HomeMy WebLinkAbout2024-03-27 Planning and 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: March 27, 2024 2
Council Chambers & Virtual 3
6:00 PM 4
5
Call to Order / Roll Call 6
6:04 PM 7
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ROLL CALL 9
Chair Summa: All right. Good evening, everybody, and welcome to the regular meeting of the 10
Planning and Transportation Commission and would you please take the roll. 11
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Administrative Associate Veronica Dao: Chair Summa? 13
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Chair Summa: Present. 15
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Veronica Dao: Vice-Chair Chang? 17
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Vice-Chair Chang: [Inaudible 0:25]. 19
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Veronica Dao: Commissioner Akin? 21
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Akin: Here. 1
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Veronica Dao: Commissioner Lu? 3
4
Commissioner Lu: Here. 5
6
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Reckdahl? 7
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Commissioner Reckdahl: Here. 9
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Veronica Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 11
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Commissioner Templeton: Here. 13
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Veronica Dao: We have a quorum. 15
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Oral Communications 17
The public may speak to any item not on the agenda. Three (3) minutes per speaker. 18
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Chair Summa: Thank you very much and now we will go to the public comment period and this 20
is a chance for – an opportunity for people to speak to items that are not on the agenda. Do we 21
have any speakers? 22
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
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Veronica Dao: Yes, I have two in person and two on Zoom. First in person is Susan Dunn. 2
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Chair Summa: Thank you. Go ahead please. 4
5
Susan Dunn: Okay. Commissioner Summa and members of the Planning Commission, thank you 6
for the opportunity to speak. My name is Susan Dunn and I'm here to speak in support of the 7
Bird Safety, Dark Skies, and Creek Protection Ordinances. I've lived in Palo Alto for 40 years. 8
What makes Palo Alto special to me is its mature trees, pleasant parks, and rich vegetation. 9
These factors also make Palo Alto attractive to birds. Palo Alto provides habitat for many birds 10
such as towhees, hummingbirds, cedar waxwings. Palo Alto is also part of a critical migratory 11
corridor along San Francisco Bay. One can see pelicans, egrets, and ducks passing through the 12
Baylands seasonally. Since 1970, the North American bird population has declined by 30 13
percent. Three billion birds are gone missing since 1970. In this context, it's meaningless to talk 14
about endangered species anymore. All wild species are endangered. Palo Alto has a long 15
history of enlightened government. Our beautiful open spaces at foothills and Arastradero 16
Preserves are evidence of a generational commitment to protecting the natural world. Palo Alto 17
has the opportunity to be a leader again by adopting the Bird Safety, Dark Skies, and Creek 18
Protection Ordinances. With fairly minor modifications to development plans, Palo Alto can 19
protect birds from some of their greatest modern dangers. I have seen regulations such as 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
these in effect in the Netherlands. The measures had an overall calming effect on the 1
environment that was beneficial to people as well as to birds. Citizens were aware of the 2
purpose of the regulations and proud of the contribution they were making to the health of the 3
natural world. Please approve the Bird Safety, Dark Skies, and Creek Protection Ordinances. You 4
will make a meaningful contribution to biodiversity while enhancing Palo Alto residents' quality 5
of life. Thank you. 6
7
Chair Summa: Thank you. 8
9
Veronica Dao: Okay. Next on Zoom is Dashiell Leeds. 10
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Dashiell Leeds: Hello, my name is Dashiell Leeds. I'm the conservation coordinator for the Sierra 12
Club Loma Prieta chapter. I'd like to talk a little bit about light pollution and bird safe design in 13
preparation for when this commission reviews the ongoing Dark Sky and Bird Safety Ordinance. 14
Speaking of other cities, Brisbane has just adopted an ordinance, Cupertino already has one, 15
and Mountain View has plans to begin working on an ordinance this year. The Sierra Club will 16
be following the progress of Palo Alto's Dark Sky and Bird Safety Ordinance eagerly and we 17
hope you recommend robust protections. Human beings and wildlife have evolved over 18
millions of years of evolution under natural cycles of day and night. Scientific literature has 19
revealed the extent to which artificial light can be damaging to both humans and nature. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Disrupting circadian rhythms can lead to a variety of health impacts in humans, such as the 1
disruption of hormones and increased risk of cancer. In wildlife, the results can be fatal as 2
artificial light at night can impact foraging, migration and other critical behaviors of wildlife. 3
This can lead to birds dying of exhaustion as they are diverted away from their migration routes 4
from sky glow. Uplighting is especially deadly as it can disorient birds leading to deaths from 5
exhaustion and bird strikes while contributing to sky glow, as well. And regarding bird strikes, 6
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has estimated that between 350,000 to nearly 1 billion birds 7
die annually in the United States due to collisions with building glass. Birds simply cannot see 8
glass and will see habitat reflected in the glass or habitat through the glass causing a collision. 9
Bird-safe glass can add small visual cues so that birds see that a barrier is present. Living under 10
a starry night sky is a dignity that all living beings deserve and I believe that we're happier and 11
healthier when our bird populations are also thriving so we do hope that you support this 12
ordinance when it comes to your review. Thank you. 13
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Chair Summa: Thank you. 15
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Veronica Dao: Next on Zoom is Lynda Heideman. 17
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Chair Summa: Thank you. 19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Lynda Heideman: Thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening. My name is Linda 1
Heideman and I've lived in Palo Alto for 19 years. I'm speaking this evening on Creek Setbacks, 2
that is, the City's plan to conserve riparian zones as natural habitat areas. This has become even 3
more important as our need for housing and other development continues to encroach on land 4
inhabited by wildlife. Loss of habitat for birds and other wildlife is one of the major reasons for 5
the declines in, and even extinction of, so many animals. All wildlife has a critical function in a 6
healthy ecosystem. We don't know fully – we don’t fully understand the effect on our planet of 7
their loss. I congratulate the city for a well-thought-out plan to establish local riparian zones as 8
natural habitat areas, notably the plan to direct lighting away from those areas and to preserve 9
native plants and remove invasive non-native plants. I'd like to encourage that setbacks be as 10
wide as possible and of at least 150 feet in rural areas. I'm going to speak only about birds as 11
they require more space than other animals and have about the same requirements as small 12
mammals and of course larger mammals require even more space. Many studies have 13
examined the issue of riparian zone width, which is challenging given all the variables. Based on 14
the research, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has – the U.S. Forest Service, I'm sorry, has 15
