inaudible 2:18:28]. 4 5 James Porter: Okay. Thank you. So that's 1 thing as far as and, and just sheer oppressiveness. 6 And I know people have been talking about daylight plane and shading. That's part of the issue 7 but just psychologically having such a large structure even larger coming forward is an issue for 8 me in terms of sitting in the backyard or just even in the family room looking out at the 9 backyard. Second issue is parking. So it is pretty interesting. There is – parking is pretty 10 impacted already on Wilkie Way and El Camino Way. I have 2 kids. One is still biking to Gunn 11 and has to go through El Camino Way every day and it's scarry. It's kind of like a gauntlet 12 already. When folks have – we've noticed there's people that park in front of our house that 13 they either work at the nursing home or they're visitors of the nursing home. At the open 14 house, we actually asked about that and they said oh, but they're not employees, maybe 15 they're private employees hired by individual residents and that's why they don't know to park 16 under the street. But if we're adding all these units, I'm imagining that will get worse from a 17 parking perspective, not better. And then finally, just in terms of economics, so we've – we 18 bought our house during a time of really high interest rates, so we got an opportunity to 19 refinance over and over again and every time we refinanced, an appraiser comes to your house 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. and does their thing and measuring stick. And it's interesting, at – we've refinanced 4 times. 1 Three of those 4 times there was 1 line item basically saying large commercial structure in back 2 and I won't tell you how much the deduction was but it was pretty substantial. And I'm 3 imagining now if [inaudible 2:20:12] 18 units are built that kind of deduction is going to be 4 higher. So there is a tangible impact on us, I think financially if we ever decide to move 5 anywhere else. But this is Palo Alto, why would we ever move, right? So thanks for opportunity 6 to comment. 7 8 Chair Summa: Thank you. 9 10 Veronic Dao: Next is Nia Porter. 11 12 Nia Porter: Hello, Commissioners. My name is Nia Porter and I also live in 4080 Wilkie Way. I've 13 lived there my whole life, so 16 years. And to state the obvious, there's a nursing home 14 overlooking our backyard. It's very, very visible. You walk in to your backyard, it's the first thing 15 you see. Really it's the only thing you see. Blocks our view. Blocks the sunlight. So just kind of 16 taints the backyard because whenever you're there, you just feel kind of self-conscious. You 17 feel like people are watching you because – there is some trees but at the end of the day, 18 you're in direct line of sight from people just hanging out. So that's that. So adding more units 19 would just further this invasion of privacy. So I really would not like to see this problem 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. worsened. And also just to echo what neighbors have said already, it's so sad to hear that this 1 project has caused our neighbors to move away because Mrs. [McDaniels 2:21:37], she was my 2 neighbor for 16 years but she was also my sixth grade teacher. She taught me so much just 3 academically and also about life and she introduced me to middle school and it's just terrible 4 that this project has caused her to move away. And then also, like I my dad said earlier, I am a 5 junior at Gunn, so I bike to school every single day. I go through West Meadow. I go through El 6 Camino Way and it's just lined with cars. There's so much traffic. It's a great place to make a left 7 turn. Thank you for listening. 8 9 Chair Summa: Thank you very much. 10 11 Veronic Dao: Next is James Cham. 12 13 Female: [Inaudible 2:22:18]. 14 15 James Cham: Hi. I'm James Cham. I'm a resident of 4076 Wilkie Way. Thank you for giving me 16 this time to make a few comments. As currently conceived, I'm opposed to this project for 17 many of the reasons that have been described so far. And I do think that the thing that worried 18 the most upon reviewing the material is that it did feel like there's a discrepancy between the 19 parking situation as described in the study and our lived experience. And so I'm glad to hear the 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. notes both from the commissioners but also from my neighbors about sort of what we're 1 experiencing right now. The other thing that I just note is that the shade as currently described 2 or [as least like we've 2:23:04] seen, the impact of it is substantially different from our lived 3 experience. And so I guess I'd extend – as we consider or as you consider sort of different 4 changes, I'd extend a welcome to any of the commissioners who would like to see our backyard 5 at times when there's maximum shade and experience what that's like. So thank you very much 6 and appreciate your time here. 7 8 Chair Summa: Thank you. 9 10 Veronic Dao: Next is Kai Porter. 11 12 Kai Porter: Hello, Commission. Thank you so much for having this session to let us comment. I'm 13 also a resident of 4080 Wilkie Way and I'd just like to echo a lot of what my family and other of 14 our neighbors have said, that this proposed addition really is going to kind of further exacerbate 15 things that we've been feeling in our homes for all this time. In addition, 1 of the things that 16 kind of irks me the most is [inaudible 2:24:07] originally when Palo Alto Commons was built 17 there was kind of a dialogue between the community and Palo Alto Commons and they really 18 had a commitment to making sure it didn't impact the residents as much. And it seems like 19 they have kind of gone back on that and that really doesn't feel good in the context of someone 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. trying to expand or do something like that. In addition, to the shade, they proposed planting 1 new trees right behind our house. They said they didn't really have very many places where 2 they could plant. In addition, we used to have more shade actually but on the Palo Alto 3 Commons' side and from really large trees but over the last, I think, like 4 or 5 years, they've 4 said they needed to cut down a lot of the trees due to various safety issues. So it seems like 5 maybe having big shady trees won't be that much of a benefit and they wouldn't actually be 6 able to do that. So it does seem like it's been getting worse and I don't know how any of this 7 will help make it better. But thank you for your time. 8 9 Chair Summa: Thank you. 10 11 Veronic Dao: And then I have 3 on Zoom. First is Bella Davies. You can unmute yourself. 12 13 Bella Davies: Hi. I'm Bella. Thank you for this chance to comment. I also wanted to expose this 14 expansion due to several of the points that my neighbors already mentioned and I feel it's 15 already – the building is already quite imposing on our home. I wanted to also mention that I 16 agree we could explore the other expansion methods that were mentioned earlier about the 17 front side of the building as this would mitigate a lot of the building concerns that the 18 community has about the shadows. And I feel that shadow – the building already causes a lot of 19 shadow on our house and it's already very dark in the afternoons. Additionally, in regards to the 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. parking, I also agree with what my neighbors mentioned about there already being a parking 1 concern on our street and a lot of times I feel that I'm have a hard time finding parking where I 2 live, which is already a concern and I feel that would worsen with this expansion. And lastly, I 3 wanted to touch on what was mentioned about the bike route. Since I've grown up in Palo Alto 4 my whole life and I bike to school K through 12 as well and that intersection is already very busy 5 and having construction or additional traffic could be more of a safety concern for students and 6 other bikers. So thank you. 7 8 Chair Summa: Thank you very much. 9 10 Veronic Dao: Next is Jayashree. 11 12 Jayashree: Hello? Hello? 13 14 Veronic Dao: Yes. We can hear you. You have 5 minutes. 15 16 Jayashree: Oh, okay. Sorry. I was traveling, so I'm out of town, so I'm calling in. As everybody 17 has expressed, I don't want to repeat the same thing. But definitely [I mean the 2:27:41], 18 lighting, the sunlight, parking and the overwhelming structure, it will be seen every day from 19 our backyard definitely. I mean that's a no-no for me. And every – I mean [with all these 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 2:27:59] situations they can come up and find a solution for parking, find a solution for sunlight, 1 find a solution for something. But for the property value, I don't think they can find any solution 2 for that. And we are the ones who are going to suffer for the property value. So I definitely 3 oppose for this. I don't want to repeat the rest of the things, so that's all I can say right now. 4 Thank you. 5 6 Chair Summa: Thank you. And I think this is our final speaker 7 8 Veronic Dao: Yes. Last is Daniel Pei. 9 10 Daniel Pei: Good evening, Council. Can you guys hear me fine? 11 12 Chair Summa: [2:28:41] Yes, we can. 13 14 Daniel Pei: Perfect. So good evening, everyone. My name is Daniel Pei and I'm the son of 15 Yanfeng who speak earlier. So me and my family has been Palo residents of Palo Alto for about 16 10 years now. So today I just want to first express my appreciation for our community's 17 vibrance and our collective efforts that make Palo Alto a wonderful place to live in for everyone, 18 including this project for assisting resident communities. But I first want to talk about why we 19 decided to move to this place. Our home, like many others in our neighborhood, was chosen for 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. its assets of natural lighting and also beautiful views and the original staircase design for the 1 complex was, at least I believe, intentionally created to preserve these elements for the 2 residents. [But the 2:29:26] proposed addition that I saw today, however, it threatens to block 3 the sunlight of our property significantly, impacting not only our quality of life but also the 4 value of our home. And more so, I'm really concerned about the precedent [this development 5 might have set 2:29:38]. Allowing for such substantial [inaudible 2:29:41] to existing structure 6 might open floors for future developments to further encroach on the residents' access to 7 natural lightings and views. And this is not just about our property but it's about maintaining 8 the character and livability of our entire community. So on the personal note, had we been 9 aware of these potential changes at a time of the purchase, it would probably give us very 10 serious pause. And this hesitation I believe is something that will be reflected across entire 11 market if they're going to look buying the houses, effecting not only just the current but future 12 property values as well. And there's other things that's on my mind when I first [inaudible 13 2:30:19] projects and I currently ask for the Council and [all the 2:30:22] developer to 14 reconsider its scale of the proposed development. And thank you so much for the time you 15 offered tonight. 16 17 Chair Summa: Thank you for your comments. I believe that concludes... 18 19 Veronic Dao: Someone just raised their... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Chair Summa: Oh... 2 3 Veronic Dao: ...hand. 4 5 Chair Summa: ...okay. [Inaudible 2:30:40]. 6 7 Veronic Dao: Aaditya Divekar. 8 9 [Shashank 2:30:58] Divekar: Yes. So actually I'm calling from my son's laptop through the Zoom 10 meeting. My name is [Shashank 2:30:58] Divekar and we are on 4054 Wilkie Way directly 11 behind the Palo Alto Commons. And I definitely echo all the concerns that our neighbors have 12 already voiced. The big concern we have also is that we are among the few houses in Palo Alto 13 that still enjoy a decent sized backyard and we will definitely – we have been enjoying a good 14 standard of living [and 2:31:28] despite the current structure and then added another 14 units 15 to it, we are definitely going to have a privacy issue and we do not want to suffer that. And we 16 also do not want to lose our property value. That has been voiced several times. And there 17 aren't really many mitigating solutions to that that you can really add, that you can devise into 18 14 new units coming up. So this privacy issue and the property value is – these 2 are very 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. important to us and, therefore, addition of 14 new units is not going to be helping us with 1 those. So we definitely want to voice our opposition to the expansion. Thank you. 2 3 Chair Summa: Thank you very much. Are there any other speakers? 4 5 Veronic Dao: No. That concludes public comment. 6 7 Chair Summa: Great. Okay. Thank you, everyone, for your comments. And then we'll bring it 8 back to the Commission. And I think we – it's a little after 8:30 but I think we should continue 9 unless somebody needs a break. Okay. Continu-, all right. So Commissioner Lu? 10 11 Commissioner Lu: Thank you. Yeah, I think we really want more senior housing but we need to 12 make sure the details are right and hopefully we can find something that works for the 13 community. So I have a few more questions for the applicant if you're comfortable with that. 14 First thing, I want to understand more about the parking situation. Can you talk more or just 15 kind of refresh us about the numbers, about the empty spaces and can you help us reconcile 16 that with the neighbors' observations? 17 18 Steve Sandholtz: Yeah. So we have done our own analysis of kind of peak staffing requirements 19 during the day and the number of spaces utilized by residents and then visitor spaces. And the 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. conclusion there is that we have generally 30 available spaces and that the additional parking 1 from a staffing perspective based on this addition would create an additional demand of 1 2 parking space. So it still leaves us with additional. I'm not going to try to refute anything the 3 neighbors... 4 5 Male: [Yeah 2:33:52]. 6 7 Steve Sandholtz: ...said. I'm s-, parking is a significant issue. Anyone that's driven down El 8 Camino Way... 9 10 Male: Yeah. 11 12 Steve Sandholtz: ...understands that. Right now staff is in the process of having a parking 13 analysis done, so we don't have the benefit of having that completed yet. But we're committed 14 to looking at what we can do to help alleviate the parking issue. And maybe there's some things 15 we can do with the way we program our parking to make sure that, to the extent possible, 16 visitors and staff and everybody parks in available parking that exists on the – at the project. So 17 we recognize that's an issue. We're working with staff and we'll continue to work with staff 18 through this process to identify the best ways to mitigate any impact from the addition and 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. maybe even try to do a better job of managing the parking that is currently existing as the 1 building exists today. 2 3 Commissioner Lu: So you said in actual peak times right now there are 3-0, so 30 available 4 spaces on average? 5 6 Steve Sandholtz: Yeah. 7 8 Commissioner Lu: Okay. Yeah, I think that, I mean, certainly is a good sign that programming, 9 education, other kind of improvements can carve out more visitor spaces and prevent issues for 10 the neighbors. So, yeah, that's good context and actually I am optimistic that we could find a 11 solution to that point then. I also wanted to ask more about the building envelope. In the 12 proposal, is there a reason why you aren't considering third-floor units adjacent to the 13 Goodwill? I see that you add units in a couple different spaces but only 2 stories. 14 15 Steve Sandholtz: Yeah. The existing building there is 2 stories... 16 17 Commissioner Lu: Ah, okay. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Steve Sandholtz: ...so there would be no access for a third floor unit if we did something there 1 unless we were doing an entire new third floor on that portion of the building. 2 3 Commissioner Lu: Were there configurations that you looked at before you arrived at this 4 design, like for instance having sloping roofs on some of the units that still intrude into the 5 daylight plane or doing something creative, building out over the existing surface lot, for 6 example, which I think Council also flagged? 7 8 Steve Sandholtz: Yeah. Very difficult to build out to the front and still have any access and not – 9 you'd be basically putting units in front of existing units, which you can't do. You'd block 10 windows, so the limited ability to do that on the front of the building. With respect to sloped 11 roofs, the roofs are flat in that section. The only thing that is currently under the latest plan 12 intruding into the daylight plane is the parapet. So we could look at some things with that as 13 well. We're willing to continue to work on minimizing any impact. It is a big building. There's no 14 question... 15 16 Commissioner Lu: Yeah. 17 18 Steve Sandholtz: ...about that. And it won't be any smaller but it also from an expanse 19 standpoint, it won't be any bigger. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Lu: A question about the public benefits related to this PC zone, have you 2 considered adding other public benefits? I see, for example, when this PC was amended in 2010 3 that there was a donation to Avenidas and there were infrastructure improvements for cycling 4 and for the bus stop. Would you consider or have you considered doing similar public benefits 5 at this time? 6 7 Steve Sandholtz: We haven't had that discussion with staff. It hasn't been proposed. But we 8 believe that providing additional senior housing units does provide a meaningful and important 9 public benefit. But we're open to discussing those things. The owners of the building [inaudible 10 2:38:01] long-term commitment to the area and value our relationship with... 11 12 Commissioner Lu: Yeah. 13 14 Steve Sandholtz: ...the City and the neighbors. 15 16 Commissioner Lu: Yeah. And I agree that senior housing is a valuable benefit but wanted to 17 contextualize and see if anything else was considered, especially since the Council did really 18 emphasize and hope for some kind of affordability, which if it couldn't be afforded in this 19 particular development for the variety of cost reasons outlined in your letter could maybe be – 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. that affordability element could be captured [in an in-lieu fee 2:38:42] or affordability in the 1 neighboring Avant building or something like that. And I think considering something like that 2 would be responsive to what Council flagged. And maybe just a final question for now, can you 3 talk more about how that first neighbor outreach meeting went and if you presented/story 4 poled the revised designs or the original designs that you showed the Council? 5 6 Steve Sandholtz: We didn't get as a significant turnout in that meeting. I missed the meeting. I 7 was sitting on a plane about to fly out to California to participate and got a call that my 8 daughter was about to give birth and so I exited the plane and missed the meeting. So let me 9 ask [some 2:39:36] of my colleagues. 10 11 WellQuest Senior Living Director of Acquisition and Development Charlene Kussner: Hello, 12 Commissioners. I'm Charlene Kussner. I'm the Director of Acquisition and Development with 13 WellQuest Senior Living and myself and Daniel Bowman, the architect, and Li Li and several of 14 the staff members were at our October 11 community outreach meeting. What we did was we 15 initially sent out letters via the [title roll 2:40:02] and then Li Li and I went door to door with 16 some goody bags and a letter – an invitation to all the residents on that side of Wilkie Way that 17 fronts our building. Many of the residents came and we did have the opportunity to have some 18 good dialogue. Candidally, some resident were not interested in a dialogue. They had their 19 position and I honor and respect that. I really do. And so to have a back-and-forth, it wasn't 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. seeming to flow. So we did present landscape plans, our current plans. We did have a story pole 1 up but we got some complaints from the residents to take it down, so we addressed that 2 immediately to respect their desire and we did take it down. But I did take pictures from Wilkie 3 Way with the story poles up through the side yards as well as I could to see what – see if we 4 could see those story poles through the dense treeline. So we did have a nice meeting. We did 5 try to have a conversation as best we could with our opposing positions, essentially trying to 6 find some middle ground. 7 8 Commissioner Lu: Thank you. I do appreciate the outreach and I hope there's more outreach. 9 10 Charlene Kussner: We would be w-... 11 12 Commissioner Lu: ...with any further iterations [of the plan 2:41:24]... 13 14 Charlene Kussner: We would be very... 15 16 Commissioner Lu: ...[you have 2:41:24]. 17 18 Charlene Kussner: ...open and, and would enjoy that. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Lu: Yeah. [Inaudible 2:41:27]. 1 2 Vice-Chair Chang: Can I just ask for a quick follow up? So what was story poled exactly? What 3 was presented to Council or the current... 4 5 Charlene Kussner: What was... 6 7 Vice-Chair Chang: ...[inaudible 2:41:35]? 