inferred some general relationships on width. As the length of a zone increases, so should the 16
width. A zone will generally need to be wider in landscapes that provide limited habitat or that 17
are dominated by human use. Zones that need to function for decades or even centuries should 18
be wider. We are already seeing, for example, changes in wildlife ranges caused by climate 19
change. In the past 50 years, North America has lost more than 1 in 4 of its birds. That's three 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
billion breeding adult birds. Although riparian areas are typically a small component of the 1
landscape, they provide essential habitat for many species of birds. For example, riparian zones 2
in many areas of the western U.S. comprise less than one percent of the total land area, yet 3
those areas are used by more species of breeding birds than any other habitat in North 4
America. Many breeding birds are also riparian obligates. That is, they need the presence of 5
quality riparian habitat for successful reproduction and survival. Studies in North America have 6
shown the following: Neotropical migrants, that is, birds who breed in North America but head 7
south for the winter, are more abundant in wider corridors. Those neotropical migrants are also 8
one of the groups suffering a serious decline in the past 50 years and most in need of habitat 9
during migration. Understandably, wider corridors are necessary to include a greater number of 10
bird species, including larger birds such as hawks. Potential problems with narrow riparian 11
zones include predation. Wider zones reduce edge related predation and other threats. To 12
encourage a diverse avian and other wildlife community, riparian zones should be as wide and 13
long as possible. I'm asking that wildlife be included in any planning. Wildlife has critical 14
functions in a healthy ecosystem and is also a source of joy in the natural world. I am hoping we 15
can agree that wildlives are important too and to set aside some space for them. Thank you. 16
17
Chair Summa: Thank you. Do we – Is that our final speaker? Or do we have one… 18
19
Veronica Dao: The last in person is Shani Kleinhaus. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
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Chair Summa: Thank you. 2
3
Shani Kleinhaus: Good evening, Chair Summa and commissioners. My name is Shani Kleinhaus. 4
I'm a resident of Palo Alto. I work for the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society and represent this 5
organization tonight. I'm on the PRC. I do not [inaudible 10:00]. There are studies that are 6
showing now that 50 percent of all migratory species, this was a study published last month in 7
the – by the UN, 50 percent of all migratory species are suffering declines – significant declines 8
in populations and about a quarter are at the risk of extinction. That includes a lot of bird 9
species and includes some of ours. The most notorious one is the Boring Owl. I don't know if 10
you guys have seen the LA Times or today, the SFGATE, that is talking about a petition that 11
Audubon submitted to the state to list our Boring Owls as an endangered species. We still have 12
some occasionally migratory birds in Palo Alto but we no longer have the species nesting here 13
and that's quite sad because we used to. So, knowing that habitat loss is one of the biggest 14
impacts to birds is important but the other things are things that are in our environment, like 15
glass. They did not evolve with glass. They did not evolve with light at night and we need to 16
protect them. The other thing, as Mr. Dashiell Leeds talked about, is that much of the 17
environmental harm that is caused by lighting to ecosystems and to birds also impacts people 18
and so I thought we would like to be a resource to you. We have amassed a lot of information 19
about lighting and about bird collisions and if there are any questions that you have about 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
health impacts or about impacts to the environment, please reach out to us. All of you should 1
have my email. Anyway, thank you so much for your time. 2
3
Chair Summa: Thank you very much. I think that concludes our public speakers so we'll move on 4
to agenda changes, additions, or deletions. 5
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Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions 7
The Chair or Commission majority may modify the agenda order to improve meeting management. 8
9
Female: There are no changes tonight. 10
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Chair Summa: Excellent. Then we can move on to the City official reports. 12
City Official Reports 13
1. Directors Report, Meeting Schedule and Assignments 14
Chief Planning Official Amy French: Thank you. Amy French, Chief Planning Official. Let me start 15
my slide. So on the screen, I'm putting all of our exciting upcoming meeting tentative agenda 16
items. It's in the packet but these things do morph and change as more items come up and 17
items move back. So you'll notice in your packet there might be a couple of changes that 18
weren't there earlier but one of the things I thought I'd mention is that Council is planning to 19
interview candidates for PTC. There's one seat that is up for review and that is April 8th, if that's 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
a Monday. Let's see. Yeah, April 8th. So that's why April 10th, which is in our bylaws, the first 1
meeting of April, we have elections of chair and Vice-Chair. We'll see what happens, if 2
everything's said and done on the April 8th meeting with the Council but that's up to the to the 3
board – the commission. So if anyone has any questions about these, let me know. The Dark 4
Skies was mentioned today by the public speakers. We're looking at May 29th for that to come 5
before the Planning and Transportation Commission. And then one other thing I'll mention is 6
April, Council meetings that have PTC review items. So tonight we're going to hear the Palo Alto 7
Link that goes on April 1st to Council, the Caltrans El Camino Real repaving project that we had 8
the study session at our last meeting, that goes to the Council on April 1st. I know that there's a 9
letter going to Caltrans about outreach and notification to the vehicle dwellers on El Camino. So 10
that outreach will be part of the discussion. Then we have the joint meeting, which is Planning 11
Commission and Council on April 15th and a couple of items coming for April 22nd. That 12
concludes my report. I don't think we have any updates from Office of Transportation. I think 13
you received something in email updated counts – traffic counts. So hopefully you all received 14
that. Thank you. 15
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Chair Summa: Thank you very much. Then if we have no further updates from staff, we will 17
move on to our first item, which is a study session on the Bike and Pedestrian Transportation 18
Plan. What? Oh, sorry. Commissioner Chang. Vice-Chair Chang. 19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Vice-Chair Chang: Sure. I just had a quick question for Ms. French. So if Council has not yet 1
voted on the open seat are we able to postpone our election of chair and Vice-Chair? 2
3
Amy French: Yeah. It'll be up to the – I've written a report for April 10th so that at that meeting 4
there can be a decision by the Commission as to what the Commission wants to do. 5
6
Vice-Chair Chang: Okay, thanks. 7
8
Chair Summa: Any other questions from my colleagues? 9
10
Senior Transportation Planner Ozzy Arce: Was the schedule for the eighth? Is that the 11
interviews or that when the voting? Do you know? 12
13
Amy French: I believe April 1st they're looking at the candidates for the one seat and then April 14
8th is the voting. I think that's how it is. 15
16
Chair Summa: Okay. Oh, Commissioner Templeton. 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. Sorry. What – Can somebody share with me how to find 19
that traffic data that was sent out? Who did it come 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.
1
Amy French: I believe Veronica Dao sent the email out today. It's an Excel spreadsheet, in an 2
email today. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: In an email labeled Commissioner questions. Is that the one? 5
6
Veronica Dao: Yes, included in that one. 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. 9
10
Veronica Dao: February collision data. 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah, thank you. I didn't realize that was the content of that email. 13
I'm just wondering, this is a Department of Transportation question, is that information going to 14
come on a regular basis or do we need to continue to request it? How often does it come out? 15
16
Ozzy Arce: I'm not familiar with it. Are you referring to the collision report that we receive from 17
the police department? 18
19
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Ozzy Arce: So we receive those on a monthly basis and we anticipate continuing to provide 2
those as part of PABAC’s agenda packet. I see Philip came on board but I anticipate that will 3
continue to be the case. We will continue to provide those as part of PABAC’s agenda packet 4
and then ultimately make it to you via either admin or [inaudible 18:04]. 5
6
Director of the Office of Transportation Philip Kamhi: Actually, Ozzy handled that beautifully, 7
but just to note, those reports come from PD, not from the Office of Transportation. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: How are we to receive it? Do we have a liaison with the PD or does it 10
come through you guys? 11
12
Ozzy Arce: We receive it from Lieutenant Ben Becchetti at the Police Department. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: Great. So I'm going to then continue to look to the Department of 15
Transportation to provide that to us, if that's okay, since you're the ones receiving it from the 16
Police Department and we don't have a police liaison. And I love the idea of receiving it on a 17
regular basis. I feel like there was a period there where we didn't. Maybe we did and I didn't 18
recognize that the – how it was being communicated but that would also be my feedback to 19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
our team is if you can label that really clearly so we know where it is and how to find it, that'd 1
be great. Thank you. 2
3
Chair Summa: Okay, any other questions from the Commission? Okay. Seeing none, we'll move 4
on to the study session on the Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan and I'm sure that 5
staff has a presentation to share. 6
7
Study Session 8
Public Comment is Permitted. Three (3) minutes per speaker. 9
2. Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan (BPTP) Update: Share and confirm the 10
vision statement and goals, share and get feedback on the existing conditions technical 11
analysis, and share and discuss upcoming engagement 12
Ozzy Arce: We do and while that's loading up, I'll do a quick flyover. Nice to see everyone again. 13
We were here at the end of last year introducing the effort. This is the Bicycle and Pedestrian 14
Transportation Plan Update locally referred to as the BPTP Update. Last update was in 2012. If 15
you all remember from our last meeting, we did a quick introduction and flyover including the 16
project schedule just to give you all a sense of how we're approaching the effort. Tonight I am 17
joined by Dhawal Kataria from Kittelson and Associates, the consultants on this effort, as well as 18
Sylvia Star-Lack, the transportation planning manager, and Philip Kamhi, the director of the 19
Office of Transportation. My name is Ozzy Arce, if I failed to say that. I'm a senior transportation 20
planner with the Office of Transportation, project managing this effort. Really quick tonight, I 21
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
know there's a lot of material included in the report, as well as the attachments but similar to a 1
lot of long range planning efforts, they start with this existing conditions analysis that creates a 2
baseline of information from which we will take off to develop this plan update. So bear with us 3
tonight as we're providing you with a lot of background information, including collisions 4
analysis, barriers analysis, and what we refer to as the level of traffic stress analysis and then 5
we want to focus a lot of our time tonight also in getting any feedback that you may have or at 6
least initial feedback on the draft vision statement for the project and what is referred to as 7
objectives, also known as goals, and then those performance measures. And lastly, on my part, 8
because Dhawal will be taking lead on the presentation tonight, but lastly, for me, is don't feel 9
like you have to provide all of your feedback tonight, or have all of your questions ready 10
because we will allow for feedback and comments to be received after the meeting until Friday, 11
April 12. So don't feel like you have to leave here with everything on the table. We're happy to 12
take feedback offline as well after the meeting. So with that, we will jump into the 13
presentation. Thank you. It's about a 20 minute presentation, by the way. Thanks. 14
15
Chair Summa: Okay, thank you. 16
17
Transportation Planner Dhawal Kataria: Thanks, Ozzy. Hello, everyone. My name is Dhawal 18
Kataria. 19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Summa: Yeah, you're going to need to speak into the mic for us, please. 1
2
Dhawal Kataria: Sorry. So hello, everyone. My name is Dhawal Kataria and I'm a transportation 3
planner with Kittelson & Associates and I've been on the PBTP update, as Ozzy mentioned. So 4
once again, we met with you in November to share an overview of the BPTP update, share our 5
initial engagement plan with you, invite you to participate in outreach activities. Thanks for 6
those who attended the Bike Palo Alto event and joined us at the visioning workshop. We also 7
requested input on the existing bike facilities map. Thank you for taking the time to review and 8
share your comment with us. We have taken all the feedback and updated the map accordingly 9
and the revised version is attachment A in your packet. Today, we are here to share existing 10
condition analysis. We are – we will also share a summary of engagement activities to date and 11
a preview of what's coming and invite you all to share it with your friends and neighbors to help 12
us gain more outreach and join us at the future events. Lastly, we'll present a draft vision and 13
objectives and performance measures that were informed by the prior planning work with the 14
City and with the direct input from the Community Visioning Workshop held in January. We'll 15
come to you one more time in the fall of 2024 to share the draft recommendations and seek 16
your input and comments on those. Next slide, please. So here's a little recap of what we have 17
heard so far and what are we doing in the future. We have received the comments on the 18
existing facilities map. We have incorporated those and prepared a final map. We hosted an 19
interactive map tool on the BPTP update website and we also extended the timeline based on 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
the feedback received from the Commissioners and others by a month and we received a lot of 1
summary and I'll be presenting that in the later slides. We received a feedback about increasing 2
the range of performance measures beyond what was identified earlier and then we worked on 3