8 9 Charlene Kussner: ...presented to Council was story poled with the third kind of – we tried to 10 pick the 1 on the corner that seemed to be the most imposing and put the poles up with some 11 tape so that we could try to get a view line from – through the trees. 12 13 Commissioner Lu: I see. Were the plans discussed with the residents, the plans presented to 14 Council or these revised... 15 16 Charlene Kussner: The... 17 18 Commissioner Lu: ...plans? 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Charlene Kussner: ...planes presented – I think it was October 11, so I don't know when we... 1 2 Male: Yeah. 3 4 Charlene Kussner: ...revised. I think it was the original... 5 6 Commissioner Lu: Okay. 7 8 Charlene Kussner: ...package that we had presented to Council. We had large exhibits printed 9 up and we had plan sets available. 10 11 Commissioner Lu: [Yeah 2:42:11]. 12 13 Charlene Kussner: We walked through those. 14 15 Commissioner Lu: Yeah, I see. I think I misunderstood your original statement. I think more 16 public out-, or more neighborhood dialogue is still appropriate or it's still great... 17 18 Male: Yeah. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Lu: ...given that... 1 2 Charlene Kussner: Yeah. 3 4 Commissioner Lu: ...I think your revised plans are actually significantly better than what was 5 presented to Council so... 6 7 Charlene Kussner: Yeah. 8 9 Commissioner Lu: ...I... 10 11 Charlene Kussner: After... 12 13 Commissioner Lu: ...would loved... 14 15 Charlene Kussner: ... after the community... 16 17 Commissioner Lu: ...to have seen... 18 19 Charlene Kussner: ...outreach... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Lu: ...how that... 2 3 Charlene Kussner: ...meeting we took all that... 4 5 Commissioner Lu: Yeah. 6 7 Charlene Kussner: ...information and just – and went back to the drawing board, so to speak, 8 and relooked at the project. 9 10 Commissioner Lu: Yeah. 11 12 Charlene Kussner: A lot of the residents had that suggestion about building on El Camino. We 13 really... 14 15 Commissioner Lu: [Yeah 2:42:42]. 16 17 Charlene Kussner: We really – we got with the contractor. We looked at it. We did a cost 18 benefit analysis on that. We really looked. And then we looked to see where we could add 19 maybe some other units that weren't as imposing... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Lu: Yeah. 2 3 Charlene Kussner: ...to the residents. 4 5 Commissioner Lu: Yeah. Thank you. Those are my questions for now. I'll save comments for 6 later. Thank... 7 8 Female: [Inaudible 2:42:58]. 9 10 Commissioner Lu: ...you. 11 12 Chair Summa: Thank you. Commissioner Templeton and then Hechtman. 13 14 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you, Chair. My first question is for staff. So you prefaced this 15 conversation by saying that's not a residential community and what do we mean? The people 16 that live there are not residents of Palo Alto or...? 17 18 Amy French: When we speak about a planned community... 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Female: [Mm-hm 2:43:23]. 1 2 Amy French: ...from the past, that's what we are speaking about, is the description of the... 3 4 Female: Zone. 5 6 Amy French: ...land use... 7 8 Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. 9 10 Amy French: ...of that... 11 12 Commissioner Templeton: [Oh 2:3:33], the... 13 14 Amy French: ...PC... 15 16 Commissioner Templeton: ...land use. Okay. 17 18 Amy French: ...was residential. But we don't mean that people don't live there too. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Templeton: Right. I'm asking an obvious question because I think it'd be easy to 1 provide the obvious answer and then [we would 2:43:44] have an established place of 2 agreement. Do we agree that people live there? 3 4 Amy French: Yes. Nobody's arguing that people don't live... 5 6 Commissioner Templeton: Well... 7 8 Amy French: ...there. 9 10 Commissioner Templeton: ...I want to make sure because... 11 12 Amy French: It's categorized... 13 14 Commissioner Templeton: ...because... 15 16 Amy French: ...for very... 17 18 Commissioner Templeton: ...[it's 2:43:52]... 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Amy French: ...specific reasons. Commercial land use... 1 2 Commissioner Templeton: Miss French, I understand. Thank... 3 4 Amy French: Okay. 5 6 Commissioner Templeton: ...you. I'm trying to understand and analyze the feedback we've 7 gotten tonight, which has been very compelling and all from 1 point of view in this discussion. 8 And what I wanted to say is that it's an interesting point of the information that none of the 9 residents of the planned community have been able to or have chosen to participate and we 10 don't know why – [whether 2:44:26] which choice it is. Right? Like we've have heard entirely 11 from residents on the other side of the property and not residents in the property. So I just 12 wanted to say that I'm listening through that lens and trying to understand whose interests are 13 at play here. But 1 thing that's been very clear is that the interests of the Palo Alto Commons 14 corporate interest is having a very loud voice. And what we've heard or what I've heard at least 15 and I'm interested in hearing the discussion from the other commissioners – what I've heard is 16 these changes we're proposing will benefit the owners of Palo Alto Commons, not the residents 17 of Palo Alto Commons and not the neighbors. And I think our concern here is to talk about the 18 residents, both the residents of the community that we're discussing and the residents affected 19 by the community that we're discussing. But I'm not clear about what our mandate is in terms 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. of considering the needs of the people that own and are running Palo Alto Commons. So if we 1 have discussion around that, I think I would be very willing to listen to that. But right now what 2 I'm hearing is 1 party, the owners are going to benefit by these changes and that money that 3 they're going to get isn't coming from nowhere. It's being taken in its own way from the 4 neighbors who are going to lose value while the owners are gaining value. And it's not clear that 5 there's any justification from the City's perspective to enable that. So I'm struggling because I 6 understand there is an ownership interest and I want to tease that apart a bit. And then we 7 have some people here who can help with that. But I'm a former resident of Ventura as well 8 and I want to share some responses that I was thinking through with your comments. First of 9 all, thank you all for coming out here and sharing your comments. You did an amazing job and 10 it's very helpful to hear your perspectives and understand and I thought a lot of good cases 11 were made here tonight. On all sides, I thought the applicant made their case as well. Ventura 12 notoriously has a parking problem. It has always had a parking problem in every part of the 13 neighborhood, not only your part. However, I think there's been a lot of opportunities for 14 goodwill that appear to have been overlooked, taken for granted, missed opportunities by the 15 owners of Palo Alto Commons that have led to this situation. And for example, having little 16 interest or oversight in how parking is being managed by people who are interacting with your 17 business. That's caused a lot of this goodwill. This is the reason nobody wants to answer their 18 door when you come calling. And this is a problem that I don't feel particularly sympathetic 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. towards. I'm feeling more sympathetic towards the neighbors. The neighbors are experiencing 1 – oh, oop, here we go. Hi, [Alfred 2:48:13]. 2 3 Assistant City Attorney Albert Yang: Oh, I'm sorry. You can go on. I'm just [going to jump in 4 2:48:19] when you're finished. 5 6 Commissioner Templeton: All right. Well you feel free to interject if I ask something and you 7 want to chime in. So this situation and this deadlock is really the outcome of some actions that 8 have come beforehand. So I just wanted to say that to address some of these frustrations. I 9 hear on the 1 side the applicant saying well we have plenty of parking. Well if you do, why are 10 they parking in front of the neighbors? What's that about and what ownership do you take and 11 how do you as a good neighbor address it positively proactively and not only when you need to 12 have 18 new units built? So I know that sounds harsh but this is – these are the questions and 13 I'm reflecting back what I heard from the community. And I think that kind of dialogue is where 14 you're going to start if you're going to try and get any progress on these developments that 15 you're looking for. Thank you. That's it for now. 16 17 Chair Summa: Thank you. Commissioner Hechtman? 18 19 Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. So just questions... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Female: [Yeah 2:49:23]. 2 3 Commissioner Hechtman: ...this round and only on a couple of topics, on the 1 longer than the 4 other. So noise, we heard a couple of references to concerns about noise. In the project as 5 currently proposed, which is 18 units in the locations where they are proposed, are there 6 additional noise-generating aspects of that post construction? For example, additional HVAC on 7 the roof, those sorts of things? 8 9 Emily Kallas: Yes. I don't have the exact numbers. The applicant may be able to clarify that but 10 additional HVAC units are expected to be necessary to serve the additional units. 11 12 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. And with those units – I mean that's not an unusual thing to 13 have HVAC in Palo Alto. We have a variety of construction requirements and noise attenuation 14 requirements that – is there any reason those wouldn't apply in this PC? 15 16 Emily Kallas: No. The – all equipment will be required to meet the Noise Ordinance. Also with 17 regards to the existing noise, when neighbors had mentioned it, I did explain that the current 18 equipment is also required to meet the Noise Ordinance and if that is not a condition that's 19 being met, that's something that Code Enforcement could look into if the neighbors request it. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. And another way to handle that perhaps if this project does go 2 forward to approval and includes those noise attenuation requirements as to the new 3 equipment, [that 2:51:03] those could be applied probably sitewide. That's something that 4 could be considered to tackle that issue and make sure that it's done. So – okay – that's noise. 5 My questions on parking, I really need a little bit better understanding of this. There was during 6 the applicant's presentation at 1 point there was a slide and I'm wondering if I can see it again. 7 It – and it – because it talked – the slide that had some numbers about parking and also about 8 staff and that the staff might increase by 1. Is that in the written material we have or if it is, you 9 can just point me to it because it was something that was pulled up on screen I thought. 10 11 Vice-Chair Chang: It was in the application presentation. [Inaudible 2:51:48] pull that. 12 13 Emily Kallas: It is. Yeah. I will need a moment to pull it up but I can look at that. 14 15 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. Well while you're pulling that up, just it, parking – well first of 16 all there's a parking requirement and if it's met here, then I think that that's all the parking. But 17 what I'm concerned about is whether – not whether the number of parking spaces meets our 18 code requirement of, which I understand is 1.1 to every 2.5 beds, but really how those parking 19 spaces are being used. And so – yeah. This is... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Female: [Inaudible 2:52:37]. 2 3 Commissioner Hechtman: So – yeah. Staff – so I was looking at that employee number. [I have 4 2:52:45] the largest shift, 52 total staff and here you got it broken down by commute or car or 5 other forms of transportation. In the Staff Report on Packet Page 22, its stated that the 6 applicant clarified that of the 55 spaces on site, 41 are dedicated to on-site staff and 14 are for 7 visitors. So 1 question I had is does staff at the Avant have access to these 41 spaces that are 8 supposed to be for Palo Alto Commons staff so that they could take those spaces up and 9 basically push Palo Alto Commons' staff out of the parking area and onto the street? 10 11 Steve Sandholtz: We really staff both buildings as 1 operation. 12 13 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 14 15 Steve Sandholtz: And so when we're talking about total staff of 52 and the parking, it's across 16 both buildings. 17 18 Commissioner Hechtman: That's – I'm sorry. That 52 total staff is for both Avant and Palo Alto 19 Commons? All right. Well that's... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Steve Sandholtz: Correct. 2 3 Commissioner Hechtman: ...a helpful clarification. 4 5 Steve Sandholtz: Yeah. 6 7 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. So there should not be a situation, I believe, and it doesn't look 8 like the numbers indicate there should ever be a situation where an employee of this operation 9 comes to the site and can't park on site. If your numbers are correct, that should just never 10 happen. And so I think that's something – and because it has happened and, at least on some 11 occasions, as Commissioner Templeton mentioned, it's engendered some bad will. And 12 candidly, that's on you to manage your employees and to communicate the importance of 13 maintaining these good relations because you never know the next time you're going to come 14 to the City Council and want something and get this kind of response. So that's 1 thing I think 15 we need to understand better as this moves back toward ARB, is really get our arms around the 16 parking. As I understand from our staff, a parking study is being done. So is that – do I 17 understand that, some kind of parking study? 18 19 Emily Kallas: Yes. We have Hexagon... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. 2 3 Emily Kallas: ...under contract to prepare a parking... 4 5 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 6 7 Emily Kallas: ...study. 8 9 Commissioner Hechtman: So I think that's going to really help inform this going forward. But I 10 think on the owner side, I think hearing everybody tonight and perhaps at the Council, it should 11 really resonate with you that we really have to take seriously staff parking all on site. And then 12 the other issue is the visitor parking and I did not visit the site so I don't have as clear a picture 13 of these 8, I think, parking spaces that are down or in front of the gate. But it's sounding to me 14 like it's not clear to visitors that those are... 15 16 Male: Available. 17 18 Commissioner Hechtman: ...available for visitor parking. And so 1 thing I'd like to be considered, 19 if I'm understanding that correctly, going forward is some signage to clarify that – additional 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. visitor parking in front of gate, whatever. That again gets the visitors, which of course you don't 1 control but you don't want visitors to your residents having to walk from the neighborhood. 2 Right? You want them to park on site. So I think we should be looking at some signage there as 3 a condition of approval. I did have a question and again it was based on 1 of the neighbor's 4 comments. So what we're talking about is a facility that is a combination of assisted living and 5 memory care, right? 6 7 Steve Sandholtz: Correct. 8 9 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. And do those people sometimes have outside caregivers,– paid 10 professionals that will come in and provide extra services to them to maybe spend every 11 afternoon with them? 12 13 Steve Sandholtz: They can. They can have an outside private duty nurse if they choose to. They 14 could have some other personal care that they bring in. Obviously those are not our employees 15 and we're highly staffed to meet all their needs. But – yeah – they – it's still their home. They 16 can have somebody. I'm not sure how many of those exist. 17 18 Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. [And I don't want to ask 2:57:50]. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Male: [Inaudible 2:57:51]. 1 2 Steve Sandholtz: There's about 5... 3 4 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. So... 5 6 Steve Sandholtz: ...[right now 2:57:53]. 7 8 Commissioner Hechtman: ...I think again you have to recognize that those – they're kind of 9 adjunct employees, right? They're not yours but if there's not a place for them to park on site, 10 they're going to impact the neighborhood. And so I think you have to be thinking about those 11 people as well and thinking about if you have extra spaces behind the gate, you're going to 12 know when these caretakers [inaudible 2:58:19]. Everybody has to check in at the front, I'm 13 sure, and so you might want to think about allowing those people, even though they're not 14 employees, to park behind the gate and reduce this impact to some of the neighbors. So those 15 are my questions. Thank you for helping me clarify those couple of things. I'm going to come 16 back with other comments later. Thanks again. 17 18 Steve Sandholtz: Mm-hm. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Summa: Commissioner Chang? 1 2 Vice-Chair Chang: So I missed for a second when you said there's about 5, what was it? 3 4 Male: Caretakers [inaudible 2:58:51]. 5 6 Steve Sandholtz: [Call it 2:58:51] private duty nurse or somebody that a resident has employed 7 or engaged to come in and pro-... 8 9 Male: [Yeah 2:58:58]. 10 11 Steve Sandholtz: ...-vide additional services. 12 13 Vice-Chair Chang: So how would you know if there is a private duty nurse as opposed to just a 14 visitor? 15 16 Steve Sandholtz: As Commissioner Hechtman said, they have to check in. Everybody checks in. 17 Nobody just walks into the building and has access to a resident. 18 19 Vice-Chair Chang: So you're saying that out of the 100 and how many units... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Male: One-twenty-one. 2 3 Vice-Chair Chang: ...121 that there's only 5 that have private duty nurses that come in? 4 5 Steve Sandholtz: I'll let Li Li respond. 6 7 Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. 8 9 Li Li: Hi. Well just on average and on daily basis, there are about 5 private companion. They will 10 actually come in here, provide those service to the resident 1-on-1 individually. And per our 11 community policy, they have to check in with us and also [inaudible 2:59:51] they have to go 12 through some agreement with us. That's why we know on average about 5 daily. 13 14 Vice-Chair Chang: Is it possible that some of the residents have somebody who hasn't gone in 15 through an agreement and – I mean I know that they have to check in because – so as I 16 disclosed, I have a family friend there and have gone multiple times every month for the last 17 couple months. She has a private caretaker who's there almost every day 8 hours a day as well 18 as I had another friend whose father was there – he's now passed – also had a private 19 assistance. So that's 100 percent from – of course, I only have 2 datapoints. So I'm just shocked. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. And walking around, I've seen sort of mobility of the residents and so I would think that there'd 1 be more but I also – I mean I've done the sign-in visitor, sign-in process myself and I could see 2 how somebody could just have somebody come in and you wouldn't know. 3 4 Female: As... 5 6 Female: [Inaudible 1:300:52]. 7 8 Female: Oh, go ahead. I'm... 9 10 Female: Oh. 11 12 Female: ...sorry. 13 14 Female: Go ahead. 15 16 Female: [I'm 3:00:54] sorry. 17 18 Female: Well... 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Li Li: I'm pretty sure that we have a really consistent system in place that anyone come to the 1 community has to check in and also anyone who's providing private companion services to the 2 resident, they have to run some paperwork and agreement documentation before they can 3 actually come in to do the service. So I'm pretty sure that's [inaudible 3:01:17]. 4 5 Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. Thank you. Mr. Yang? 6 7 Albert Yang: Thanks. I just wanted to address some of Commissioner Templeton's questions and 8 comments from earlier. And basically I'm going to expand on what Miss French had said about 9 this being a – classified as a commercial use and as a result, it's – these units don't count 10 towards our RHNA. They're not considered housing. And so many of the State laws that restrict 11 the City's discretion around housing projects don't apply here. And so we are in sort of the 12 default situation. The City has very broad discretion to act on this PC application. 13 14 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. I was confused because I know people can receive mail 15 there and I don't know – I mean I kind of assume if that's where you're registered to vote or 16 registered for your ID or driver's license that that would be a residence and not a commercial 17 property. So it was – we have a lot of overlapping words that are used in different ways in 18 different points and I think that's what Miss French was telling me and I understand that. But I 19 also understand that when we're weighing 1 interest against another interest, we need to 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. understand what we're talking about and there's – I guess what I'm trying to say is there's 3 1 types of parties in this conversation, not 2. Thanks. 2 3 Chair Summa: Commissioner Chang, you can... 4 5 Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. So I'm going to go back to my – so I am very concerned about the 6 parking situation there because again I have been there multiple times and I can never park in 7 the 7 spots up front. Now today, having received this packet last week, I went and visited again 8 and the other supposedly visitor parking spaces are labeled as employee only right now. So I 9 think that that problem should be corrected immediately. I am – I don't – because those spaces 10 have not been used as visitor spaces, at least as of today, I don't know what the impact – it just 11 doesn't seem like Palo Alto Commons has been acting as it should with respect to the 12 treatment of the visitor spaces. I also counted the number of available empty spaces at 11 AM 13 today and it was somewhere between 10 and 15. I couldn't see everything behind the gate. But 14 those spaces are not park-able spaces because there's construction going on right now as – 15 inside Palo Alto Commons. And so all those spaces are being used as staging area for the 16 current construction that is going on. So I don't know if that is a – again I have only 1 datapoint 17 but there is without question a parking challenge today, like at 11 AM today. Where I stand on 18 this is that there seems – I don't think there's any reason that the daylight plane should be 19 encroached upon. It's clear that smaller units do work because between the first proposal and 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. this proposal, there are several smaller, I think 5 additional small units and so to me, I think 1 there's no question that the daylight plane needs to be honored. There's still a question in my 2 mind for – as to what the correct daylight plane is. And I don't think that we had a lot of 3 investigation [or 3:05:42] in the current Staff Report. So if we see this again, I would like to 4 understand that situation in terms of what was agreed upon in the original PC and also now 5 that the PC's being amended what we as a City are bound by versus what is discretionary. So I'd 6 like to understand that. I'm also concerned about the privacy concerns. So I saw the elevations 7 that were presented that showed that for the most part the windows have been minimized but 8 I – again it was, I think in the applicant presentation – maybe it would be helpful actually for us 9 to see those elevations. Maybe it wasn't the applicant presentation. It was the 1 where there 10 were dotted lines kind of showing where the news areas of construction would be. 11 12 Emily Kallas: Yes. That was the staff presentation. 13 14 Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. The staff presentation. I'm sorry. It would be helpful for me to look at 15 that. But I do remember seeing that there are several where the windows are now like right up 16 against the neighbor's backyard and that's just a really terrible situation. There's a privacy 17 problem and from what I heard from the neighbors, there's also a noise problem because I 18 believe these windows are all operable. I don't know if the applicant can – I'm seeing a nod 19 from the applicant saying that these are operable windows. And so I had heard that there were 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. noise concerns with distressed residents or – [sorry 3:07:24] – noise impacts from distressed 1 residents that would also impact the neighbors. And so that's also a concern with respect to the 2 windows. So I think that those are my – and then finally, daylight plane aside, I think there's a 3 big massing issue for these folks. There – when you walk down Wilkie, because I did also visit 4 the Wilkie side of the building, you can see that a lot of the neighbors have front yard gardens, 5 which is unusual in Palo Alto, to see people growing their vegetable gardens in the front. Well 6 the reason why, now that I understand – I now understand why everybody has their vegetables 7 in their front yard. It's because they can't grow them in the back because of the shade. So even 8 though the impact may be small in terms of additional shading, that may be the 1 patch where 9 somebody can have their tomato plant and it – I'm not convinced that there's sufficient – it 10 doesn't make sense to me to have public benefit that rests solely on the backs of 7 or 8 houses. 11 There's times where there's public benefit and then eminent domain is used. But with eminent 12 domain, the people whose property has been taken get compensation. In this situation, the 13 neighbors won't be compensated and so they're losing a real benefit. So those are my thoughts 14 for now. 15 16 Chair Summa: Commissioner Reckdahl? 17 18 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Reckdahl: I have a question about the difference between the prescreen and 1 now. The prescreen was 14 units and now it's 18. And so what's – where do those new 4 units 2 come from? Where are they placed? Is that... 3 4 Emily Kallas: I can't answer that but I'm wondering... 5 6 Male: [Inaudible 3:09:25]. 7 8 Emily Kallas: ...if the architect team wants to answer that. 9 10 Steve Sandholtz: Yeah. We added 7 units with ground-up construction, 4 of which are 11 immediately behind the Goodwill building. So we tried to relocate some of the units that had 12 been planned to other parts that wouldn't impact our back neighbors. And then we did 3 units 13 that are also kind of a ground-up addition that kind of sits into like the courtyard in between 14 Palo Alto Commons and the Avant. So those 7 additional units came without any impact to our 15 back neighbors and then the 14. So we basically reduced by 3 what had been in the prior plan 16 along the back and moved 7 to different locations around the property. 17 18 Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. So... 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Emily Kallas: Yeah. So it's these 2 here and then I actually didn't highlight this 1. I missed it when 1 I was preparing the slides. 2 3 Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. That's very good. That's exactly what I want to know. So we 4 have 7 units though and those are all in good locations. I mean from a neighbor standpoint. Are 5 there any other spots, if we were trying to avoid the back fence there, any other spots that we 6 squeeze in units? 7 8 Steve Sandholtz: I don't think so. We really did evaluate it pretty carefully after the 9 prescreening meeting, have walked the property several times since. I think we've probably 10 maxed out the buildable expandable locations. 11 12 Commissioner Reckdahl: How about on the end there right along Meadow? Would it be 13 possible to add something along there? 14 15 Steve Sandholtz: There is a possibility on that end. That is where we have – that's like the fiery 16 exit stairs and so that becomes a difficult place to build around and expand through. The 17 hallway doesn't continue through there and it's the fire-rated egress. 18 19 Commissioner Reckdahl: [Yeah 3:11:32]. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Female: [Inaudible 3:11:33]... 2 3 Chair Summa: I'm... 4 5 Female: ...[inaudible 3:11:40]... 6 7 Chair Summa: I'm sorry. It's... 8 9 Female: ...[inaudible 3:11:42]... 10 11 Chair Summa: Thank... 12 13 Female: ...[inaudible 3:11:44]... 14 15 Chair Summa: ...you... 16 17 Female: ...[inaudible 3:11:44]... 18 19 Chair Summa: ...so much but you really... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Female: ...[inaudible 3:11:47]... 2 3 Chair Summa: [Okay 3:11:50]. 4 5 Female: ...[inaudible 3:11:51]... 6 7 Chair Summa: So we do not allow – I'm sorry. 8 9 Male: Yeah. 10 11 Chair Summa: Thank you for trying to clarify but we.... 12 13 Female: [Inaudible 3:11:57]. 14 15 Chair Summa: ...don't allow people to just speak out... 16 17 Female: [Inaudible 3:12:00]. 18 19 Chair Summa: ...from the audience. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Female: [Inaudible 3:12:01]. 2 3 Chair Summa: Yeah. Okay. Thank... 4 5 Female: [Inaudible 3:12:03]. 6 7 Chair Summa: Thank you very much. 8 9 Commissioner Reckdahl: And I'm just trying to think where else – how else could we build on 10 this because I like the idea of adding senior housing and I'm willing to give you FAR waivers. I'm 11 willing to give you height waivers if it's along Meadow, if we can avoid this back fence area. And 12 is there anything – could you have a freestanding building above the garbage or above the 13 parking at all as opposed to tacking it on and having another unit now that's independent? 14 15 Steve Sandholtz: We could evaluate that. I think it would be difficult but we can evaluate that. 16 17 Female: [Hm 3:12:59]. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Steve Sandholtz: We've looked at a lot of different options but we can explore something like 1 that as well. 2 3 Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. That's all for now. 4 5 Chair Summa: Well let me make a few comments. I agree with a lot of the concerns I've heard 6 from my colleagues regarding the parking and Commissioner Templeton's concerns about 7 residents. I wouldn't call them residents. I would call them clients, to be honest. This is not a – it 8 is not a residential use. It's a service use in our city and people typically don't live their lives 9 here. The units do not have kitchens, which I don't even know if we can call some – we even 10 have standards for JADUs with regards to access to kitchens. So I think that's very problematic. I 11 think the parking has not been – what is described is not what I saw there at all and so that 12 needs to be resolved. This is all things that my colleagues have said. I also had written down 13 that I was concerned that a lot of these – since it's an expensive facility to be in that a lot of 14 clients would have outside people coming in to do things that the caretakers at the facility don't 15 do, whether it's like yoga or – I don't know. It could be anything. And the idea that they'll be no 16 compensation for the residents' loss of value of their homes, if you look on Wilkie Way, this is 17 already a very imposing building. It looks like it's right in the backyards. And to increase that is – 18 it's hard for me to think about how to do that without really hurting the people. I think the City 19 – I wish this had come to us – 2 things I wish that this had come to us after the parking study 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. because the parking study will have hopefully much less anecdotal observations than I have. 1 And I also wish I had seen the story poles in place. But that's just a loss of opportunity. I think 2 given the amount of concerns I've heard my colleagues express about the daylight plane and 3 parking primarily, I don't know that we would be doing any favor to anybody by recommending 4 it go to ARB soon. I think these problems need to be resolved and I think the City needs to 5 determine whether the daylight planes were calculated properly based on my colleagues' 6 questions also. So I don't know if you got – I know that Commissioner Hechtman has more 7 comments to make but I'm seeing some others. But I think it's important to remember that this 8 is not a residential use, that this is a service commercial use but we still want to really take care 9 of the people that are there. They may – some are there for longer periods of time and in very 10 compromised and difficult situations for the patients, the clients themselves and also for their 11 friends and family. So and I think we – I appreciate that the applicant made improvements but 12 I'm not feeling like we're where we need to be. With that I'll go to Commissioner Templeton, 13 then Hechtman and Lu. 14 15 Commissioner Templeton: Thanks. And just to clarify, I mean there's about a little over 40 16 people that are living there, registered to vote and have that address on their driver's license. 17 That's all I'm saying. It's not – I'm not saying it's not... 18 19 Chair Summa: Oh... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Templeton: ...it's not a commercial interest. I'm saying there are people involved 2 and I think we agree on that. I just wanted to clarify. Thanks. 3 4 Chair Summa: Thank you. Commissioner Hechtman? 5 6 Commissioner Hechtman: So thank you. So notwithstanding the fact that these additional units 7 don't constitute housing for RHNA purposes, it's housing. It's housing for a segment of our 8 community as – we have an aging population and thanks to our aggressive new Housing 9 Element, we have a growing population on the horizon. And we need – and in fact, I think it's 1 10 of the – an important job of this City Council to ensure that our Palo Alto residents who, when 11 they get to the point in their life when they need memory care or assisted living, have a place in 12 Palo Alto to move to and live in where they can be close to the network of family and friends 13 that they have developed here. So housing is important. To me this is factually a kind of housing 14 if not technically legally for purposes of RHNA. And so it's an important project. And I want to 15 find a way to support it and to have this City support it so that we can have more units for our 16 aging population. So that really kind of sets the stage for me. I appreciate the applicant looking 17 to do something that, of course, is in its interest but it's also in the interest of Palo Alto. And I 18 do agree, incidentally, that – and I think it was established through our Housing Element 19 process – that providing housing is a public benefit. And I appreciate the efforts that the 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. applicant went through listening to the City Council and the neighbors and making revisions to 1 the plans, some of which were recently described in response to Commissioner Reckdahl's 2 questions. And maybe you're not quite there but I think those were big steps in the right 3 direction and I'm hoping with smaller steps, you can get the rest of the way. I also want to 4 thank the neighbors. As Commissioner Templeton said, this was a really impressive galvanizing 5 of your neighborhood with a lot of heartfelt comments and those resonate with us. And I hope 6 – and I think you are and hope you do see to some extent that reflected in our thoughts. 7 Although, I will say – and this is going to be harsh perhaps but I don't know a soft way to say it – 8 none of us get to control what happens around the perimeter of the properties we live in. We 9 don't get that right. Those are other people's properties and they get a say in that. The 10 protection we have is our rules, the rules that are our City ordinances. That's where our 11 protection is and those are important because those tell people what they can and cannot do. I 12 noticed along Wilkie Way, I'm seeing 4 ADUs along the back fence line. There was a time not 13 very long ago when those weren't legal. You couldn't legally get a permit to do those and 14 maybe some of those were conversions. I don't know. But that changed. The people on the 15 other side of that fence, which happened to be the Commons here but in other situations, it's 16 another single-family home, they used to not have to contend with an ADU 4 feet from your 17 back fence and now they do. These things change and they affect value or it's believed they do. 18 I'm not sure [inaudible 3:21:38] and I've been doing this for over 30 years. I'm not sure that I've 19 ever seen – and I've looked for it – concrete evidence that they affect value, though I know the 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. common perception whenever you're going through it is they do. And I'm not trying to dissuade 1 you from doing that – from feeling that way. So I want there to be units here. Kind of the 2 question from my perspective is where should they go. So this is again a good move in the first 3 – a good step to move 7 off of the Wilkie side. And there was an examination of this fourth floor 4 alternative and I read the letter from the applicant. Maybe we could press them for some more 5 of the economics, but the bottom line here is – and I heard a number of people mention it – 6 well this is a for-profit company. Well for-profit companies don't build things to lose money. 7 They just don't. And who blames them because those companies are employing people who are 8 making a living and they have to have a profit. So we could say you can only build that fourth 9 floor over by Goodwill but if it doesn't – if it won't be profitable, they just won't build it. They 10 will not accept that requirement and the result is we don't get the housing. So I don't think that 11 that's a solution. I do think we're looking at some variation of what we have here and really I 12 think we have to – I think it's been revealed here tonight, we really have to dig down a little bit 13 more on the daylight plane and what daylight plane applies here. I mean it's – I understand that 14 there's a – the PC, at the time the PC was approved, this was considered a residential use, if I'm 15 understanding correctly, and so the – if I got it right, because it was considered a residential 16 use, that daylight plane was allowed to be – or was at the time 45 degrees but now it's a 17 commercial – it's considered a commercial use and maybe the code prevision that Miss French 18 read applies, which is a 3 for 6, 2 to 1, which is a 60 degree. And so I think we have to know 19 what the rule is. And I don't fault us for not knowing tonight but I think as this moves forward, 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. we have to figure that out. And in a situation when you're amending a PC, does that old rule 1 that was part of that still apply or do you have to apply this new code as to the new addition? 2 And I just think we need to know an answer to that because, as been pointed out here, that's 3 going to affect what those daylight planes look like. So let me just talk for a minute on the 4 assumption that the daylight plane is supposed to be 45 degrees and we've got in certain areas 5 an incursion of up to 1 foot, 8 inches. That's not much. But I was just telling the neighbors that 6 the protection we have about what our neighbors do around us is the rules. And 1 of these 7 rules is the daylight plane should not be invaded. So if it's 1 foot, 8 inch max, I'm going to 8 encourage you to find a redesign that eliminates that whether it's a sloped roof or whatever, 9 find something so you don't have to make that ask because when you do that you're asking for 10 something special that you've heard, even with no violation the impact of the daylight plane, 11 you've heard the neighbors talk about the impact that they'll feel even though you're wholly 12 within the rules. So I'd encourage you to do that. And 1 thing I noticed and I'm not going to – 13 I'm not an architect so I'm not going to design from the dais. But 1 thing I did notice is that in 14 looking at some of your new units 3 of them along Wilkie are 2-floor additions, second and 15 third floor. One is in front of 4040 Wilkie, 1 in front of 4060 Wilkie and 1 in front of 4076, kind 16 of on the border between 4076 and 4080. And those 3 are like the most forward toward Wilkie 17 and so I suspect that those 3 are where you have at least 3 of your daylight plane invasions. And 18 so you could consider some architectural trim or just pull those 3 back so that they are the 19 smaller, affordable units, like you have – more affordable like you have in the 4-plex that 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. described to Commissioner Reckdahl in some of – in 1 of his questions. Or you could even 1 eliminate them as another possibility to create less massing, more of a step-back. You lose 3 2 units. You'd still have 15. So but – and again that's up to your design team. But hearing – I think 3 that those 3, to me seem to be the most prominent, the most invasive and if you – so I think 4 you need to find a way to pull them back and not be asking to violate the daylight plane rules. 5 The other thing I just have to say is it really troubles me – I've explained why I think these are 6 residential units. The people inside of them are residents. They're not clients. That really – that 7 word really troubles me. Vice-Chair Chang has been visiting a family member who lives there. 8 That's not a client. They live there. They eat. They bathe. They sleep. They watch TV. It's 9 somebody's home even if it doesn't have a kitchen. And that's who this is for. It's not that yeah, 10 we've got a company that [inaudible 3:28:32] unit and they've got a financial reason to do it. 11 But that's who this is for. It's those people that don't have that place to live now. And I would 12 like to find a way to have that place for them to live. Thanks. 13 14 Chair Summa: Commissioner Templeton? 