those and then we added some glossary of items so that it's easier for people to understand. 4
Next slide, please. So today we will cover a lot of ground and we have provided quite a bit of 5
materials for review to help you manage your time and maximize value input. We would like to 6
focus on the draft vision, objective and performance measures today. These statements and 7
measures of effectiveness are critical in guiding the work and recommendation and your input 8
is essential here. As Ozzie mentioned, don't – we are not pressured to receive the feedback 9
today but we can have the feedback until April 12th. On the slide, there are some questions. Do 10
these statements and measure align with your – with the goals of the commission and where is 11
this alignment? Where might there be a conflict and what is missing are some of the things that 12
we are looking for. Next slide, please. So with that, I'll start with a technical analysis that we 13
have done so far on this project. So the last time we presented about inventories of program 14
and conducted bicycle friendly communities and today I'm going to talk about the bicycle level 15
of traffic stress, barriers that we looked at and find out ways on how to do that, which is what 16
will be coming up later. And we did a safety and collision analysis. We identified trend and 17
collision analysis and identified high risk locations and something that we are working on right 18
now is the activity and benefit analysis. Next slide, please. So with that, I'll start with bicycle 19
level of traffic stress. Here is a graphic to explain you what a level of traffic stress would mean. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
So we have stress from – the bicycle level of stress is an indicator of how comfortable it is to 1
bike on a road given the traffic along it and the parking and other elements. So the 2
comfortability is when we are sharing the road with a vehicle, especially if it is a heavily traveled 3
road, and then the comfortability increases when we are not sharing the road with vehicle 4
traffic. And you could see facilities such as off street pathways, protected bike lanes, local street 5
bikeways are more suitable for people of all ages and abilities and shared road are not very 6
comfortable for people of all ages and abilities. Next slide, please. So LTS is a measure, as I said, 7
is measured from one to four, one being the least stress and four being the highest stress 8
roads. So San Antonio is the highest stress road. This is just to give you an example of what level 9
of stress for roadway would look like where you are sharing the road with a very heavily 10
traveled traffic on a high speed roadway. And in between we have a road which is like a smaller 11
bike lane like Los Robles Avenue, and then Loma Verde Avenue at Midfield Road. Next slide, 12
please. So with that, we did the analysis and we came up with the highest stress roadway 13
segments located and some of them are unsurprisingly El Camino Real, Alma Street, Oregon 14
Expressway, San Antonio Road, Foothill Expressway. The graphic on the right shows the red 15
being the most stressful roadways and green being the least stressful roadways. All the local 16
roadways typically with less amount of traffic and less speeds are easier and more comfortable 17
for people to bike on and the city has about 68 percent of LTS 1 and 2 but what makes it 18
difficult is traveling across the high stress segments and intersections create a barrier so a 19
person traveling – a person who requires to cross El Camino Real would not be traveling along 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
one level of stress facility. Next slide, please. The other thing for the analysis we looked at is the 1
major barriers analysis along the location. Some of the major barriers on the right side of – the 2
graphic on the right shows the major barriers such as freeways, rail lines and the creeks where 3
you don't have either a roadway facility or a bikeway facility, which is comfortable for people to 4
travel on. On the left, we have a transit station location. These are the locations where you 5
want to provide first and last mile connection that reduce the barriers and create an 6
environment for less stressed roadways. So on the on the graphic on the left, we have included 7
Caltrans stations and rapid stations along El Camino Real. Next slide, please. So here we are 8
looking at one of the example of major barriers. This is US 101 major barriers and you can look 9
at 1 being again the least stress where you have a crossing which is dedicated bike and ped 10
crossing and then 4 being the least stressful where you have to share the roadway with the 11
heavily traveled traffic, lack of crossing opportunities, most significant gap between walking 12
and biking and limited access so the distance between the 2 can be very high and very 13
unconvenient for the people. Next slide, please. Moving on to collision analysis. Based on the 14
feedback we received from the community and members, we looked at the 10-year collision 15
history or we looked at the trend for the 10-year collision history for bicycle and pedestrian 16
collisions only focusing on this project and then we could see that in 2014 and 2018 we had 17
higher pedestrian collisions and overall the trend is going downwards and thus the total 18
includes all type of collisions and the blue line includes fatal and severe collisions only. So 19
overall the fatal and severe has not decreased but the overall collisions have gone down over 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 last 10 years. Next slide, please. So we looked at the last five years in more detail and to be 1
consistent with another project [inaudible 31:38] a action plan that is going on right now. So we 2
looked at the bicycle and pedestrian collision for the last five years, mapped those out and you 3
could see that the more collisions are located at near major commercial centers downtown and 4
along the major corridors, El Camino Real, Meadow Drive, Embarcadero and Oregon 5
Expressway. [Inaudible 32:05] on the slide as well and this is the data reported from trends 6
from January 2018 to December 2022. Next slide, please. So we are diving deeper into the 7
trend of the collision analysis for pedestrians and the trend again has gone down as we looked 8
at the last 10 years and over here we wanted to show you the type of collisions, fatal, severe 9
injury collisions and overall, while injury collisions have gone down, severe and fatal has 10
relatively remained the same. You could see on the right the graphic that includes fatal and 11
injury collisions. Next slide, please. Similar exercise for the bicycle collisions and we have seen a 12
relatively – the trend going down a lot and the share of moderate injury to injury collisions for 13
bicycle. Next slide. With that, that concludes pretty much a brief overview of the analysis that 14
we have done as a part of this project. We have done some more analysis on looking at the 15
patterns and I will move on to community engagement now. This summarizes the phase one 16
community engagement that we had for visioning. Next slide. So the phase one community 17
engagement include an interactive map where we received around a thousand comments and 18
we hosted community and working group meetings, PTC, PRC, met with the Council and then 19
we also had a bike – we were present at the Bike Palo Alto event. We also had a Virtual 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.
Visioning Workshop and – which was well attended and we received a lot of good feedback 1
from those workshop which helped us in developing a visioning statement. Next slide, please. 2
These are the community and working groups meeting that we held in the phase one and we 3
are currently doing a pretty similar exercise for the phase two engagement, as well. So we are 4
meeting with Planning and Transportation Commission today and then we had a Parks and 5
Recreation yesterday and today we also had an internal staff working group meeting. We are 6
having a City School Transportation Safety Committee tomorrow and the City Council in the 7
spring. With that, I’ll be – I would like to highlight some of the events – outreach events that are 8
coming up for phase two. So we are going to host this over the 3 days from April 16 to April 18. 9
We have a Bicycle Network Development workshop which is where people would be doing the 10
Star Analysis to help us develop – identify a network for bicyclists and we have a walk tour 11
scheduled with Avenidas on April 17th and we have a bike tour scheduled with Silicon Valley 12
Bike Coalition on April 18th, as well and we will be advertising that event on the April 18th – 13
advertising all these outreach activities on the day about the project. Next slide, please. So for 14
today we – as I said in the beginning, our focus is to get your input on the visioning objectives 15
and performance measures. So with the help of all the community engagement that was held 16
during the phase one we drafted a statement for – drafted a vision statement, came up with 17
the objectives and we would like to share those with you. Next slide, please. So I'll go over the 18
draft vision statement and I'll read it out loud. In Palo Alto, we envision a city where sustainable 19
transportation thrives, embodying safety efficiency and enjoyment. Our streets will form a 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
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connected cohesive network supporting walking and cycling with tree-lined paths, efficient 1
shortcuts and secure bike parking. We commit to overcoming barriers ensuring every part of 2
our community is easily traversed on foot or by bike, fostering a connected region where 3
sustainable transportation is a shared priority. Palo Alto aspires to be a leader with 4
comprehensive programming encouraging everyone to embrace sustainable modes. We invest 5
more in walking and biking infrastructure ensuring equity and accessible for all. Embracing the 6
safe system approach, our city prioritizes safety and aims for a future where walking and biking 7
for a short trip is more convenient than driving, shaping a city where every journey, no matter 8
how small, contributes to a more sustainable and connected community. Next slide, please. 9
Again we have some – we've formulated some draft objectives with those community 10
engagement efforts and input from the staff, so we have safe and inclusive networks of 11
prioritizing safety for all road user ensuring equitable access to pedestrian and bicycle 12
infrastructure across the community. Connected and accessible featuring a convenient and 13
interconnected network of sidewalks, bike lane trails that provide efficient travel option and 14
ease access to transit. Comfortable and enjoyable enhancing the comfort and enjoyment of 15
walking cycling through amenities such as shade greenery and well-designed streetscapes. 16
Community driven fostering community engagement participation and promoting active 17
transportation supported by education, programming and infrastructure investments. 18
Integrated and collaborative collaborating with neighboring cities to create a seamless and 19
integrated regional network of pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure. Next slide. While you will 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
not be able to see the draft performance measure on your slide but it is included in your 1
packet, these were formulated based on the previous work and we have also looked at the 2
League of American Bicycle Cities to see how they align with those and then we have identified 3
and to track project investment over time to evaluate how cities meeting goals related to 4
bicycling and walking. The selection of performance measure is a key step in the development 5
of pedestrian and bicycle plans and network recommendation as these measures are 6
incorporated into project prioritization and implementation to direct investment toward 7
projects that have a desirable impact. So we are looking for your comments on these measures 8
to see how it is relevant to the kind of work and the measures that we should track to see how 9
successful we are. Next slide. So with that I'll wrap up with next steps. Next slide. So as Ozzy 10
mentioned in the beginning, we need you to review and provide comments on the materials 11
that were provided today by April 12, 2024. More focus on the vision objectives and 12
performance measures and analysis maps and findings. We also need your support to promote 13
and participate in phase two engagement activities, especially the ones that are coming up in 14
April and then BPTP update. So we'll be incorporating your comments into the draft analysis 15
and taking your feedback on the upcoming engagement activities. And you could send the 16
comments to Transportation. Next slide. I think that wraps up for the presentation. 17
18
Chair Summa: Thank you for that. Do any of my colleagues have clarifying questions before we 19
go to the public? 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: Thank you, Chair. First, thank all of you who've been working on this. This is 2
a wealth of useful information and I will be reviewing it over and over again for years, I'm sure. 3
In a future session, I hope we hear a little bit more about the use of Replika. That's very 4
interesting and I hope that experience is positive. Now to the difficult question. So looking at 5
the number of collisions which appears on our packet pages 17 and 18, so I ran a statistical test 6
to see how significant the change in the collisions is and the answer is it's really weak. And if 7
you throw out the pandemic years, it's not there at all. So I'm a little worried about that. But 8
even if you accept that there is overall a trend towards reduction, there is not a trend towards 9
reduction in the fatal and severe injury accidents. Those are flat. So the question is, do you feel 10
that this is a correct analysis, and if so, are you specifically searching for the causes of the flat 11
trend in severe and fatal injuries accidents? 12
13
Dhawal Kataria: Yes, so we have dug deeper into the cause in in our analysis. We have looked at 14
what are the reason behind the type of collisions, like collision factor data such as – either it's 15
broadside, rear-end or was it related to speeding or what kind of. So those are the questions 16
that we have looked into. So, in a way, we have kind of looked into the details of why it has 17
remained a flat and what all the collisions have been repeating over the period of time. 18
19
Ozzy Arce: We haven't landed on a specific cause yet. 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: Yeah, I imagine there are several but okay, just something that I would be 2
very interested in hearing more about at some point in the future. Make sure we're doing the 3
right thing to address it. All right. That's it for me. Thank you. 4
5
Chair Summa: Thank you. Other comments or questions? Questions really for staff before we 6
go to the public. Commissioner Chang? 7
8
Vice-Chair Chang: Yeah I have a clarifying question about the Replika data on packet page 19. 9
So last paragraph, it says the spring 2023 data includes approximately 91,000 bike trips and 10
58,000 riders and 142,000 walking trips and 96 – 97,000 pedestrians. And so when it says like 11
90 trips versus riders, are those riders supposed to be unique riders? Because it's not quite 12
making sense to me in that the subsequent bullet talks about how most of the percentage of 13
biking trips are associated with schools and colleges. And so then we're talking people going 14
180 at least days a year and it's going to be those same people going over and over and over 15
again. And so I don't understand why you'd have 91,000 bike trips by only 58 – it doesn't quite 16
make sense to me because we're averaging less than 2 bike trips per rider? 17
18
Dhawal Kataria: Well, so the Replika data provides information based on trips. So every time – 19
so it does not collect information about the particular rider and the more times you log a trip 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 how the information is passed through. So there is – so it is likely that it is not a unique 1
rider so a person can be repeated in the data over and over again as long as they are taking the 2
trips. 3
4
Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. But then why is it a smaller number? I think – I'm just not – I'm just 5
trying to understand what this data means. 6
7
Ozzy Arce: I will also add that Replika data does not capture recreational trips that start and end 8
in the same location. So, for example, someone's walking their dog. And so, what we're 9
understanding is that Replika data does have certain limitations and we're trying to understand 10
through community input as well as potentially looking at more traditional count data to see if 11
we can get a more complete picture, if you will. 12
13
Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. Well, maybe you guys can find out about what that actually means. 14
What's an example. If I go – If I'm one person and I go to work and then I come back is that two 15
trips by one person? Is that what that means? I'm just wondering what – It just doesn't – I just 16
don't know what it – what those numbers mean. And so I would love to get Replika's sense of 17
what that is. 18
19
Chair Summa: Mr. Kahmi, would you like 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.