15 16 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. Just listening to Commissioner Hechtman's comments 17 and 1 I thought I would respond to about the reason that people are bringing up for-profit 18 corporations is because, I believe, based on what they've said, because there's money involved 19 on both sides and 1 of them is benefitting and 1 of them is losing. So I think it's important to 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. note that there is a deal being made and that deal is uneven and unbalanced as 1 of our 1 community members said. And we know this. There are corporations that are not for profit and 2 this industry – and I don't know anything about this particular business and so – but I do know 3 that the industry has been – historically played with exploitation. And so we have to understand 4 and call it out when we're seeing things that are uneven and unfairly balanced even if it's not in 5 a way that typically entraps people. So that said, just to be crystal clear, I have no idea – I 6 assume this is a business that's running in good faith. It's just down the street from me. But to 7 say that it's worth being cautious and understanding when money's changing hands who's it 8 benefitting and who's it harming and interpreting the benefit to the community through that 9 lens is important as well. Thank you. 10 11 Chair Summa: Commissioner Chang? 12 13 Vice-Chair Chang: So I just wanted to make a quick suggestion. I noticed that the initial 14 application was for 14 units and the applicant was able to find space for 7 that is, if I 15 understand correctly, that are in wonderful locations that don't impinge at all on the neighbors. 16 And so – well, assuming that we can fix the parking issues, which need to be fixed. So I can say 17 that those 7 units make a ton of sense to me. It's wonderful to have a place for clients, 18 residents, whatever you want to call them who need the service that is being provided. And I 19 think we heard that from the neighbors, too, that they are happy for any expansion, it's just not 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. this expansion. And so what I would ask the applicant is that perhaps you can shave off units to 1 go back to the 14 or look at the ones that are the most high impact and remove those. So that's 2 my quick comment. And it might make it a lot more palatable. 3 4 Chair Summa: Commissioner Lu? 5 6 Commissioner Lu: Thank you. I agree with several of Commission Hechtman's points. I also 7 agree with Commissioner Templeton. And I was about to propose a very similar compromise. 8 So on the whole, I don't think this is ready for ARB or Council. Council was really enthusiastic 9 about the idea of seeing housing on the site though. So I think this project has likes and I really 10 hope the applicant can stick with it and find a way to make it work. But I think if we do move 11 this forward, we'll just have an extended conversation in Council where they will try to broker a 12 compromise, which should really be our job. Recent case in point in how [Ellsworth 3:32:35] has 13 kind of proceeded in Council. So I think this has to stay with us. So in general, I do want to find a 14 way to approve more housing on this site. And I think, like Commissioner Hechtman said, a 15 relevant analogy is whether an existing apartment building or even an empty lot that maybe is 16 in an R40 zone but maybe has neighbors with smaller zoning can renovate or can build. And 17 notwithstanding the issues about the daylight plane, which are really, really important, I don't 18 really have any objections in principle if someone wants to build in an empty lot or wants to 19 renovate as long as we [support 3:33:19] the rules, like Commissioner Hechtman said. I do think 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. a lot of these issues can be mitigated. I am optimistic about the sound and noise. Parking is 1 more complex than I originally thought from my first line of questioning but it does seem 2 solvable. And I do think we can also get there on the daylight plane and privacy. I like that this is 3 much better than what originally went to Council. I, looking at the shadow studies, realize that 4 the – qualitatively, the shadow study impact doesn't seem horrible and so with some 5 mitigations, like removing some or redesigning some units, we can have a shadow study that 6 actually is very little to almost no impact or just marginal impact on a few days of the year. And 7 I hate the idea of just losing units unnecessarily but I think some kind of compromise like this is 8 necessary; well, may be necessary to get this through Council. So, yes, I don't think I'm going to 9 move this forward today but I, like Commissioner Hechtman, would also like to just generally 10 appeal that the people who live in this building and will live in this building are residents and 11 they're not just clients and that when I hear about issues like noise from distressed neighbors, I 12 actually find that heartbreaking. And I think that really emphasizes the need for assisted living 13 in our neighborhood, in our region. And it is a noise impact but I think it's also a really 14 important public good that we have spaces for people who need it. So again I really hope we 15 can find a compromise and move this forward. 16 17 Female: [Inaudible 3:35:29]. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Summa: So I think I'm looking for a compromise also because it's a very needed use 1 regardless of whether it's considered residential or as it's actually called now a commercial 2 service use. And I didn't know that there were people that stayed there permanently because 3 it's described as a convalescent home. So it's – so that – if that's a fact, it's a fact. So it's a little 4 bit different. But I still think that it's – I don't – it's not legally residential and like Commissioner 5 Hechtman, I really agree that we have to follow the rules. And I believe that the people in the 6 building, whether they're clients or residents or a mix thereof, deserve that consideration and 7 so do the neighbors on Wilkie. So I think – I'm not sure if staff needs need a motion from us this 8 evening or if you just want to take – it wasn't very clear to me... 9 10 Amy French: [Well 3:36:34]... 11 12 Chair Summa: ...from... 13 14 Amy French: ...there's options. I'll just jump in. There's options. One option would be to forward 15 it to the Architectural Review Board with direction that a different location be explored, other 16 options that way, numbers of units or what have you and have the ARB process look at 17 massing, windows, location, design, all of that. And then it does come back to the Planning and 18 Transportation Commission after the ARB with ordinance, so findings for daylight plane 19 encroachments and such that would be tied to an ordinance. And that would be the second 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. time that Planning and Transportation Commission sees it. So that would be the normal course 1 with a PC. 2 3 Chair Summa: Right. What I'm hearing from my colleagues is that they would like to see this 4 again to refine it before it goes to the ARB. Do we know when the parking study will be 5 available – any estimate? 6 7 Emily Kallas: Yes. Do I still have that pulled up is the question. 8 9 Chair Summa: Well anyway what I'm thinking is if we're not advancing it to the ARB, you don't 10 specifically need a motion from us. You need comments and I think we'd all like to see it come 11 back here and find a way to make it work, understanding that the biggest obstacles as designed 12 thus far is the impacts on Wilkie Way residents and the parking questions. 13 14 Commissioner Templeton: I would just specify the impacts on their quality of life and the value 15 of their homes. 16 17 Chair Summa: Okay. That's fine. But I don't think we need a motion to give staff and the 18 applicant a time and direction to work a little more on this and bring it back to us. Is that... 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Amy French: I think that's fine as a motion. I don't know if Albert wants to weigh on that but – 1 [yeah 3:38:37]. 2 3 Chair Summa: Is that acceptable with everyone? 4 5 Albert Yang: I think we should have a motion... 6 7 Chair Summa: Oh. 8 9 Albert Yang: ...not to move it on the ARB and to have staff work with the applicant. 10 11 Chair Summa: Would 1 of my colleagues then like to make a motion or...? 12 13 Vice Chair Chang: Can we just go with what you said? 14 15 Commissioner Templeton: If I made a motion, it wouldn't be that, so I'm not sure we want to 16 make a motion right now. I don't know. 17 18 Chair Summa: Our City Attorney would like us to make a motion. I will make a motion that we 19 would like – that the PTC would like this to come back after the – to our body after staff and the 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. applicant had some time to work a little bit more on refining the design with particular 1 attention to daylight plane and massing as impacts Wilkie Way residents and – you want me to 2 add value of their homes? 3 4 Female: [Inaudible 3:39:46]. 5 6 Chair Summa: [Inaudible 3:39:47]. 7 8 Male: [Inaudible 3:39:47] impacts [inaudible 3:39:49]. 9 10 Commissioner Templeton: Impacts... 11 12 Chair Summa: Impacts. 13 14 Commissioner Templeton: ...on the residents. 15 16 Chair Summa: Impacts on residents and... 17 18 Commissioner Templeton: I guess neighbors, so we should specify which residents. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Summa: And more information about the parking situation, how the parking is allotted on 1 the site. 2 3 Female: Do we have a second? 4 5 Commissioner Reckdahl: Second. 6 7 Chair Summa: Does anyone want to speak to their motion – not me – or their second? No. Why 8 don't we go ahead and then take a vote, Miss Dao. Thank you. 9 10 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Akin? 11 12 Commissioner Akin: Yes. 13 14 Veronica Dao: Vice-Chair Chang? 15 16 Vice-Chair Chang: Yes. 17 18 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 1 2 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Lu? 3 4 Commissioner Lu: Yes. 5 6 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Reckdahl? 7 8 Commissioner Reckdahl: Yes. 9 10 Veronica Dao: Chair Summa? 11 12 Chair Summa: Yes. 13 14 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 15 16 Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 17 18 Veronica Dao: Motion carries 7-0. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. MOTION PASSED 7 (Akin, Chang, Hechtman, Lu, Reckdahl, Summa, Templeton) 7-0 1 2 Commission Action: Motion by Summa, second Reckdahl. Pass 7-0 3 4 Chair Summa: Thank you very much. I'm going to suggest we take... 5 6 Commissioner Reckdahl: [Inaudible 3:40:56]. 7 8 Chair Summa: Oh, go ahead. 9 10 Commissioner Reckdahl: Give me 1 minute. I want to talk about daylight plane because that's 1 11 of the biggest things that we talk about tonight and in the code there's 2 ways of doing the 12 daylight plane. You can do the PC, which starts at 10 feet and goes up at a 30 degree angle for a 13 very shallow angle or if it's a residential use, you can chose to use the R1 but you have to use 14 the R1 setback. And so R1 setback on the rear of an R1 is 20 feet. So that means that the 15 daylight plane, if you use that optional daylight plane, would start 20 feet into the property and 16 so that's going to be significant because the building goes right now 10 feet. So I'm not 17 convinced that the PC shallow angle is not the correct one. So anyway, staff needs to really 18 scrub this because that could drastically change what kind of units are allowed in the back. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Summa: Okay. Any other comments? Thank you for that. Is a 10-minute break a good 1 idea? 2 3 Male: Yeah. 4 5 Chair Summa: Okay. See you back in 10 minutes. Thank you very much to the applicants and all 6 the speakers who came here tonight for taking the time. 7 8 4. 2501 Embarcadero Way [22PLN-00367]: Recommendation to Council for 9 Approval of a Site and Design Application and a Variance to Allow the 10 Construction of a Local Advanced Water Purification System at the Regional 11 Water Quality Control Plant (RWQCP). The Proposed Project Includes the 12 Construction and Operation of a Membrane Filtration Recycled Water Facility 13 and a Permeate Storage Tank at the City's RWQCP to Improve Recycled Water 14 Quality and Increase its Use. A Variance to Allow for a Taller Screening Wall is 15 Also Requested. Environmental Assessment: Council Previously Adopted an 16 Addendum to the 2015 Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the City of Palo 17 Alto Recycled Water Project Which Evaluated the Environmental Impacts of the 18 Proposed Project. Zone District: PF (D) (Public Facility with Site and Design 19 Combining District). For More Information Contact the Project Planner, Claire 20 Raybould, at Claire.Raybould@Cityofpaloalto.org. 21 22 Chair Summa: Okay. We're back. And I'd like to call the meeting back in to order. We will 23 proceed with the next action item, which is Item Number 4 – 2501 Embarcadero Way, 24 recommendation to Council for approval of Site and Design Application and a variance to allow 25 construction of a local advanced water purification system at the Regional Water Quality 26 Control Plant. So with that, I'm ask staff to give us their report. 27 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Senior Planner Claire Raybould: Thank you so much. Good evening. Claire Raybould, Senior 2 Planner with Current Planning. The project before you today, as you noted, is 2501 3 Embarcadero Road, a new advanced water purification system project at our Regional Water 4 Quality Control Plant. This project is located within the boundaries of the Regional Water 5 Quality Control Plant. The plant serves a number of different jurisdictions within the area, 6 including Palo Alto, East Palo Alto, portions of Menlo Park, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills and 7 Mountain View, about 200,000 customers. Brief project overview: The project includes 8 construction of a reverse osmosis permeate storage tank, which is located here; the pre-9 engineered open-air building covering a membrane filtration system; chemical storage feed 10 system components and other ancillary components essential to the purification system 11 located here and a small prefabricated electrical building located here. And the facility would 12 have a building footprint of approximately 15,500 square feet. And this is just a view of the 13 facility. The stairs going down here show kind of where grade would be. This area would be 14 grade, so everything below that is below grade. But just kind of a view of the facility. Tonight 15 we're asking you to make the site and design findings. So I just put them on the slide here and 16 we'll speak a little bit to that in the next couple slides. Really it's all about compatibility to 17 neighbors and ensuring some principles of environmental design and ecological balance and 18 consistency with the comp plan. So speaking mostly to the compatibility of the area, some key 19 considerations relate to the Baylands design guidelines. This is adjacent to the Baylands. Noise 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. as it relates to the neighboring facilities, Baylands and airport, lighting again as it relates to 1 those neighboring facilities, the airport itself and trees. The applicant tonight, our Public Works 2 Division, will speak a little bit more but the project went through a pretty long design phase 3 looking at different locations in order to determine the best location for this facility. And there 4 are quite a lot of constraints on this site within the Regional Water Quality Control Plant 5 boundaries, so those were factors as well that went in to consideration of where to site this 6 project. So just a little bit briefly on some key considerations, the project is not located within 7 dedicated parkland area but it is located within the boundaries of the Bayland Nature Preserve 8 and is, therefore, subject to the Baylands' design guidelines. The project did have some minor 9 redesigns by staff, based on ARB feedback, for consistency with those guidelines. Mainly things 10 like the color of the roof were changed to a more Bay-friendly design color. There is a sound 11 wall and they're using low-noise level equipment to ensure that noise levels at the property line 12 are below 49 decimals. [coughing] Sorry. Lighting has been minimized for safe operations. An 13 automatic on switch was provided for operators in order to minimize timing. Lights need to be 14 on. Lighting that is provided is certified as nighttime friendly and is code compliant in terms of 15 intensity and shielding. Some of the key considerations related trees, the 35 trees being 16 removed, mostly non-native, invasive species. Thirty-six native trees will be planted in their 17 place. Although the design was modified based on PR – Parks and Recreation Commission 18 feedback to reduce the tree removals and they preserved 11 more trees than were originally 19 proposed, in the last year or so, 5 of those trees have died or fallen, so there are a total of 6 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. trees now that were specifically identified by the Parks and Recreation Commission to help 1 preserve more trees that are now being preserved. And then we have been coordinating with 2 MidPen Open Space on – they had some comments on best management practices to stop the 3 spread of invasives. So we'll be incorporating those into the project as well. As I noted, the 4 airport is located across Embarcadero Road from this site and so the project is within the 5 airport influence area. The project does comply with the airport land-use plan. Further 6 discussion of that is included in the project's consistency. The project's consistency is provided 7 in the CEQA analysis and in the Staff Report just as it relates to things like noise and height and 8 hazardous materials. As noted in the Staff Report, in 2015, Council adopted an EIR for the City 9 of Palo Alto Recycled Water Project. That EIR included mitigation measure, HYD or hydro 3d, 10 which required the City to consider treatment options, such as reverse osmosis to reduce the 11 salinity of its recycled water and, thus, make its recycled water usable for irrigation of salt-12 sensitive specifies. So this project is partially – is mainly in response to that. So on November 13 18, 2019, in taking the discretionary actions to further pursue this project, Council adopted an 14 EIR addendum that included more site specific details associated with the proposed 15 development. So that addendum is provided to you. A link to that is provided in the packet. So 16 recommendations and next steps are consider the previously adopted addendum and 17 recommend that the Planning and Transportation Commission recommend approval of the 18 proposed project to Council based on the provided findings and subject to conditions of 19 approval. And following a recommendation from the PTC, the project will be reviewed by the 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. ARB. The ARB will also make a recommendation to Council. And finally, Council will issue a final 1 decision on the proposed project. And with that, I'll turn it back to you. Our Public Works 2 Division is here tonight if you'd like to hear from them. 3 4 Chair Summa: Okay. Thank you very much for that. I see 3 lights, so I'm not sure what order 5 they came on it but we'll go with Lu, Reckdahl and Akin. 6 7 Commissioner Lu: Just a quick clarification for my context and not necessarily for these findings 8 but can you go through cost history of the project just very briefly? I know it... 9 10 Claire Raybould: So... 11 12 Commissioner Lu: ...escalated from 20 million. 13 14 Claire Raybould: Sorry. 15 16 Commissioner Lu: [Right 4:04:18]? 17 18 Claire Raybould: We do have a presentation from Public Works... 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Lu: Ahh, o-... 1 2 Claire Raybould: ...that includes... 3 4 Commissioner Lu: Oh. 5 6 Claire Raybould: ...some of that information if you'd like to... 7 8 Chair Summa: I'm sorry. 9 10 Claire Raybould: ...[hear from them 4:04:25]. 11 12 Chair Summa: I didn't mean to ignore you. I... 13 14 Claire Raybould: Yeah. 15 16 Chair Summa: ...didn't hear that somehow. So forget it and let Public Works please... 17 18 Claire Raybould: Hopefully... 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Summa: ...[proceed 4:04:34]. 1 2 Claire Raybould: ...these'll help to answer those questions. 3 4 Senior Engineer Tom Kapushinski: Good evening, Commissioners. I'm Tom Kapushinski and I'm 5 a Senior Engineer at the Water Quality Control Plant. I'm here with my colleague, Diego. 6 7 Engineer Diego Martinez-Garcia: Goodnight, Commissioners. My name is Diego Martinez. I'm an 8 engineer also working at the Water Quality Control Plant. So thank you, Claire and Amy. So 9 we're going to run through this quick presentation to provide you with some of the information 10 [inaudible 4:05:01] would like to ask. Briefly we're going to start with an overview of the 11 project, what are the benefits for Palo Alto, some of the site constraints at the Water Quality 12 Control Plant. I'll provide an update on the cost and schedule for these, some existing 13 conditions and the main project's features of this element. The purpose of this project is to 14 improve the recycled water quality from the currently quality we produce at the plant. By using 15 or having better recycled water, we're also able to decrease the amount of potable water we 16 use in the city and our partner cities for irrigation uses. This project background started back in 17 2010 when the Council approved policy to reduce salinity in recycled water. From there, City 18 Council provided direction to staff to implement the project at the plant to reduce [all content 19 4:06:00] in the recycled water. After doing some planning and design of the project, Council 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. directed staff to move forward with financial agreements, permits and issue an invitation for 1 bids. On the left, there is a picture of the project location that Claire already covered. You can 2 see we have the airport, the Baylands and the plant in the middle. As part of the project, we're 3 including a new permeate storage tank on the left, you can see, microfiltration and reverse 4 osmosis to further [inaudible 4:06:36] recycled water quality, are going to be located in the 5 main canopy. There is going to be a blending station located in an existing facility at the plant 6 and the project includes landscaping, grading and paving inside the plant and also some 7 exterior work with the sidewalk and a small electrical building near the wall. Some of the 8 benefits to Palo Alto for this project are higher quality recycled water quality used at the golf 9 course, at Embarcadero Road and Greer Park, which helps supporting the salinity reduction 10 goals set by City Council. It will increase the amount of recycled water that we're using. This 11 decreases the conversion of marsh near the outflow of the plant, protecting the bay and 12 reducing discharge of [inaudible 4:07:28] to the bay. And this project would also be first step to 13 direct potable reuse if the City decides to move forward with that approach in the future. It also 14 helps strengthen our relationship with our partners. The plant is owned and employed by the 15 City but we have 5 water partners – Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford and East 16 Palo Alto. It also helps set up for potential customers in the City of Palo Alto as well. After we 17 received direction from Council to explore options inside the plant for this project [inaudible 18 4:08:04] 5 sites around the plant. [As a 4:08:06] visibility study in 2017, sites 2, 3, 4 and 5 were 19 eliminated from moving forward as they have either multiple utilities in the area [as were 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 4:08:21] inside the plant and there are already buildings providing some sort of treatment for 1 wastewater on site as well. And sites 4 and 5 are already used – [well are 4:08:31] part of 2 Measure E and Byxbee Park, so we decided not to move forward in those areas. The only 3 available option was site number 1 on the left, which is 1 of the few open spaces we have 4 available at the plant for new infrastructure. And we wanted to provide a little more detail on 5 site constraints we have of the plant. On the left, you can see the site for the advanced water 6 purification facility. We have a easement from 1 of our sewer lines on the lower part. To the 7 right, you can see an [in-point 4:09:05] junction box where all of our sewer lines converge in 8 that area and a pumping plant that is already existing there. And on the upper right corner, we 9 have an existing [inaudible] [contact 4:09:14] tank that we're planning to build a new facility 10 there [inaudible] [works 4:09:18] to replace aging facilities from the [inaudible 4:09:22] vital to 11 provide treatment at the plant. Regarding capital cost, the most [debated 4:09:32] cost for the 12 facility are $64 million. From that we're getting a contribution from Valley Water of 16 million. 13 We're getting a grant from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation for 13 million. And the remaining 14 portion of the capital cost will be covered by the City of Mountain View through a State loan, 15 which is $35 million. We also want to provide you with a work schedule of the project. The 16 financial portion of it went through Mountain View City Council and Palo Alto City Council last 17 year and, as I told you, we're working through financial agreements and permitting, such as 18 planning entitlement, now. And we're hoping to get invitation for bids issued in the fall of this 19 year, starting construction early next year and have the facility running by mid-2027. Here we 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. can see a couple of pictures of the existing side [and 4:10:30] Embarcadero Road. On the left, 1 we have the treatment plant; on the right, the airport. A couple of more pictures of the area. 2 And then I'll provide a brief overview of the project features. Claire already covered a few. The 3 main element is a pre-engineered open-air building, a canopy to cover the equipment to 4 further treat recycled water. There is a small electric building in the front of it to provide 5 housing for all the instrumentation of electrical equipment. We're adding a wall or we're 6 planning to add a perimeter wall for sound attenuation and also for – provide some visual 7 screening and I believe that's part of the Staff Report to request a variance on the wall. Another 8 element is an permeate tank, which is [a product 4:11:23] water from this facility. It's a 350-9 thousand gallon storage tank. [Well 4:11:29] the wall that I mentioned and we're planning to 10 reconfigure portions of the existing pedestrian path to accommodate new landscaping. And 11 with that, we want to thank you very much for your time today. And then I think we'll hand it 12 over to – I don't know – Commissioner Summa. Thank you. 13 14 Chair Summa: Thank you very much. Does that conclude your presentation? 15 16 Diego Martinez-Garcia: Yeah. 17 18 Chair Summa: Okay. Great. Awesome. We'll bring it back for questions and then we'll go to the 19 public and we'll start with Commissioner Lu. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 4:12:04]. 2 3 Chair Summa: Okay. 4 5 Commissioner Templeton: Mr. Yang, I sent you an email asking if I could participate. Could you 6 take a look at that before we get discussion going? Thank you. 7 8 Albert Yang: Yes. Thanks. 9 10 Female: Okay. 11 12 Chair Summa: Go ahead. 13 14 Commissioner Lu: Oh, and I'll also shout out that I visited the site and walked around the kind of 15 perimeter and existing path. So I guess my original question about the costs escalating was I 16 know it started from around $20 million. I just wanted to get a qualitative sense from your side 17 how potentially discretionary processes, like the ARB or PRC or PTC, whether they materially 18 contributed to delays or whether they materially contributed to the increase in costs, like 19 whether any demands across all of our sides contributed. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Tom Kapushinski: Well as the project has dragged on a little bit with some of the appearances 2 we've had to make between various boards and so forth, it is causing costs to escalate 3 somewhat. But really we've started running into the cost issues after the preliminary design 4 was completed in 2017. By the time we got a consultant onboard and started the design and we 5 got into our 30 percent design, it was already into 2021 and we were in the middle of the 6 pandemic and with some of the issues to be dealt with from that with the pandemic and supply 7 chain issues that resulted from all that, it started to drive up the costs. 8 9 Commissioner Lu: Thank you. And were there any other variances that you maybe wanted to 10 seek for this project but you didn't include in these proposals for whatever reason? 11 12 Tom Kapushinski: Not really. 13 14 Commissioner Lu: [Inaudible 4:14:22]. 15 16 Tom Kapushinski: I mean we've tried to abide by the design standards for the Baylands. We've 17 tried to go about and appease all parties on this as best we can. But we are very limited for 18 space on... 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Lu: [Mm-hm 4:14:40]. 1 2 Tom Kapushinski: ...on the treatment plant site and this is really about the only available space 3 we have left. 4 5 Commissioner Lu: Thank you. My intention is to make a motion moving forward after the first 6 round of discussion. I just really want to make this easy for – easy to move forward and easy to 7 get built. So thank you. 8 9 Chair Summa: Commissioner Reckdahl? 10 11 Commissioner Reckdahl: Big picture question. We have purple-pipe water today. This just 12 replaces that? 13 14 Diego Martinez-Garcia: No. It's built in the same system – existing system we have. It just 15 improves the water quality of the recycled water we're already sending. We're not expanding 16 the system as of now. But in the future, if the City decides to encourage that or enlarge the 17 recycled water system, this facility could help in providing that extra water and better quality. 18 19 Commissioner Reckdahl: So Palo Alto still will be using the traditional purple pipe water? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Diego Martinez-Garcia: Yeah. This is... 2 3 Commissioner Reckdahl: And this'll be a different product? 4 5 Diego Martinez-Garcia: No. It's the same still traditional purple pipe water. It's for irrigation. It's 6 just the salt content is way lower than... 7 8 Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. 9 10 Diego Martinez-Garcia: ...we currently produce. But this will be still for non-potable uses and 11 mainly irrigation. 12 13 Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. 14 15 Claire Raybould: And... 16 17 Male: Mm-hm. 18 19 Claire Raybould: ...I think mainly this is for the golf course and Greer Park. Is that... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Diego Martinez-Garcia: Yeah... 2 3 Claire Raybould: ...correct? 4 5 Diego Martinez-Garcia: ...except for our... 6 7 Claire Raybould: Yeah. 8 9 Diego Martinez-Garcia: ...current customer or users in the city are... 10 11 Claire Raybould: [Inaudible 4:16:07]. 12 13 Diego Martinez-Garcia: ...mainly like city facilities, mainly the... 14 15 Claire Raybould: City. 16 17 Diego Martinez-Garcia: ...golf-... 18 19 Claire Raybould: Yeah. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Diego Martinez-Garcia: ...-course and Greer Park. 2 3 Claire Raybould: For City of Palo Alto... 4 5 Diego Martinez-Garcia: For City... . 6 7 Claire Raybould: ..[inaudible 4:16:13]. 8 9 Diego Martinez-Garcia: ...of Palo... 10 11 Claire Raybould: Yeah. 12 13 Diego Martinez-Garcia: ...Alto. 14 15 Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah. 16 17 Diego Martinez-Garcia: Yeah. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Reckdahl: And we had plans at 1 time to go up Page Mill and go into the 1 industrial park. How far does that pipe go? Does it stop at Greer or does it go further? 2 3 Diego Martinez-Garcia: It only goes like along East Bayshore up to like San Antonio Road and 4 then there is a little crossing across 101 to go to Greer Park and a couple of more lines that go 5 to golf course and the bay athletic center. But for Palo Alto, it's a very small system yet. 6 7 Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. 8 9 Diego Martinez-Garcia: There are plans – yeah – as you... 10 11 Commissioner Reckdahl: [Inaudible 4:16:42]... 12 13 Diego Martinez-Garcia: ...were saying. 14 15 Commissioner Reckdahl: ...[inaudible 4:16:42]... 16 17 Diego Martinez-Garcia: But they are still in the planning phase and we haven't gotten direction 18 to move forward with those yet. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Claire Raybould: So I believe, if I recall from the CEQA analysis, that we are designing this 1 system to ensure that it would accommodate a future Phase 3 expansion if we wanted to 2 pursue that in the future though. 3 4 Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. And then there's also the Los Altos Treatment Center where 5 there's going to be the different purified water system that Valley Water is going to pump down 6 to Los Gatos? 7 8 Claire Raybould: Yes. So that project – actually Karin North is on, so she might be able to speak 9 a little bit more. There was a recent decision, I believe, by Valley Water to delay that project by 10 a couple of years. So I don't know if Karin, you – yeah. 11 12 Commissioner Reckdahl: Oh, yeah. 13 14 Claire Raybould: I see [you're on 4:17:36]. 15 16 Assistant Public Works Director Karin North: Sure, I'm here. I'm Karin North, the Assistant Public 17 Works Director from Environmental Services Division. You're actually correct. We we're working 18 actively with Valley Water on a regional purification facility that will produce indirect potable 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. water for drinking water. And the board just decided on Tuesday to basically postpone that 1 project for 2 years. So... 2 3 Male: [Inaudible 4:18:00]. 4 5 Karin North: ...but that would be at the old Los Altos Treatment Plant site. 6 7 Commissioner Reckdahl: And would that be taking the output of this or would... 8 9 Karin North: [Inaudible 4:18:07]. 10 11 Commissioner Reckdahl: ...be taking... 12 13 Karin North: No. It will be taking – that project would be taking our treated effluent and then 14 purifying it. So a similar process. The difference is it's a product water. So the small salt-removal 15 facility that's being built at the [Inaudible 4:18:24] Plant is to take our effluent, run it through 16 microfiltration reverse osmosis and produce a high-quality water that will get blended with our 17 existing recycled water to produce low-salt content recycled water. And we call that enhanced 18 recycled water. The project at the Los Altos Treatment Plant site in conjunction with Valley 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Water that was proposed and now put on hold for 2 years was to produce a high-quality water 1 that could be injected into the groundwater for eventual drinking water. 2 3 Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. 4 5 Karin North: So a slightly different water... 6 7 Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah. [Inaudible 4:19:00]. 8 9 Karin North: ...quality types. 10 11 Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. 12 13 Karin North: But very similar. 14 15 Commissioner Reckdahl: I didn't know if these 2 processes were in parallel or in series and so it 16 sounds like they're in parallel. They both will be taking treated sewage and doing different 17 things with them. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Karin North: Correct. So 1 is for the existing purple pipe customers, the non-potable water 1 users, which is mostly in Mountain View at the Shoreline area. That entire area is purple piped. 2 And then also for us in Palo Alto, it's our golf course and Greer Park and Animal Services Center. 3 So it's all of our public services buildings along Bayshore. 4 5 Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. Thank you. That helps. 6 7 Chair Summa: I'm going to interrupt for a minute because Commissioner Templeton wants to 8 recuse herself out of a super-abundance of caution from this issue. 9 10 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. I have another Commission assignment that is related to 11 Valley Water and financial oversight and I'm just feeling a little bit uncomfortable with all the 12 different discussions of interleading interests here. I trust you guys have got it. I will take the 13 rest of the evening from home. Thank you. 14 15 Chair Summa: You're released. Bye. 16 17 Female: Thank you. 18 19 Chair Summa: Okay. Go back to – if you were finished Commissioner Reckdahl? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah. 2 3 Chair Summa: Okay. Then we'll go to Commissioner Akin. 4 5 Commissioner Akin: Hi. I have what I hope will be easy. So I'm looking at the diagrams here and 6 I see direct line of site from a number of areas to the [RO 4:20:36] cylinders and to the roof of 7 the open building. And so I was wondering is a 10-foot soundwall enough or do you really need 8 a couple of more feet? 9 10 Tom Kapushinski: Well actually with our appearance before the Architectural Review Board, 11 they asked us to take a look at few things and that's actually 1 of them. We're looking at 12 potentially using some sort of screening panels higher up upon the canopy to screen some of 13 the components underneath the canopy from being seen from the road. 14 15 Commissioner Akin: Oh, I wasn't really concerned as much about visibility as it looks like there 16 are buildings to the west that would be in direct line of sight for sound. So I was worried that 17 you might have more noise issues with a 10-foot soundwall than you would with 12. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Tom Kapushinski: Actually from the noise studies and that that we've already developed, I 1 guess at the actual soundwall, we're going to meet the requirements for the ordinance on noise 2 attenuation. 3 4 Commissioner Akin: You're good to go? 5 6 Tom Kapushinski: Yes. 7 8 Commissioner Akin: Yeah. Hm. Surprising. Just given the line of sight, I was worried about that. 9 All right. That was it. Thank you. 10 11 Chair Summa: Commissioner Hechtman? 12 13 Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. So just mostly some clarifying questions. On the trees, 14 Ms. Raybould, if I'm understanding the numbers right, the original proposal was to remove 46 15 trees but 11 of them they decided to preserve but 6 of those died and that's how we get to 35? 16 17 Claire Raybould: Yes. I believe that's... 18 19 Commissioner Hechtman: Right? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Claire Raybould: ...right. Is that right? Yeah. It sounds right. 2 3 Commissioner Hechtman: Is that right? 4 5 Claire Raybould: I think so. 6 7 Commissioner Hechtman: All right. So it's 35 and we were able to save the 5 of the 11 that 8 didn't die? Okay. And we're planting 36 new trees. Next question, so it's a $63 million project 9 and Palo Alto is paying 0. So my first question is who negotiated that on behalf of Palo Alto so 10 well? 11 12 Diego Martinez-Garcia: Oh. Well I think maybe Karin North, [our 4:23:05] Assistant... 13 14 Karin North: Sure. 15 16 Diego Martinez-Garcia: ...Director, she can respond to that 1 because – yeah. 17 18 Commissioner Hechtman: All right. [Well 4:23:09]... 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Karin North: Sure. So Karin North, City of Palo Alto. So this is a complicated project in terms of 1 lots of agencies. Part of this goes into the previous Commissioner recusing herself with the $16 2 million contribution with the 2019 agreement between Valley Water and Mountain View and 3 Palo Alto to have half of the effluent available for the indirect potable reuse project at the 4 potential Los Altos Treatment Plant site with Valley Water. So that's part of the reason why. So 5 Mountain View is – when we initialed the feasibility study, the anticipation was that Palo Alto 6 will be paying 5 percent, Mountain View will be paying 5 percent and Valley Water would've 7 been paying – actually I think it's – yeah, 5 and 5 and – or 10 and 10 [of that 4:24:03] and 8 Mountain View [stuttering] – sorry. And... 9 10 Diego Martinez-Garcia: [Inaudible 4:24:08]... 11 12 Karin North: [Inaudible 4:24:08]. 13 14 Diego Martinez-Garcia: ...20 million. 15 16 Karin North: It would've been 20 – thank you... 17 18 Diego Martinez-Garcia: And then from that... 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Karin North: ...Diego. 1 2 Diego Martinez-Garcia: ...16 million... 3 4 Karin North: [That 4:24:13]... 5 6 Diego Martinez-Garcia: ...Valley Water and then 3 million Mountain View and 1 million Palo 7 Alto in the original just because Mountain View, we have an agreement with them and they're 8 entitled to 75 percent of the recycled water [we 4:24:24] produce. 9 10 Karin North: Thank you. So Mountain View is going to be paying for the majority of this water 11 anyway because they are the driver for wanting enhanced recycled water for their existing 12 recycled water customer base. All of our existing recycled water customer base are municipal 13 clients. And so our City at that point in time or our City Manager was directing us and our 14 Council to negotiate the best possible for Palo Alto since we are not the driver at this point in 15 time because we have not put in a large amount of future recycled water pipelines that are 16 pushing for this higher quality water. We anticipate, though, Palo Alto will be paying for the 17 operating costs of this facility and then if there's any future expansions of Palo Alto's recycled 18 water, then we'll be paying increased costs. So the initial capital cost, though, is coming from 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Mountain View. I hope I answered that correctly. I'm sorry. This has been a very long day. I'm 1 sure the same for you, so I apologize. 2 3 Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. No. Thank you and I tip my hat to you and your staff. I think I 4 understand it now. But I think even though we're not paying for it ultimately, I think we get 5 some – when it's done, we'll get some benefit anyway because the water we use, which 6 apparently goes to, right now, Greer Park and to the golf course, will have this salinity. So it... 7 8 Diego Martinez-Garcia: Yeah. Correct. 9 10 Commissioner Hechtman: [Inaudible 4:25:56]. 11 12 Diego Martinez-Garcia: I will mention if the City decides to move forward with any expansion in 13 the future, this system is already – we'll be there ready for – to serve those extra customers. 