1
Philip Kamhi: Yeah, thank you. Philip Kamhi, Chief Transportation Official. I realized also I did 2
not say my name when I came up here previously. But yeah, I actually want to say that that's 3
our understanding of the data is that an individual rider making more than one trip. So, it could 4
be that they're riding one way maybe only home from work or they're riding two ways. It 5
doesn't necessarily always work out that a person is making two trips in one day. That's why it's 6
not just double the number. But yeah, that's the reason why we understand there's more than 7
one trip per rider. 8
9
Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. That makes more sense then. And then, if I – if there's 20 work days in 10
a month and I – each day I'm a different rider, it sounds like perhaps. 11
12
Philip Kamhi: Correct. So the rider is not tied to an individual person. It's the riders that occur – 13
a rider – an individual rider on a given day. 14
15
Vice-Chair Chang: On a given day then. That's the – because I'm sort of like, “how – why is there 16
fewer,” right? If there's no association with a unique rider then there has to be…anyway, it's 17
too technical but I think I understand. Thank you. 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.
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Summa: Other questions? Nope? Okay. I think we should move to public speakers. 1
Veronica Dao? 2
3
Veronica Dao: Yes, I have one in person and two on Zoom. First is Mark Shull. 4
5
PUBLIC COMMENT 6
Mark Shull: Thank you. My name is Mark Shull. My bike is my primary – is a primary mode of 7
transportation for me. My first concern is safety and protected bike routes. Ten years ago I was 8
knocked off my bike by a car that didn't stop at Bryant and Churchill. Several months ago, I 9
went down hard on the tracks at Churchill avoiding a car. My helmet hit the pavement hard in 10
both cases. Earlier this month – Earlier this year, a friend from Brisbane was killed in exact same 11
circumstances. Looking at the plan’s safety numbers, I do wonder how the total number of 12
collisions is falling yet the number of severe injuries and fatalities is steady. It could be under 13
reporting and I think the City's 311 apps should have a bike reporting section. Second, 14
population and housing density are increasing on the peninsula. We need better and safe multi-15
mode transportation because we simply cannot keep adding more cars and wider roads. San 16
Jose's goal is for 20 percent of all trips in the city to be by bike and I think Palo Alto needs a 17
similar target and then to create infrastructure to achieve this. Third, we need safe and efficient 18
intercity bike commuting corridors. Sixty percent of Palo Altoans work outside the city, not to 19
mention the large numbers who commute in. Palo Alto should get on board with the El Camino 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.
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Intercity Bike Initiative. There are well-known ways to build safe bike highways next to major 1
boulevards and to keep bikes and cars separate at intersections. If other cities in this country 2
and the world can do it we can too. 3
4
Fourth, e-bikes are a great alternative to cars as a primary mode of transportation, but how do 5
we manage them going forward? The EU limits e-bikes to pedal activated only. California allows 6
a throttle activated and pedal activated and predictably, many of the throttle activated e-bikes 7
now come with apps to switch between 20, 28 and 40 miles an hour. Some are really 8
unlicensed electric motor scooters. I think we need to work with state representatives to 9
separate e-bikes from electric scooters if e-bikes are to be part of a shift away from cars. Also, 10
batteries are increasing the use of child carrier cargo bikes which may need wider bike lanes, 11
particularly to and from schools and stores. And lastly, what is the railroad crossing plan in 12
North Palo Alto? The Rail Committee has decided to make Churchill cars only even while 13
recognizing this crossing is used by “hundreds and hundreds of bikes”. The plan shows a bike 14
tunnel option at Seale but no commitment to one. The three existing road underpasses don't 15
have bike lanes. The Emerson bike underpass relies on expired and iffy Caltran right-of-way. 16
The North California Avenue tunnel is an old narrow pedestrian underpass. It is ready – already 17
overwhelmed and the rail plan looks to install a light to concentrate car traffic on and off of 18
Alma at North California right next to the exit of the tunnel. The tunnel in North California 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.
heavily used by Greene Elementary Schools. I think this needs attention. I'm hoping these issues 1
can be addressed in Palo Alto's Bike and Pedestrian Plan. Thank you. 2
3
Chair Summa: Thank you. 4
5
Veronica Dao: Next is Scott Mace. 6
7
Scott Mace: Hello. Can you hear me? 8
9
Chair Summa: Yes, we can. 10
11
Scott Mace: Okay. Well, good evening. My name is Scott Mace. I represent CABO, the California 12
Association of Bicycling Organizations, which is focused on cyclist’s rights, safety, training and 13
education statewide including the only statewide initiative to train law enforcement officers on 14
the bicycling aspects of California traffic law. I frequently visit Palo Alto and bicycle there; 15
although, having been a resident of Santa Clara County for many years, I'm now a resident of 16
Monterey County. Given the number of streets in Palo Alto that will continue to have 17
essentially no bicycling infrastructure and therefore shared streets, not to mention shared 18
intersections, I'm curious as to whether other than performance measures, are there any new 19
cyclist or motorist education elements in the new plan? Not just for Safe Routes to School 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.
education for adults, as well. Or, is this to be left only to private initiatives? Other bike plans do 1
incorporate education. One example is VTA. This could also be an element in reducing severe 2
injuries or deaths as well. Thank you very much. 3
4
Chair Summa: Thank you. 5
6
Veronica Dao: Next is Art Liberman. 7
8
Art Liberman: Thank you very much. My name is Arthur Liberman. I am a member of PABAC but 9
I'm speaking tonight only for myself. PABAC heard a presentation on this subject at our March 10
meeting. Afterward, I submitted some comments to Transportation but I did not receive any 11
feedback. Let me mention several suggestions that were not incorporated in the staff report 12
that was online. Perhaps you might have similar comments and can ask the consultant about 13
them. The first one is a comment about the cross barrier maps. The cross barrier visualization 14
graphics that were in the staff report that were online do not effectively relay information. 15
There is an expression, a picture is worth a thousand words. In this case, a thousand words is 16
needed to explain a picture. Second, I made a comment about the draft vision and I believe that 17
the draft vision should include low stress routes which is what the presentation began with 18
today by the Kittelson & Associates. I think the first line of the vision statement should state, “In 19
Palo Alto, we envision a city where sustainable transportation thrives supporting a network 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.