14 15 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. Next question – let's see. So when we dealt, maybe a little bit 16 less than a year ago, with, I think it was the BMW on the corner of Embarcadero, and if you 17 remember we had them remove a dozen or so lovely trees to create a 10-foot wide multimodal 18 path. Oh, incidentally, I'm familiar with the site. I've been by it approximately 1,000 times 19 because I bike 1 way or another all the time past there. And so I know that there's not a bike 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. path right there and actually in one of the images, it showed how the bike lane kind of ends as 1 you come around that corner toward Byxbee Park because I think the – because the road 2 narrows. And so I'm curious as to whether there was any discussion about as part of what's 3 happening outside the fence, tying in the bike lanes because once you get to Byxbee, of course, 4 you have a whole network that takes you over to Shoreline Lake in 1 direction and Cooley 5 Landing in the other. So were there discussions about extending the multimodal path out that 6 way? 7 8 Diego Martinez-Garcia: No. I think our intent of design was to provide the same road wise and 9 the same existing conditions as they are now. We have to mention, during construction, we'll 10 have to encroach some of the road. We'll get permit to do that and appropriate signage and 11 traffic control. But once we're done, we'll given back what we took and in the same manner it's 12 already there with the... 13 14 Commissioner Hechtman: Understood. 15 16 Diego Martinez-Garcia: ...existing bike lane. 17 18 Commissioner Hechtman: Understood. Our car dealership, of course, they weren't really going 19 to change that sidewalk condition either but they ended up with a path. But it's fine and it looks 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. like it's a – while the meandering pedestrian path is going to be similar, it looks like it's lovely 1 and it looks like the land-... 2 3 Diego Martinez-Garcia: [Yeah 4:28:21]. 4 5 Commissioner Hechtman: ...-scaping is upgraded there. Whoever did the renderings of the 6 landscaping, if you were a private developer coming before me, I would say that is not 7 believable. Everything doesn't flower all at once all the time. But... 8 9 Female: [Inaudible 4:28:36]. 10 11 Commissioner Hechtman: ...that was a very optimistic view. But I am actually interested in the 12 landscaping that is screening the soundwall of the 10-foot soundwall. So my synagoge actually 13 had to go through this 8, 9, 10 years ago where we wanted, I think, the fence at the height we 14 wanted, we wanted it a little closer to Alma. And we went through – it's either a variance or 15 exception process with the City and were approved. But we had a condition of approval to do 16 screening landscaping, which incidentally is beautiful now if you go by it. And I know that this 17 land – I'm seeing this landscaping in the visuals and there is some reference to it in the findings, 18 kind of a soft reference to it but I wanted to ask staff is the landscaping plan part of the plan 19 that's being approved and required by the conditions of approval to be followed. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Claire Raybould: Yes. 2 3 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. So then we are assured to see that ever-flowering vegetation 4 when you're done. All right. The last question I have is kind of a nerdy law question probably for 5 Mr. Yang. And that is – I see on page 80 that you've got to move an internal property line 6 because it's sitting where a building is going to be built and you can't do that. You can't build a 7 building that straddles the property line. Is Mr. Yang still around? 8 9 Albert Yang: Yes, I'm here. 10 11 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. So and what the action is referred to in the Staff Report or 12 conditions – I can't remember which – as a certificate of compliance. Is that a lot line 13 adjustment we're talking about? 14 15 Albert Yang: Yes. 16 17 Karin North: Yes. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. And in this particular situation, why wouldn't we just merge 1 the lots to avoid that issue altogether? 2 3 Assistant City Attorney Yang: That's a business decision. Karin, perhaps you can address that. 4 5 Karin North: So when we did some more analysis on the sewage treatment plant site – and, 6 Diego, please correct me if wrong because he's done a lot more analysis on this than I have, my 7 high level. But there's multiple zones that are within that are within that 25 acre – multiple lot 8 lines within the 25 acres, so it's something that we're trying to fix. And this project highlighted 9 the fact that we have a 25-acre facility and multiple lot lines. And so that's what we're basically 10 doing. We're shifting them and fixing the lots. They're all owned by the City, so... 11 12 Male: [Yeah 4:31:19]. 13 14 Karin North: ...it's just an internal error that [inaudible 4:31:21]. 15 16 Diego Martinez-Garcia: Yeah. And let me just comment on that. The original parcel lines [at 17 4:31:25] the plant don't match what's currently existing and built in there. So when the original 18 wastewater plant was built in the 70s, they didn't do it – like the work to match the lot lines. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. 1 2 Diego Martinez-Garcia: So there is like a weird – like an old – there's some Francisquito Creek 3 [old 4:31:41] course flowing through the plant already and where the parcel line is, like caught 4 in the plant in the middle. And then there are smaller parcels on side, like 4 parcels, like Karin 5 was saying. So it's like a complicated situation we'll have to address to either merge those 4 6 parcels and then move the parcel boundary to the road to match it with the existing [pipeline 7 4:32:07] at the plant. 8 9 Claire Raybould: Merging would require further mapping process, subdivision map process than 10 a lot line adjustment, so it would be more work and more entitlements for staff to be able to do 11 that. 12 13 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. All right. 14 15 Female: [Inaudible 4:32:23]. 16 17 Commissioner Hechtman: I just wanted to make sure to consider [them 4:32:24] because with 18 the lot line adjustment, of course the issue is the City has to follow the same rules everybody is. 19 In fact, that's why you're here in front of us on a City project even – so you can't just do it. And 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. so for lot line adjustments, for example, all the applicable setbacks have to be honored. So 1 when you establish the new lot line, everything is supposed to be the right distance from that 2 new line. And so sometimes that can be challenging, particularly where you’ve got a lot of 3 existing facilities, to thread that needle. And so in that situation, a merger, even though it might 4 take a little longer, is a better long-term solution. 5 6 Claire Raybould: Yeah. And when we did – when we provided all of the setbacks and everything 7 that's provided in the Staff Report, it's all based on where the lot line would be. 8 9 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. Well it sounds like you sort of looked at this and that's really 10 what I wanted to hear. So I just will say that I am – I've reviewed the SDR findings and the 11 variance findings and I think they can all be made. Thanks. 12 13 Chair Summa: Thank you. Commissioner Chang? 14 15 Vice-Chair Chang: So really quick question. So I was looking at the plans and so it's page L007. 16 17 Male: [Inaudible 4:33:44]. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Vice-Chair Chang: And I just had questions because it looks like there's the table 1 with the tree 1 survey data and it looks to me, based on the drawing to the left of the table, that tree 118 is 2 being removed but then on the table it's not. And so I just wanted to make sure that things 3 were – I don't have any objection to anything that's – oh, sorry. It's actually pa-, so the table is 4 on page 007 and then the tree is question is pictured on page 008. And I think tree 118 is where 5 the tank is going to be maybe. Well I'm not sure. I think it – but it looks – it's an X, so it looks like 6 it's going to be removed. So my question is it going to be removed and if it is let's just make 7 sure that it's consistent. 8 9 Claire Raybould: Yeah. We'll look into that and... 10 11 Vice-Chair Chang: Yeah. [Let's just 4:34:52]... 12 13 Claire Raybould: ...verify... 14 15 Vice-Chair Chang: ...make sure that the tree – that table 1 is accurate according to... 16 17 Claire Raybould: [Yeah 4:34:59]. 18 19 Vice-Chair Chang: ...or the plans are accurate. Thanks. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Chair Summa: I have a quick question about the parallel trunkline, which I think will come – 2 which has been something that's been talked about and planned for a long time and I believe 3 that's going to bring material into this plant. Right? Is that going to... 4 5 Male: [Inaudible 4:35:21]. 6 7 Chair Summa: ...be build first, later? 8 9 Tom Kapushinski: Probably not. I mean that – they just released that project. It's going through 10 a whole [inaudible 4:35:35]... 11 12 Karin North: Tom, can we... 13 14 Tom Kapushinski: ...[inaudible 4:35:35]. 15 16 Karin North: ...clarify which parallel trunkline they're discussing? Is it the influent parallel 17 trunkline that's proposed? 18 19 Diego Martinez-Garcia: The East Palo Alto one. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Tom Kapushinski: It's East Palo Alto one. 2 3 Karin North: Is that the one... 4 5 Male: [Inaudible 4:35:43]. 6 7 Karin North: ...that they – I just want to clarify and they're not talking about the outfall parallel 8 line that we're also trying to... 9 10 Male: Oh. 11 12 Karin North: ...move forward. We have 2. That's why I'm asking. 13 14 Chair Summa: I didn't know about the second one. It's a big incoming one... 15 16 Male: Okay. 17 18 Chair Summa: ...that... 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Male: [Inaudible 4:35:56]. 1 2 Male: Okay. 3 4 Chair Summa: ...goes kind of around the golf course and then at the end, it comes down... 5 6 Male: [Right 4:36:01]. 7 8 Chair Summa: ...Embarcadero and cuts across part of the airport. 9 10 Diego Martinez-Garcia: Yeah. That's the East Palo Alto. It's an incoming line from... 11 12 Chair Summa: That's right. 13 14 Diego Martinez-Garcia: ...East Palo Alto. Yeah. Correct. 15 16 Tom Kapushinski: You said it goes around the airport. 17 18 Karin North: So it cuts... 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Summa: Cuts across... 1 2 Karin North: ...through the airport. 3 4 Male: [Well 4:36:14 ]... 5 6 Chair Summa: ...the airport. 7 8 Male: ...[inaudible 4:36:14]. 9 10 Diego Martinez-Garcia: It goes through the airport. 11 12 Tom Kapushinski: Yeah. 13 14 Chair Summa: It goes around... 15 16 Tom Kapushinski: Right. 17 18 Chair Summa: ...the golf course. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Tom Kapushinski: Yes. That's the new line as proposed by East Palo Alto Sanitary District, 1 of 1 our part-... 2 3 Chair Summa: Okay. 4 5 Tom Kapushinski: ...-ners. 6 7 Chair Summa: But that's not going to happen at the same time as this? 8 9 Tom Kapushinski: No, it's not. 10 11 Chair Summa: Okay. 12 13 Tom Kapushinski: It's probably going to take a while for that project to get underway. 14 15 Chair Summa: So and the only reason I'm concerned – because obviously it's all going to happen 16 and it's all good improvements – is because we're losing a lot of trees in the Baylands in general 17 and a lot here but they'll be replaced but they'll probably be smaller and it's really important 18 habitat for birds, maybe not all birds but there's a lot of birds and besides herons and stuff. But 19 I just want to make sure that when that – the parallel trunkline is built we don't lose more trees 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. in that area that's pretty – a lot of the Baylands is kind of empty of trees and this area had all 1 those trees. So that was my concern about the parallel trunkline. 2 3 Tom Kapushinski: Well actually we've got some questions for them too as they – how they 4 intend to bring that line into the plant property. 5 6 Chair Summa: Okay. So we're... 7 8 Tom Kapushinski: [Yeah 4:34:25]. 9 10 Chair Summa: ...all on the same page. 11 12 Tom Kapushinski: Yeah. 13 14 Chair Summa: We have a lot of questions. Okay. Thank you. Any more questions or we'll go to 15 the public? Okay. Let's go to the public speakers if we have some. And I know we have at least... 16 17 Veronica Dao: Yes. 18 19 Chair Summa: ...1. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Veronica Dao: One on Zoom from Shani Kleinhaus. 2 3 Chair Summa: Okay. Thank you. 4 5 PUBLIC COMMENTS 6 Shani Kleinhaus: Good evening Chair Summa and Commissioners and Palo Alto staff. My name 7 is Shani Kleinhaus. I'm a resident of Palo Alto. I'm a PRC Commissioner but I do not speak on 8 behalf of the PRC and I speak tonight as the environmental advocate for the Santa Clara Valley 9 Audubon Society and a volunteer on the Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter Executive Committee. 10 I am biologist in training with a PhD in ecology. In the past few years, I have been researching 11 scientific studies on the environmental impacts of artificial light at night. And I learned that 12 lighting really needs to be considered through a biological and ecological lens and not only 13 aesthetics. Unfortunately, CEQA does not require analysis of lighting as a biological impact, only 14 aesthetics but it is critical to consider lighting from a biological and ecological lens in the 15 Baylands. There are now volumes of scientific studies that show that light at night causes 16 tremendous harm to environmental and human health and that LED lighting is especially 17 harmful due to the strong peak of light in the blue spectrum. The picture for wildlife is 18 daunting. Like climate change, light at night is a major driver or disruption on local and even 19 global scales. Light at night causes birds and wildlife to become disoriented during migration. It 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. disrupts biological synchronization between plants and animals. It interferes with hormones 1 that control reproductive behaviors and timing in animals. And in people, it's been shown to 2 cause various diseases. And I don't want to get into those impacts tonight. Like our efforts to 3 reverse climate change, we must reverse the impacts of lighting and we need leadership to 4 reverse the business and usual standards for lightening, even the best ones these days and 5 especially again in the Baylands. The PRC and ARB have provided input during the development 6 [with this 4:39:52] project. Both expressed concerns with lighting and with the loss of trees. It is 7 an important project and I appreciate the efforts by staff to mitigate the impacts of lighting and 8 loss of trees. But I remain concerned with some of the disclosures related to lighting from 9 previous presentations. One issue stipulated is that there was stipulation that the plan will have 10 LED with correlated color temperature of 4000 kelvin. Four-thousand kelvin is a very blue, very 11 harsh cold spectrum light, which is very detrimental to birds, insects and other wildlife in the 12 Baylands. In areas as sensitive as the Baylands, outdoor lighting should not have more than – 13 not be more than 2400 kelvin. Indoor lighting should lighting should not be visible from the 14 outside and outdoor lights should be turned off whenever there is no one doing work outdoors 15 and motion sensors can be used for security. Our City is currently developing a dark sky 16 ordinance that will very likely direct similar protections for the Baylands, like 2400 kelvin and no 17 more. And with the correlated color temperature of 4000 kelvin, finding C that ensures sound 18 principals and ecological balance, that finding cannot be made. So hopefully the correlated 19 color temperature will be corrected if it is still 4000 and I don't know that. A few additional 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. observations: I would consider putting some solar panels on the roof. It may not cover the 1 energy requirements of reverse osmosis, which are [pretty 4:41:44] huge but it's important 2 nonetheless. And noted that because this because this is a water pollution control plant and 3 there's a lot of recycled water, that recycled water can be used to irrigate and create lush 4 vegetation around there. Right now a lot of that water ends up in the bay and there's a lot of 5 contamination in that water, so better use it for irrigation than dump it into the bay. And the 6 loss of trees is still of concern if you consider it not only here but those other pipelines that are 7 planned from East Palo Alto and Karin North just mentioned another 1. So cumulatively we 8 may lose all the trees in that area, which does provide wildlife movement area. So that's an 9 important thing in the Baylands. And I don't know that looking at the trees only in this project 10 and not in combination with the other ones, I think there should be a more comprehensive 11 view. I really appreciate your time and allowing me to speak. Thank you. 12 13 Chair Summa: Thank you so much, Miss Kleinhaus. And we will – seeing that there are no other 14 speakers – is that correct? 15 16 Veronica Dao: No other speakers. 17 18 Chair Summa: Okay. Then we'll bring it back to the Council. Do I have any comments? 19 Commissioner Chang and then Commissioner Lu. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Vice-Chair Chang: So I had a question about Slide 13 that you guys showed in your presentation. 2 There's a rendering there of the tank. And I was just wondering if it was possible to screen with 3 trees. If we can see... 4 5 Claire Raybould: Was it in my presentation... 6 7 Vice-Chair Chang: No. I think... 8 9 Claire Raybould: ...or... 10 11 Vice-Chair Chang: ...it was in the... 12 13 Claire Raybould: [Inaudible 4:43:37]. 14 15 Diego Martinez-Garcia: Yeah. Did you want me to pull it or you have it... 16 17 Vice-Chair Chang: Yeah. 18 19 Diego Martinez-Garcia: ...[inaudible 4:43:41]. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Vice-Chair Chang: If you could show it to everybody just... 2 3 Diego Martinez-Garcia: Yeah. Let me... 4 5 Vice-Chair Chang: ...because I think we're taking down a bunch of trees there and I just didn't 6 know if it was possible to plant something that would – okay. So yes. So this image is a 7 rendering, right? 8 9 Male: [Correct 4:43:54]. 10 11 Vice-Chair Chang: And... 12 13 Male: [Inaudible 4:43:54]. 14 15 Vice-Chair Chang: ...you can see there's a big tree on the left... 16 17 Male: [Right 4:43:55]. 18 19 Vice-Chair Chang: ...and a big tree on the right. Oops. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Diego Martinez-Garcia: Excuse me. Yeah. I'm... 2 3 Vice-Chair Chang: Yeah. A big tree on... 4 5 Diego Martinez-Garcia: Yeah. 6 7 Vice-Chair Chang: ...the left, big tree on the right. Gee... 8 9 Diego Martinez-Garcia: Mm-hm. 10 11 Vice-Chair Chang: ...it would be really nice if there were a big tree right in the middle so we 12 didn't have to look at the tank. 13 14 Diego Martinez-Garcia: [Inaudible 4:44:05]. 15 16 Vice-Chair Chang: But I didn't know if it was possible. 17 18 Diego Martinez-Garcia: I'll have to go back to the plans. We had discussions with the Fire 19 Department about having access to the plant for them. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Vice-Chair Chang: Aah. 2 3 Diego Martinez-Garcia: So I believe that's 1 of the locations they were requesting gates to be 4 installed for quick access. 5 6 Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. 7 8 Diego Martinez-Garcia: I'll have to double check if that's the location for it. But I remember we 9 [inaudible 4:44:27] had to leave a small gap with no trees and vegetation and that's why you 10 see it's fencing instead of a wall... 11 12 Vice-Chair Chang: Yes. 13 14 Diego Martinez-Garcia: ...just for that portion, to be able to put like a lock and just like 15 emergency access for them. 16 17 Vice-Chair Chang: I see. Okay. 18 19 Diego Martinez-Garcia: But... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Vice-Chair Chang: Well I still th-, it's a tall tank... 2 3 Diego Martinez-Garcia: Yeah. 4 5 Vice-Chair Chang: ...and I don't know if there's ways to kind of screen from across the street or 6 do you know what I'm saying, like... 7 8 Diego Martinez-Garcia: Yeah. 9 10 Vice-Chair Chang: ...if... 11 12 Diego Martinez-Garcia: Yeah. 13 14 Vice-Chair Chang: ...not right there... 15 16 Diego Martinez-Garcia: [Yeah 4:44:53]. 17 18 Vice-Chair Chang: ...because of the fire access, there might be a way to at least screen it from 19 certain angles with planting a tree across the street or something like that. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Diego Martinez-Garcia: Yeah. I understand. 2 3 Vice-Chair Chang: [Cool 4:45:03]. Okay. And then my other question was arou-, so I don't know 4 how – I was looking at the landscaping plans and noticed that by and large most of the plants 5 that are intended to be in there are native. But there are a handful that are non-native. And so 6 since we're making a choice, I was just wondering if it would be possible to switch to 100 7 percent native given the proximity to – given this is in the Baylands. 8 9 Diego Martinez-Garcia: Yeah. The design [guideline 4:45:36] we use with the North Bayshore, I 10 think it's [inaudible 4:45:39]. It's used in Mountain View area. 11 12 Vice-Chair Chang: Right. 13 14 Diego Martinez-Garcia: And I believe the [inaudible 4:45:43] was based on the – whatever's 15 recommended in the report but... 16 17 Vice-Chair Chang: Yeah. So... 18 19 Diego Martinez-Garcia: ...we're open to if you have any particular suggestions about... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Vice-Chair Chang: I don't... 2 3 Diego Martinez-Garcia: ...[inaudible 4:45:53]. 4 5 Vice-Chair Chang: I don't know what the most appropriate plant is... 6 7 Diego Martinez-Garcia: Yeah. 8 9 Vice-Chair Chang: ...but it was like there's 3 or 4 non-natives and I'm thinking... 10 11 Diego Martinez-Garcia: [Inaudible 4:45:58]. 12 13 Vice-Chair Chang: ...well we're in the Baylands, why not just pick natives instead. So that was 14 just my comments. 15 16 Diego Martinez-Garcia: Yeah. 17 18 Claire Raybould: So I have had this [common 4:46:08] discussion with Urban Forestry in the past 19 and they have expressed that sometimes they like to have a mix of different species. It provides 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. like a different color palates different times of year and things. So they often do have a mix of a 1 few non-natives in with the natives. We can explore that again with Urban Forestry again to see 2 if they have any recommendations for the non-natives that might be an appropriate alternative 3 that we can recommend to the landscape architect though. 4 5 Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. Yeah. I think that would be great just because – I mean obviously we 6 want it to look nice but this is part of the Baylands and it's really close to everything else there 7 and it just seems like on balance if I had to have everything be the same color because there's a 8 lot of birds and wildlife right there. So thanks. 9 10 Chair Summa: Commissioner Reckdahl? 11 12 Commissioner Reckdahl: Shani on her phone call was asking about the light color. What color 13 light are we using? 14 15 Diego Martinez-Garcia: It's 4000 kelvin. The original design was, I believe, 5000 and then after 16 meeting with Parks and Rec Commission, we lower it to 4000 [inaudible 4:47:35]. 17 18 Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. And so why can't you move it down to 2700 or something 19 lower? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Diego Martinez-Garcia: Well part of it is just the nature of the [inaudible 4:47:43] industrial 2 facility, so you would need like certain amounts of light at night for operators to be safe doing 3 the runs, etc. 4 5 Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. 6 7 Diego Martinez-Garcia: [Inaudible 4:47:53]. 8 9 Commissioner Reckdahl: And warmer light isn't as safe? 10 11 Diego Martinez-Garcia: [Inaudible 4:47:56] I don't think it's [inaudible 4:47:57]. 12 13 Male: Yeah. 14 15 Diego Martinez-Garcia: You know? 16 17 Male: [Inaudible 4:48:00]. 18 19 Tom Kapushinski: Yeah. We typically use around 5000K around... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Diego Martinez-Garcia: [Inaudible 4:48:04]. 2 3 Tom Kapushinski: ...the plant just for operations safety at night because it's manned 24 hours a 4 day. We looked at 4000K on this site just as sort of a compromise. We've included things into 5 the design such as motion detectors and all that to try to limit that when operators aren't in the 6 vicinity. 7 8 Claire Raybould: So I do want to speak briefly. So I do want to note that the dark skies initiative 9 recommends 2700 as the maximum. Our dark skies ordinance that we're pursuing likely won't 10 apply to public facilities but that's something that's still being explored. 11 12 Commissioner Reckdahl: Uh-huh. 13 14 Claire Raybould: But nevertheless, it is important out in this Baylands area. So we can explore. I 15 do want to clarify those temperature, which is kelvins and lumens, which is the intensity, so I 16 don't know if we could increase the intensity while improving the temperature or anything... 17 18 Commissioner Reckdahl: [Inaudible 4:49:10]. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Claire Raybould: ...like that. But... 1 2 Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. 3 4 Claire Raybould: ...we can certainly explore that further. 5 6 Commissioner Reckdahl: And is this just matter of changing bulbs or is – so our – if we went to 7 2700 and it just didn't work out, the workmen just couldn't do their job, you'd be able to buy 8 new bulbs and put in 4000 kelvin? 9 10 Diego Martinez-Garcia: We'll have to explore that. 11 12 Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. 13 14 Diego Martinez-Garcia: I don't have an answer for that right now. 15 16 Commissioner Reckdahl: I would think that this is a low-risk proposition, so. Okay. Thank you. 17 18 Chair Summa: Then I will make a few comments. I understand that the industry is used – has 19 become accustomed to 4 or 5000 kelvins. But things are really changing because of the 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. problems with bird safety and this is a wildlife sanctuary basically. And so I think 24, I think 1 would be like the – kelvins would probably be the cherry on the top of the sundae. But I think 2 we need to specify 27. I really do and I have – I'm fully confident that other people are doing 3 this. And so I think that's a big deal. And it's what we all want, this improved technology but it's 4 important to remember where we have to put it is in a precious area. So 27 is a dealbreaker for 5 me. And then the tree – I think the other thing is that the trees – to the extent that it's possible, 6 use native species and even for the landscape, things that are compatible with the Baylands, 7 not just visually but biologically also because it's kind of a weird environment and it's very salty, 8 like not everything grows there. But I'm sure you guys know all of that. So for me, the big 9 sticking issue would be the trees and then the kelvins. And you answered my question about 10 the trunkline. So I'm happy, unless someone else has other comments, to entertain a motion. 11 And Commissioner Lu said he was ready. Are you guys all ready? No? 12 13 Male: [No 4:51:46]. 14 15 Female: [Inaudible 4:51:48]. 16 17 Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. So I'm concerned that we're about to hear a motion that's 18 going to include this 2700 and so – and I don't want to have to vote no on this motion. So I was 19 going to – so let me just – we'll see how the motion is made and plays out. But I – let me ask a 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. question first. In the Staff Report, staff hasn't recommended 2700 and so I'd like to know why 1 that is. Why are they – why was staff comfortable bring this to us at 4000? And I'm not saying 2 that that's wrong. I'm trying to understand – we're talking about moving from 4 to 27 and I 3 want to know what staff's thoughts were. 4 5 Claire Raybould: I mean it's our understanding that what's provided is provided for the 6 purposes of safety, so I think we would really have to explore further whether it could be 7 reduced further while still maintaining the safe level of safety. 8 9 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. And that's kind of what I thought the answer might be. I have 10 said it before, I don't like improvising environmental protections on the fly when the City 11 doesn't have an ordinance. We're developing this initiative and the right study will be given to 12 it. So I'm not – I don't know the impacts. And I do know that this location though, because 13 we've seen the mapping, this is not out in the Baylands. This is surrounded on 3 sides by 14 existing facilities and it's tucked up against a road. So this is not a major wildlife corridor 15 between the new building and the road and all we're talking – we're not talking about building 16 everything. We're talking about building this little area and that's, I think, where the lighting is 17 going to go. So I would not be supportive of – on the fly – changing the requirement but I would 18 be supportive of giving staff direction to investigate this more fully and work with the plant to 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. see if there's a way to provide the desired level of safety with reduction in the light source that 1 serves everybody. 2 3 Commissioner Reckdahl: How bright is this? How does this compare to the streetlights that are 4 around [down 4:54:34] there and other light sources? 5 6 Tom Kapushinski: I'm not sure, to be honest with you. I don't have a relevance for that. 7 8 Claire Raybould: I know a lot of our streetlights are much more than 2700 but I'd have to look 9 back. I think we put it into the Staff Report for the... 10 11 Commissioner Reckdahl: [Well 4:54:55] the water treatment center has other lights to, right? 12 13 Claire Raybould: Oh, yes. 14 15 Commissioner Reckdahl: And so this is not going to be like substantially brighter than the rest of 16 the facility. 17 18 Karin North: This will actually be lighter than the rest of the rest of the facility with the 4000 19 and our current standard is 5000 for worker safety and our workers actually like the brighter 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. light when they're going around in the middle of the night during potentially a rain event and 1 making sure everything's safe. And these lights will be on motion sensors, so we've listened to 2 Parks and Rec Commission. So they're not going to be on all the time. It will only be when 3 someone's walking through there for our worker safety. So I would really like us to hopefully 4 not require us to put in lower light levels if we don't know yet. You could ask us to look into it 5 more... 6 7 Commissioner Reckdahl: [Yes 4:55:42]. 8 9 Karin North: ...for worker safety and if it can accommodate it, then we can make it work but I 10 really – worker safety is my number-1 concern. 11 12 Vice-Chair Chang: So just I don't think that any of us are experts on – so we keep talking about 13 brightness. As Miss Raybould said, there's 2 factors here. There's color, temperature, bright-, 14 well there's more. Right. But the brightness is not color temperature. So I would like staff to 15 look at it and there are going to be safety regulations that we come up against too and so we're 16 going to have to make sure it's safe. But I don't think that any of us should – here are expert 17 enough to know other than... 18 19 Male: [Inaudible 4:56:35]. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Vice-Chair Chang: ...the speaker who has done studies on this in terms of impact on wildlife. But 2 I don't think any of us are here expert enough about the safety implications, so I think we can 3 just investigate. 4 5 Chair Summa: Commissioner Akin? 6 7 Commissioner Akin: I'm just going to pile on a little bit. We're talking about color temperature 8 but there's also intensity and there's a color rendering index. All these things contribute to 9 perceptual brightness, which is what we need for safety as well as accuracy in perceiving what 10 the situation is inside the plant. We can't engineer that here. 11 12 Chair Summa: Commissioner Lu? 13 14 Commissioner Lu: Okay. 15 16 Chair Summa: Do you want to... 17 18 Commissioner Lu: Now I would now actually try to make a motion. So I'd like to move that we 19 approve the variance and recommend approval to City Council with no other conditions. And I'll 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. explain a little bit. I think bird safety and dark sky ordinances are totally valid and are the logical 1 next step that we'll take up anyways and, as Commissioner Akin said, it's not necessarily the 2 best use of staff time for this group to do a deep dive into the details when there are pretty 3 reasonable mitigations, like aiming the lights down, having motion sensors, being less bright 4 than just generally adjacent uses. So I hope we can keep it simple, not necessarily delay or add 5 more cost or scope for this immediate approval. We'll get to the dark skies soon enough. 6 7 Chair Summa: [Well 4:58:33] I'd like to offer an amendment. 8 9 Commissioner Hechtman: Do we need a second first or did we get... 10 11 Chair Summa: Oh, s-... 12 13 Commissioner Hechtman: I'll second. 14 15 Chair Summa: Okay. Second. Would you like to speak to your second? 16 17 Commissioner Hechtman: No. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Summa: I'd like to offer an amendment and that is that we consider the value of 2700 1 kelvin lighting versus the negative impacts of 4000 kelvin lighting and ask the staff to work on 2 that, work towards that goal. And my reasoning is because it's very, very important and we are 3 stuck in the past ignoring this issue. We've been trying for many, many years to get bird-safe 4 construction and lighting in this town and we fancy ourselves very progressive on 5 environmental issues. And this is 1 we should not ignore and I don't have the expertise to 6 exactly design it, what exactly it should be. But I know that this has become – 27 kelvin has 7 become a new standard and that Miss Kleinhaus spoke, has a PhD in this field and that we 8 should take it seriously and consider it. So I would ask you to add that as an amendment. 9 10 Commissioner Lu: I'm sorry but I would not accept that amendment to this version of the 11 motion. I'd like to see if we have... 12 13 Chair Summa: It's not... 14 15 Commissioner Lu: ...the votes [for this 5:00:10]. 16 17 Chair Summa: It is not intended as anything to hold up, impede or make the project difficult. It's 18 intended to make the project appropriate for its location and also set a new precedent for 19 doing these things better. The Baylands are horribly over-lit right now and it's a combination of 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. being unwilling to address newer technology and a combination of a lack of code enforcement. 1 So it should be looked at and if you're not open to looking at it, I don't know if I can support it 2 because... 3 4 Commissioner Lu: I'm not... 5 6 Chair Summa: ...[inaudible 5:00:46]. 7 8 Commissioner Lu: ...sure if our Planning and Utility staff today are the right people with the 9 right expertise to do this efficiently in a really productive way that's like reuseable for future 10 projects. I think we will get to this soon enough and that this is probably the least impactful 11 project on the Baylands as it is right now. And like we discussed, we can just swap out the light 12 bulbs later when we get... 13 14 Chair Summa: I don't... 15 16 Commissioner Lu: ...to it potentially. 17 18 Chair Summa: Do you know that [inaudible 5:01:17]. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Lu: No. 1 2 Chair Summa: I don't know. 3 4 Commissioner Lu: I don't know that for a fact. 5 6 Chair Summa: Okay. So I don't know that. 7 8 Claire Raybould: If I may, I don't think staff has any concern with exploring it further before we 9 get to Council. 10 11 Chair Summa: You don't have a problem considering it or looking into it? 12 13 Claire Raybould: Yeah. Exactly. 14 15 Chair Summa: Okay. 16 17 Claire Raybould: As long as it's not a requirement because it is something we have to explore 18 further but we're happy to look into whether we could reduce the temperature. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Lu: Yeah. I'm fine with that if there's no material impact to staff's other duties or 1 bandwidth on this project as long as it's actually trivial. 2 3 Diego Martinez-Garcia: Yeah. I mean we're totally open to exploring that option as long as – 4 [where 5:02:17] we're concerned is we have to come back to another hearing and then further 5 delay the project. And with [inaudible 5:02:24] cost increasing, we have partners and every 6 time we delay this, it gets a couple million more expensive. So totally open to exploring it but I 7 don't know if we can get back to maybe – when we got back to the ARB present the results of 8 whatever we explored maybe. If you're open... 9 10 Male: [Hm 5:02:43]... 11 12 Diego Martinez-Garcia: ...to... 13 14 Commissioner Lu: Okay. I guess there's nothing in this motion that prevents you to look for... 15 16 Diego Martinez-Garcia: Yeah. 17 18 Commissioner Lu: ...from looking into this, especially if the ARB... 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Diego Martinez-Garcia: Yeah. 1 2 Commissioner Lu: ...you think the ARB might ask you about this anyways. It might make sense 3 for you to look into this. 4 5 Male: [Inaudible 5:02:55]. 6 7 Commissioner Lu: But I don't think we necessarily need to include that explicitly in the motion... 8 9 Chair Summa: I... 10 11 Commissioner Lu: ...[inaudible 5:03:00] 12 13 Chair Summa: The ARB has already identified this as 1 of their concerns about this and it has 14 been a concern for a long time. You would really make me more comfortable supporting this if 15 we included it in the motion because – and I don't understand the resistance. If staff is fine with 16 it, not as an absolute condition but as a requirement, so it doesn't get lost in the process, that 17 this was going to happen. It can't – and the good news is if it fixed your cost more, Mountain 18 View will pay for it. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Lu: I don't really accept that kind of logic necessarily, that Mountain View would 1 pay for it. Even... 2 3 Chair Summa: I was kind of... 4 5 Commissioner Lu: ...though I know you're... 6 7 Chair Summa: ...kidding. 8 9 Commissioner Lu: ...being facetious. 10 11 Chair Summa: Yeah. 12 13 Commissioner Lu: [But 5:03:48]... 14 15 Chair Summa: But... 16 17 Commissioner Lu: ...I understand that but still. I'm fine with the amendment. It's not going to – 18 as long – yeah. Presumably it's trivial for staff had hopefully can be time-boxed to like a truly 19 marginal effort and otherwise we'll just get to this later. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Tom Kapushinski: Could I say something. We could look into it with the understanding that it's 2 not a requirement; we could move to the ARB because it's going to come up again at the ARB. 3 4 Commissioner Lu: Yeah. 5 6 Tom Kapushinski: [Is 5:04:25]... 7 8 Commissioner Lu: Yeah. I think being able to talk to it more about the ARB – at the ARB just 9 makes sense and – yeah. 10 11 Chair Summa: Any other discussion? 12 13 Commissioner Hechtman: So as the seconder, I'm okay with an amendment. I don't love the 14 language of the amendment really and I thought the way Ms. Raybould explained it was kind of 15 more the spirit I had and that is to investigate utilizing 2700 kelvin lighting versus the 4000 16 kelvin lighting currently proposed. 17 18 Commissioner Lu: Yes. I actually 100 percent agree. I did not look at the precise language. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Hechtman: [Yeah 5:05:25]. 1 2 Commissioner Lu: I think the friendly amendment that we were discussing would ask staff to 3 consider it but have no specific conditions or no specific asks... 4 5 Commissioner Hechtman: Right. 6 7 Commissioner Lu: ...for the staff. So actually my impression of the motion would've just kind of 8 had everything up until the and ask staff. It would've kind of struck out that section. So we'll 9 look into it. We'll be ready to talk about it and the ARB will consider it but we aren't necessarily 10 directing ourselves to find a way to make a lower light temperature work, for example. Is that 11 the spirit of your... 12 13 Chair Summa: Is this... 14 15 Commissioner Lu: ...friendly... 16 17 Chair Summa: ...the... 18 19 Commissioner Lu: ...amendment? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Chair Summa: ...final motion? 2 3 Male: Well... 4 5 Male: [Inaudible 5:06:11]. 6 7 Female: So I... 8 9 Commissioner Hechtman: It depends what you think. 10 11 Chair Summa: Yeah. 12 13 Commissioner Hechtman: Correct? 14 15 Chair Summa: Is this... 16 17 Commissioner Hechtman: So I'm... 18 19 Chair Summa: ...what's being... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Hechtman: ...the seconder. 2 3 Chair Summa: ...proposed? 4 5 Commissioner Hechtman: What I'm suggesting is I'd be supportive of your amendment if it was 6 worded along the lines of the last sentence on this page. 7 8 Commissioner Lu: Yeah. Or your original amendment with just the and ask staff kind of part 9 deleted. 10 11 Chair Summa: I don't know. I don't see why but if you're more comfortable with it that way and 12 as long as staff understands the intention is to modernize our technology and then it's fine 13 because I think staff has to work on it. 14 15 Commissioner Lu: Sure. Okay. 16 17 Claire Raybould: So I can change... 18 19 Commissioner Lu: Yeah. We can... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Claire Raybould: ...that from... 2 3 Commissioner Lu: ...just delete the highlighted part and I think we'll all be okay here. 4 5 Commissioner Hechtman: Are we good? 6 7 Commissioner Lu: Yeah. I think we're good. 8 9 Claire Raybould: [Oh 5:07:16]. 10 11 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. With that version of the amendment, I accept it as the 12 seconder. 13 14 Chair Summa: Any – go ahead. 15 16 Claire Raybould: I just re-, [sorry 5:07:25]. 17 18 Vice-Chair Chang: [I mean 5:07:26] I don't know what the – I don't want to slow this down 19 either but if we're doing this, we should just do it right and to the best of our ability without 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. slowing it down. So while we're at it I hope that – and I don't know if it needs to be part of the 1 motion but because we're passing this information on to the Council and to other bodies, 2 there's 2 things that – but I'd love it if we could consider 100 percent native if appropriate. [I 3 mean 5:08:01] I trust whoever's judgment but I think it's important. These are important things 4 and as well as the screening that I mentioned – consider it. I'm not saying it has to be done but I 5 think everybody wants the same thing here and the best solution. 6 7 Commissioner Lu: I would reject that amendment. I think we – I don't think – I still don't really 8 think we need to direct staff to consider things that they would naturally want to consider 9 when talking to the ARB and there seem to be reasonable justification [for the 5:08:33]... 10 11 Vice-Chair Chang: I think it's... 12 13 Commissioner Lu: ...[inaudible 5:08:34]. 