low stress routes where an increasing number of people of all ages will choose to bicycle and 1
walk and be able to do so safely”. I think it's important to include low stress routes and more 2
people cycling in the vision. A third comment is about the draft objectives. I think there's 3
something missing there. It should have – include something about more people riding bicycles. 4
So one objective should be, “Increase the number of cyclists”. If we're going to be doing an 5
update, we should – that really should be clearly an objective of the – of our efforts. And 6
there's nothing in the draft vision nor in the draft objectives about the growing adoption of e-7
bikes and personal mobility devices. As the previous speaker mentioned, what do we expect to 8
happen with pedestrian and bicycle trends with e-bikes and personal mobility devices on our 9
streets? And just to comment about the comments about – Commissioner Chang mentioned, 10
we also, at PABAC, had many comments and questions and I submitted a number about the 11
Replika data. It seems very opaque. Thank you. 12
13
Chair Summa: Thank you. 14
15
Veronica Dao: And one more on Zoom from Ken Joye. 16
17
Ken Joye: Hi. Like Art, I am a member of PABAC but I'm speaking as myself. I would echo what 18
he just said about the Replika data. I urge you to ask staff and consultants about the meaning of 19
a synthetic population. I would also ask you to ask staff and the consultants as to what real 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.
concrete data has been provided to Replika to match their modeling. They take data from 1
things like, I forget the term they use, in-dash mechanisms which presumably could be things 2
like Google Maps. It doesn't appear to us, at the meeting that we were presented this, that they 3
track how many Palo Alto Unified School District children are riding across town to get to 4
schools. So please ask how modeling bicycle and pedestrian trips works with Replika. Thank you 5
very much. 6
7
Chair Summa: Thank you for that. Is that our final speaker? 8
9
Veronica Dao: Yes. That's all our public comments. 10
11
Chair Summa: Okay. Thank you so much. Okay. We'll bring it back to the Commission. And who 12
would like to start off comments? Commissioner Akin? 13
14
Commissioner Akin: Oh yeah. I'm happy to start. I've got about three questions on each of the 15
sections we're reviewing. If that's too much, I'm perfectly willing to break it up into multiple 16
rounds. So everybody, let me know. On our packet page 39, the vision statement, tree-lined 17
paths. I thought that this phrasing might be easy to misunderstand as meaning that all of the 18
paths are going to be tree-lined when of course that won't be the case. However, I wanted to 19
comment that the proposed performance measure for this is well stated. So if you could carry 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 of the meaning from the performance measure into the vision statement, I thought that 1
might be successful. Safety being a shared priority. Sustainable transportation is a shared 2
priority. Excuse me. I wasn't quite sure how to understand that and so I was thinking about 3
proposing something simpler like universal or ubiquitous or universally supported. 4
5
And lastly, on this section, there's a wording issue. We invest more in walking and biking 6
infrastructure. So I wasn't sure how to read this because the first sentence in the paragraph is 7
aspirational. Palo Alto aspires to be a leader. Is this second sentence also intended to be 8
aspirational? So maybe the correct wording would be we will invest more rather than stating 9
just as an outright fact, we invest more. Just wanted to make sure the intent was expressed 10
clearly there. Okay. The next session draft objectives. Prioritizing safety. I think most people 11
would read this as meaning prioritizing safety above all other goals, but in fact, there's always 12
some process of compromise. Goals trade off against one another. So, if you say you're 13
prioritizing safety and then other aspects of the transportation system suffer, you might – there 14
might be something misleading about the way this was phrased. And so, what occurred to me 15
was maybe rather than prioritizing safety, just be active about it and say improving safety. And 16
lastly, in this section, discuss, let's see, where was this? Efficient travel options. That's in the 17
bottom of the second bullet item. At some point, probably in the performance measures, it 18
would be nice to be concrete and quantifiable about this. And since time is a measure that a lot 19
of people use to decide their modes of transportation, you might want to say that bicycle travel 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.
times are competitive with vehicular travel times as a goal, as a performance measure, 1
something that's quantifiable. And lastly, on packet page 41, the performance measures, I am 2
very happy to see this goal of counting cyclists and pedestrians. Bravo. 3
4
Under expand the walk/bike network, how is the number of street closure events a good 5
measure for expanding the walk/bike network? I interpreted this as meaning temporary 6
closures, but perhaps that's wrong or perhaps you have some other causal link there that I 7
missed. It just wasn't clear to me how, say, having a street fair on University improves the 8
bike/ped network. Similarly, something else I had a problem being sure I understood, was the 9
share of transportation budget for walking and biking. A road change made for other reasons 10
might improve the walking/biking network. How do you count that? So something to perhaps 11
phrase a little differently. And let's see. Finally, under safe and complete streets, there's a 12
question about whether to measure collisions per resident or per 10K cycle commuter and my 13
reaction was I would really rather see the basis be per cycle commuter, particularly as we 14
expect to see a large increase in the number of residents. The denominator is going to get 15
bigger and the collisions per resident may go down even if there is actually no improvement or 16
if things get worse so per cycling commuter looked like a better bet to me. So thank you. That's 17
all I had. 18
19
Chair Summa: Commissioner Chang. 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: Thank you. I agree with everything that Commissioner Akin said but also 2
wanted to highlight with respect to the mission, or sorry, the vision that I got really stuck on the 3
second sentence of the second paragraph where it says we invest more in walking and biking 4
infrastructure. So that's another person who got confused there, because my question was 5
more than what or whom. I don't know what we're saying and I don't even want to hazard a 6
guess. So hopefully that can be clarified. I also wanted to say that I really agree with 2 of our 7
public commenters who had some great ideas about adding 311 reporting for bike and ped 8
accidents because I guess this is a question I should have asked, which is, is there a sense from 9
staff about which types of injuries are underreported? So there were some bar charts shown 10
about injuries that were – there were severe, moderate, minor injuries. And my suspicion, at 11
least anecdotally from hearing high school students talk, is that the moderate and minor 12
injuries are probably unreported, but I don't go – that they go unreported. Of course, I don't 13
know what the exact definition is of a moderate versus a minor injury. I don't know, could staff 14
answer that question, if there's a consensus from everybody who's working on these issues 15
about the categories that are underreported? 16
17
Ozzy Arce: I'm unclear if those come from PD or if those are pre-established, but you are 18
correct to state that a lot of collisions do go unreported. So what we're showing you are 19
reported collision data. 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: Okay. So then I love this idea of making it easier to report because that will 2
tell us more and we need to know. It's just a continuous improvement thing. Also with all the 3
changes that are coming with more housing, I think maybe some patterns may change. I also 4
liked the public comment about including low stress routes in the vision. I thought that his 5
comments were actually – were quite good there, as well as including the measurable objective 6
of having more people cycling or maybe more vehicle, sorry, not vehicle, more pedestrian and 7
bicyclist miles but I think that there should be something about more being the goal because if 8
we're making everything more attractive or improving the situation, it should make it more 9
desirable for individuals to do it. And to Commissioner Akin's point, it should be more on a per 10
capita basis, not just an absolute level. And then finally, I have a question. If you look at page 17 11
and 18 and this is a little bit related to something that Commissioner Akin said, so there's these 12
charts, the 2 charts on packet pages 17 and 18, that show – that draw the conclusion that 13
there's been a decreasing number of pedestrian and bicycle collisions. My question would be, 14
do we know what was happening to both overall ridership for bicycles or the number of walkers 15
at the same time, as well as what's been – what was going on with traffic at the same time? 16
Because I don't think that we can say that there's been a decrease unless everything else was 17
constant. Or, yeah, so I just think that there's missing – there's information that's missing and 18
without seeing that missing information, I can't draw any conclusions from those two charts. 19
Oh, and then my final question, or maybe it's kind of like a piece of analysis that you might 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.