14 15 Vice-Chair Chang: ...our role. 16 17 Male: [Inaudible 5:08:34]. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Vice-Chair Chang: To be quite frank, right now the recommendation for staff is to recommend 1 this Council approve it subject to... 2 3 Male: [Well 5:08:46]... 4 5 Vice-Chair Chang: ...conditions of approval and so we want – and I do think I want Council – 6 assuming that staff says it's feasible and reasonable, I want Council to say that [there should be 7 5:08:56] all native plants here. Why not? One plant versus another plant. And I just – if we don't 8 – what I've seen is that our thoughtful work doesn't get passed on. And so if we have 9 perspectives that nobody's objecting to – I'm not saying these are a must do but if we have 10 perspectives that are our recommendations and ideas, I don't see why we shouldn't include 11 them because if it's not in the motion, it gets lost. And that is... 12 13 Male: I... 14 15 Vice-Chair Chang: ...what I have learned. I mean we've seen it happen over and over again. Even 16 when it's in the motion, it gets lost. 17 18 Commissioner Lu: I mean I think there's – I just have like maybe an irreconcilable philosophical 19 difference about the scope of some of our work in these kinds of context. In my dreamworld, 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. we would have just left it as kind of overgrown blackberry bushes and we'd kind of take the 1 landscaping as a separate project when we consider other kind of aesthetic or other 2 improvements to the Baylands. I think if we can keep the scope as tight as possible and on topic 3 as possible, that's the motion that I would want to make. And so... 4 5 Vice-Chair Chang: Unfortu-... 6 7 Commissioner Lu: Yeah. 8 9 Vice-Chair Chang: ...-nately plans – that's not how planning works. Right? It comes with a 10 landscape plan. There's a architectural... 11 12 Commissioner Lu: Yeah. 13 14 Vice-Chair Chang: ...plan and that's why. Otherwise I'd say, yeah, just leave it all. 15 16 Male: [Inaudible 5:10:20]. 17 18 Vice-Chair Chang: But unfortunately, we've been asked to look at. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Lu: Yeah. I'm not so sure we've been so explicitly asked to look into the details of 1 the landscaping, for example, but I could stand to be corrected for sure. 2 3 Vice-Chair Chang: We have to make findings. 4 5 Commissioner Lu: But – yeah. I think... 6 7 Vice-Chair Chang: We have to make findings that say that like it's this... 8 9 Commissioner Lu: I think the findings were like it's compatible with the Baylands and things like 10 that and I think it's like... 11 12 Vice-Chair Chang: [Well that 5:10:51]... 13 14 Commissioner Lu: ...essentially fine and the details like... 15 16 Vice-Chair Chang: Yeah. But like I said... 17 18 Commissioner Lu: ...[inaudible 5:10:56] [reject their 5:10:57] finding. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Vice-Chair Chang: If there's no cost to doing something, we may as well do it right. 1 2 Commissioner Lu: I would like to see if the motion can proceed as written with the first friendly 3 amendment. 4 5 Male: [Inaudible 5:11:16]. 6 7 Chair Summa: I mean I'm in favor of the second amendment too. And it's not going to change 8 the project. It's just going to make the project a little bit better if staff and the ARB agree. And 9 the ARB is also very interested in trees. That was 1 of their concerns and it's really important to 10 a lot of people. And it doesn't take away from your primary goal, which is you really want to see 11 this done because it's been in the works for a while and we all agree on that. So... 12 13 Commissioner Reckdahl: All this really requires is just calling up the urban forester and say hey, 14 take a look at this list and are you happy with it, so it's not real time consuming. 15 16 Diego Martinez-Garcia: Oh, so let me just add 1 little note there. Actually, the urban forester, 17 he came on site and did the tree survey and he reviewed the tree plan. And the tree that we're 18 removing, the trees that we're replacing and the replacing ratios we're proposing were based 19 on his recommendation. Just want to mention that. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Claire Raybould: [No 5:12:21]. 2 3 Commissioner Reckdahl: Oh. 4 5 Claire Raybould: What they're asking about is the... 6 7 Male: [All right 5:12:23]. 8 9 Claire Raybould: ...native plants... 10 11 Diego Martinez-Garcia: Oh, okay. 12 13 Claire Raybould: ...and just whether there's other alternative species, so... 14 15 Diego Martinez-Garcia: Okay. [Inaudible 5:12:28]... 16 17 Claire Raybould: ...that's really all... 18 19 Diego Martinez-Garcia: ...[inaudible 5:12:28]. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Claire Raybould: ...we would be asking, is us to consider whether... 2 3 Diego Martinez-Garcia: Okay. 4 5 Claire Raybould: ...Urban Forestry would recommend any... 6 7 Diego Martinez-Garcia: Non-native. 8 9 Claire Raybould: ...other non-native... 10 11 Diego Martinez-Garcia: Okay. 12 13 Claire Raybould: ...or other native species to replace... 14 15 Diego Martinez-Garcia: Okay. 16 17 Claire Raybould: ...the non-natives. 18 19 Female: And this was an ARB finding [inaudible 5:12:42]. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Claire Raybould: Well the ARB finding – there's an ARB finding related to the majority being, 2 which it already is but – yeah – so. 3 4 Female: [Inaudible 5:12:53]. 5 6 Male: [Right 5:12:55]. 7 8 Claire Raybould: Right. So I don't think we have any issue with this either but – yeah. 9 10 Commissioner Lu: Can we – I think potentially we could just proceed and/or we could see if this 11 motion has support. I don't... 12 13 Claire Raybould: [5:13:16] So is this an unfriendly amendment or a friendly amendment? 14 15 Commissioner Lu: Unfriendly. 16 17 Claire Raybould: [5:13:20] Okay. 18 19 Commissioner Lu: Or... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Reckdahl: Do you want to vote on the amendment? 2 3 Commissioner Lu: Right. 4 5 Commissioner Reckdahl: Do you want to vote on the amendment [then 5:13:28]? 6 7 Commissioner Lu: Or... 8 9 Female: [Yes] [Inaudible 5:13:31]. 10 11 Commissioner Lu: Yeah. I'm not sure what the protocol is, whether we vote on the whole thing 12 or whether we vote on the amendm-, whether to vote to... 13 14 Commissioner Reckdahl: [Yeah 5:13:38]. 15 16 Commissioner Lu: ...include the amendment or what. 17 18 Commissioner Reckdahl: If it's... 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Summa: We can vote on... 1 2 Commissioner Reckdahl: ...a friendly, then you just throw it in the motion. If it's unfriendly, then 3 you vote on the amendment... 4 5 Female: Yeah. 6 7 Commissioner Reckdahl: ...and then if that's successful it goes into the motion. 8 9 Commissioner Lu: Yeah. Let's... 10 11 Chair Summa: Okay. 12 13 Commissioner Lu: We'll just [keep 5:13:50]... 14 15 Chair Summa: So... 16 17 Commissioner Lu: ...[it 5:13:50] unfriendly. 18 19 Chair Summa: ...we'll conduct a vote on... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Vice-Chair Chang: [Unfriendly 5:13:53]. 2 3 Chair Summa: ...Commissioner Chang's amendment, which is regarding landscaping and trees? 4 5 Male: No. [Inaudible 5:14:00] 100 percent native planting. 6 7 Vice-Chair Chang: Native – consider. 8 9 Male: Right. 10 11 Vice-Chair Chang: Not... 12 13 Chair Summa: Okay. 14 15 Vice-Chair Chang: ...require. 16 17 Male: [Inaudible 5:14:05]... 18 19 Chair Summa: Cons-... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Male: ...trees. This is a separate... 2 3 Commissioner Hechtman: This is a separate issue... 4 5 Female: Okay. 6 7 Commissioner Hechtman: ...from trees that she's raised, I think. Right? 8 9 Vice-Chair Chang: There were 2 issues that I raised that I was hoping to just address at once. It's 10 considering – and it sounded like staff was very open to both of them. It was both the 100 11 percent native planting as well as screening... 12 13 Male: [Okay 5:14:23]. 14 15 Female: [Inaudible 5:14:24]. 16 17 Commissioner Hechtman: Of some... 18 19 Vice-Chair Chang: ...of the tank. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Hechtman: Some kind of screening of the tank. Right. 2 3 Vice-Chair Chang: Screening of the tank. 4 5 Commissioner Hechtman: Right. 6 7 Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. 8 9 Female: Well... 10 11 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. So why... 12 13 Female: [Inaudible 5:14:30]. 14 15 Commissioner Hechtman: ...don't we add that to the – what's typed here... 16 17 Vice-Chair Chang: Yeah. 18 19 Commissioner Hechtman: ...so we can vote on your whole amendment. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Claire Raybould: What do you mean by screening of the tank, just more... 2 3 Vice-Chair Chang: So what I was talking about is there may be the option – [coughing] excuse 4 me. So Mr. Garcia mentioned that he had to look into the reason why there's no tree there and 5 he has a hypothesis that it is because of fire access, safety. 6 7 Claire Raybould: Yeah. It is because of that. It – yeah. 8 9 Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. But across the street – I mean it's tall. The Baylands is flat. We could 10 potentially put a tree somewhere else. 11 12 Male: [Inaudible 5:15:10] airport. 13 14 Claire Raybould: Yeah. I mean across... 15 16 Male: [Inaudible 5:15:11]. 17 18 Claire Raybould: ...the street is the airport. I don't know... 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Vice-Chair Chang: It's all Palo Alto City... 1 2 Male: [Inaudible 5:15:16]. 3 4 Vice-Chair Chang: ...[planting 5:15:16]. 5 6 Male: [To screen 5:15:17] from the people in the airport going to their plane – the tank 7 [inaudible 5:15:23] that tree [was 5:15:24]... 8 9 Vice-Chair Chang: It's all views, right? Because when you see it – as long as you're across the 10 street – yeah. I mean... 11 12 Male: [Inaudible 5:15:30]... 13 14 Vice-Chair Chang: ...it's okay. 15 16 Male: ...[inaudible 5:15:31]. 17 18 Vice-Chair Chang: I don't need... 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Male: [Yeah 5:15:31]. 1 2 Vice-Chair Chang: ...to die on the sword. So if you guys think it's unreasonable, it's fine. 3 4 Chair Summa: So do you want to vote on your amendment? 5 6 Vice-Chair Chang: Yes, please. 7 8 Chair Summa: Okay. So we're going to vote on the second amendment from Commissioner 9 Chang, if you don't mind, Miss Dao. 10 11 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Akin? 12 13 Commissioner Akin: Yes. 14 15 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Reckdahl? 16 17 Commissioner Reckdahl: Yes. 18 19 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Lu? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Lu: No. 2 3 Veronica Dao: Chair Summa? 4 5 Chair Summa: Yes. 6 7 Veronica Dao: Vice-Chair Chang? 8 9 Vice-Chair Chang: Yes. 10 11 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 12 13 Commissioner Hechtman: I'll vote no, so it'll pass 4-2. 14 15 Veronica Dao: Motion carries 4-2. 16 17 AMENDMENT PASSED 4 (Akin, Reckdahl, Summa, Chang) (Lu, Hechtman) 4-2-1 (Templeton 18 absent/recused) 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commission Action: Motion by Lu, second Hechtman. Pass 4-2-1 1 2 Chair Summa: Okay. Awesome. Now we'll vote on the main motion. 3 4 Male: Speak to no... 5 6 Chair Summa: Oh... 7 8 Male: ...votes. 9 10 Chair Summa: ...sorry. I always forget. Speak to your no votes, please. 11 12 Commissioner Lu: There are really interesting case studies of the Second Avenue subway in 13 New York and how because some agencies were or weren't paying for it at certain times, there 14 was just a lot of scope and a lot of – they built a park out of it when really the park was kind of 15 the secondary discussion but they just kind of figured out somewhere along the way they could 16 extract – get some money in, build a park and why not include it, it's nice to have, it's part of 17 the broader vision for that corridor. And that's really – there's been a lot of good academic 18 scrutiny and criticism for how New York manned that process, like how they ended up many 19 billions of dollars over budget. And I think this is just a small ideological point but as much as 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. possible, I would like to keep our scope tight, especially for these really important 1 environmental projects that have already ran significantly over the original expected budget 2 and probably the original expected timeline. 3 4 Chair Summa: Would you like to speak to your no vote, Commissioner Hechtman? 5 6 Commissioner Hechtman: Sure. Just that I felt I heard – so I'm not a plant expert and nobody up 7 here is a plant expert but we do have City plant experts and I've heard from staff tonight that 8 City plant experts actually have a reason for on occasion not wanting 100 percent native 9 planting, wanting a few non-natives. And so I thought with that explanation, I'm willing to defer 10 to their greater knowledge on the topic. And so I didn't need to consider something when I 11 already knew their general philosophy. 12 13 Chair Summa: Okay. So we can now vote on the main motion, which everybody sees before 14 them. 15 16 Veronica Dao: Chair Summa? 17 18 Chair Summa: Yes. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Veronica Dao: Vice-Chair Chang? 1 2 Vice-Chair Chang: Yes. 3 4 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Akin? 5 6 Commissioner Akin: Yes. 7 8 Veronica Dao: Commission Reckdahl? 9 10 Commissioner Reckdahl: Yes. 11 12 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 13 14 Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 15 16 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Lu? 17 18 Commissioner Lu: Yes. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Veronica Dao: Motion carries 6-0. 1 2 MOTION PASSED 6 (Summa, Chang, Akin, Reckdahl, Hechtman, Lu) 6-0-1 (Templeton 3 absent/recused) 4 5 Commission Action: Motion by Lu, second Hechtman. Pass 6-0-1 6 7 Chair Summa: Thank you very much. 8 9 5. Action: Creation of a Retail Study Ad Hoc Committee 10 11 Chair Summa: Okay. We have – very quickly, we need to take care of a couple more things and 12 1 is creation of an ad hoc. Staff is recommending that the PTC create an ad hoc committee, 13 which would be 3 people to provide input on our retail efforts across the city. So there's a 14 couple different ways we can do it, several actually and that is I can call for volunteers or we 15 can have a motion to allow me, the Chair, to pick the ad hoc, which I'd prefer not to do. So I 16 don't think we need a lot more discussion about this. So I will call for volunteers if that's all 17 right. 18 19 Commissioner Reckdahl: I am interested. 20 21 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Summa: Okay. So Commissioner Akin? 1 2 Commissioner Akin: Yeah. And I am also interested. 3 4 Chair Summa: Commissioner Reckdahl? 5 6 Commissioner Reckdahl: [Inaudible 5:19:56]. 7 8 Chair Summa: Okay. Anyone else? Commissioner Chang? 9 10 Vice-Chair Chang: Yeah. I'm interested. 11 12 Chair Summa: Okay. And is there anyone else that is – there can only be 3. 13 14 Commissioner Lu: I could be an alternate. 15 16 Chair Summa: We don't have... 17 18 Commissioner Lu: I... 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Summa: ...alter-... 1 2 Commissioner Lu: ...know. 3 4 Chair Summa: ...-nates. 5 6 Commissioner Lu: I know. I... 7 8 Chair Summa: Because then... 9 10 Commissioner Lu: ...can be... 11 12 Chair Summa: ...[it 5:20:15]... 13 14 Commissioner Lu: ...an understudy in case something happen-, or in case someone has to... 15 16 Chair Summa: [Well 5:20:19] thank you 17 18 Commissioner Lu: ...miss something... 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Summa: ...for [the 5:20:20]... 1 2 Commissioner Lu: ...but... 3 4 Chair Summa: I did a-... 5 6 Commissioner Lu: ...rhetorical point. 7 8 Male: [You 5:20:22]... 9 10 Chair Summa: I did ask about it but it's... 11 12 Male: Yeah. 13 14 Chair Summa: ...just that you can't have somebody fill in because then you've already become a 15 quorum. 16 17 Male: [Yeah 5:20:29]. 18 19 Chair Summa: So... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Lu: Yep. I'll pass. 2 3 Chair Summa: So if everybody is happy, we have created a new ad hoc. Do I need to make a 4 motion? Yes. 5 6 Female: I... 7 8 Male: Yes. 9 10 Female: ...think yeah. It's an action item, so if you can do that [inaudible 5:20:41]. 11 12 Amy French: And I'll just say 1 thing and that is this is for the – this – the goal is to get this to the 13 finish line in June to the Council... 14 15 Female: That's right. 16 17 Amy French: ...with this Committee. It doesn't mean that it couldn't continue past that goal if 18 there were other reasons to continue. And then membership could always morph at that point. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Summa: Good night everyone who gets to leave. But so I'll go ahead and make a motion 1 that – since I'm just thinking about it – that we – the Planning Commission has formed an ad 2 hoc to assist staff with retail decisions across the city with an eye to a June deadline to get this 3 to Council and Commissioners Akin, Reckdahl and Chang have volunteered. So I need a second. 4 5 Commissioner Hechtman: Second. 6 7 Chair Summa: Okay. Thank you. Any other comments? 8 9 Male: Vice-Chair Chang. 10 11 Chair Summa: Oh. Thank you. Okay. We can go ahead and call the roll. 12 13 Female: [Inaudible 5:21:44]. 14 15 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Reckdahl? 16 17 Commissioner Reckdahl: Yes. 18 19 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Lu? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Lu: Yes. 2 3 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 4 5 Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 6 7 Veronica Dao: Vice-Chair Chang? 8 9 Vice-Chair Chang: Yes. 10 11 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Akin? 12 13 Commissioner Akin: Yes. 14 15 Veronica Dao: Chair Summa? 16 17 Chair Summa: Yes. 18 19 Veronica Dao: Motion carries 6-0. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 MOTION PASSED 6 (Reckdahl, Lu, Hechtman, Chang, Akin, Summa) 6-0-1 (Templeton absent) 2 3 Commission Action: Motion by Summa, second Hechtman. Pass 6-0-1 4 5 Chair Summa: Thank you and congregations to the Ad Hoc. 6 7 APPROVAL OF MINUTES 8 Public Comment is Permitted. Three (3) minutes per speaker. 9 10 Chair Summa: Now we actually have minutes, so we will... 11 12 Commissioner Hechtman: I'm looking at Commission Akin since he joined me in revising 13 minutes, I thought perhaps he might want to make a motion. 14 15 Chair Summa: So... 16 17 Commissioner Akin: [Perhaps I 5:22:26]... 18 19 Chair Summa: ...I'm looking... 20 21 Commissioner Akin: ...[should 5:22:26]. 22 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Chair Summa: ...for a motion to approve minutes – Draft Summary Minutes of October 11, 2 2023. 3 4 Commissioner Akin: Do you need me to restate that or simply to – yes. I move that we accept 5 the minutes as described. 6 7 Chair Summa: Okay. Do I have a second? 8 9 Commissioner Hechtman: As revised, accepted. 10 11 Male: Yeah. 12 13 Commissioner Akin: Oh, revised... 14 15 Commissioner Hechtman: Seconded. 16 17 Commissioner Akin: ...yes. 18 19 Commissioner Hechtman: [Yeah 5:22:46]. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Akin: Absolutely. 2 3 Chair Summa: Okay. 4 5 Commissioner Hechtman: Second. 6 7 Chair Summa: Second. Okay. And if you could call the vote, please. 8 9 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Lu? 10 11 Commissioner Lu: Yes. 12 13 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Reckdahl? 14 15 Commissioner Reckdahl: Yes. 16 17 Veronica Dao: Chair Summa? 18 19 Chair Summa: Yes. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Akin? 2 3 Commissioner Akin: Yes. 4 5 Veronica Dao: Vice-Chair Chang? 6 7 Vice-Chair Chang: Yes. 8 9 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman. 10 11 Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 12 13 Veronica Dao: Motion carries 6-0. 14 15 MOTION PASSED 6 (Lu, Reckdahl, Summa, Akin, Chang, Hechtman) 6-0-1 (Templeton absent) 16 17 Commission Action: Motion by Akin, second Hechtman. Pass 6-0-1 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Summa: Thank you very much. Now I'm looking for someone to make a motion to 1 approve the minutes – Draft Summary Minutes as revised. 2 3 Commissioner Hechtman: Move approval as revised. 4 5 Chair Summa: Yes. Of October 25, 2023. 6 7 Vice-Chair Chang: Second. 8 9 Male: Second. 10 11 Chair Summa: Okey-dokey. So we can vote on that. 12 13 Veronica Dao: Chair Summa? 14 15 Chair Summa: Yes. 16 17 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Reckdahl? 18 19 Commissioner Reckdahl: Yep. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Lu? 2 3 Commissioner Lu: Yes. 4 5 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 6 7 Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 8 9 Veronica Dao: And Vice-Chair Chang? 10 11 Vice-Chair Chang: Yes. 12 13 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Akin? 14 15 Commissioner Akin: Yes. 16 17 Veronica Dao: Motion carries 6-0. 18 19 MOTION PASSED 6 (Summa, Reckdahl, Lu, Hechtman, Chang, Akin) 6-0-1 (Templeton absent) 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson's presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commission Action: Motion by Hechtman, second Chang. Pass 6-0-1 2 3 Chair Summa: Thank you so much. 4 5 Commissioner Questions, Comments or Announcements 6 Chair Summa: Are there any other commissioner comments or updates or reports? Seeing no 7 lights, I will adjourn the meeting. 8 9 Adjournment 10 11:25 PM 11