already know the answer to but maybe it's one that should be easy enough to do, is on packet 1
page 36 and sort of the surrounding pages too, packet page 37, where we look at the 2
pedestrian and bicycle collisions and collisions by severity. Have we overlapped those maps 3
with the Safe Routes to School map, to see if there's any supposedly Safe Routes to School that 4
are not so safe? So that's a question for staff. 5
6
Ozzy Arce: I don't believe we've gone through that exercise to overlay but that's definitely good 7
feedback as we take these maps into consideration as we develop that network in the future. 8
9
Vice-Chair Chang : Because I would suggest that if we do that analysis and we do see sort of hot 10
spots where there are a high number of incidents on the Safe Routes to School routes, that 11
perhaps that's an area that should be prioritized because there are bike paths all over Palo Alto. 12
We don't see a tremendous number of collisions, I don't think so, at least on something called 13
Bike Boulevard, which are publicized as a good place to bike. But similarly, Safe Routes to 14
School routes are publicized as a supposedly good place to bike or walk and if we do see kind of 15
a clustering of collisions anywhere along those, then we got to fix those first because it's kind of 16
false advertising on our part. That's it for my comments. Thank you. 17
18
Ozzy Arce: I appreciate those comments. I'll just close and say, I think without jumping to the 19
next phase, part of what we want to do in the next time that we visit is develop that criteria 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 will include items like that, does it show up on a high injury network or is it part of a Safe 1
Routes to School walk map as we try to develop those priority projects. So appreciate that 2
comment and definitely hold that for the next phase when we try to develop that criteria. 3
Thank you. 4
5
Chair Summa: Commissioner Lu. 6
7
Commissioner Lu: Thank you. Firstly, I just want to mention that I strongly agree with 8
Commissioner Akin and Commissioner Chang's comments. And I also appreciate all the work so 9
far from staff and our consultants to get us to this point. One clarification question just to start. 10
Can you actually summarize the full scope of phase two? And can you also confirm that phase 2 11
will complete, I guess, when council accepts it in that TBD spring 2024 date? 12
13
Ozzy Arce: Right. So phase two is our existing conditions analysis phase where we want to 14
understand existing conditions, hence the LTS analysis, the barriers analysis, and the collision 15
analysis. During this phase, we're also looking at developing our draft vision statement, the 16
performance measures and those goals and to answer your question, we do hope to take this 17
information that we're hearing from the Commissions as well as the community, present that to 18
City Council, get their feedback on the draft vision statement similar to you all tonight, package 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.
that information and, yeah, conclude the phase and move on to the next phase that I just 1
mentioned that speaks to the prioritization criteria. 2
3
Commissioner Lu: Yes, thank you. I appreciate that. It's just useful to – for me to have that very 4
explicitly to kind of frame my questions and comments and scope for this discussion. I, in 5
particular, did have a question about bike counts. It's referenced as a measurement goal. Can 6
you discuss a bit on how you plan to actually – or how we plan to actually collect data going 7
forward? 8
9
Ozzy Arce: So part of what this plan will do is tell us exactly that, is what would be – what would 10
a count program in Palo Alto look like. And so I guess it's to be determined what that looks like 11
in the future but a part of the goal of this plan is to develop that as one of the outcomes, if you 12
will, of the BPTP update. 13
14
Commissioner Lu: Okay. So at this phase, we pick the metrics that we want and then in the next 15
phase we set the programs on where the metrics would actually come from, whether they 16
would come from Replika or whether we would have automated counters or other things like 17
that. 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.
Ozzy Arce: Right. Or even further down the road as we develop programs that – programs in 1
the BPTP update, one of them can speak to, again, account program that the city has an official 2
and it runs annual or two times a year or whatever is recommended. But yeah, one of the 3
outcomes will be maybe a program that the city can move forward with. 4
5
Commissioner Lu: Okay. Got it. 6
7
Ozzy Arce: So to receive more consistent counts because right now we don't have an 8
established program. 9
10
Commissioner Lu: Yeah. Okay. Got it. So that makes sense and that will help frame my 11
comments at this phase. We'll really dial in the metrics we want and then we'll figure out how 12
to include 311 data and how to include police data and all that. Okay, cool. I will actually return 13
for comments and yeah, pass it on to the next commissioner. 14
15
Chair Summa: Okie dokie. Commissioner Templeton. 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. I'd first like to say how happy I am that we're hearing this 18
and having input on this so thank you for bringing it. Regarding the vision statement, I do agree 19
with my colleagues that it would benefit from a little bit more specificity. My suggestions 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.
also mainly involving a second paragraph. So Palo Alto aspires to be a leader. It kind of leaves 1
you hanging because there's so many things we're talking about that we're not sure what. But I 2
think you're saying that later in the sentence so I would just rearrange that sentence. Palo Alto 3
aspires to be a leader in encouraging everyone to embrace sustainable modes with 4
comprehensive programming. This is a little bit more clear. I also agree with the comment 5
about investing more than other cities, more money, more other kinds of resources. What do 6
you mean? Do you have thoughts what was intended there? 7
8
Ozzy Arce: I believe it was in terms of resources, potentially financial resources but we can 9
definitely look to clarify that. 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: I think it would be really helpful because you have to think about 12
how people in a position to do so will execute on this vision. So if you can be very specific then 13
when they approve it, they're sort of agreeing to it. So I would suggest that as a way of 14
communicating your intentions more clearly. Now, as far as whether we prioritize safety or 15
improve it, we should do both but prioritizing, I think it is intended to say over other things. So I 16
like that. I think we should prioritize safety. I think that's a issue of high concern to me 17
especially because of how much we encourage our youth to use biking and pedestrian mode for 18
getting to school. So it's very important to me that I would like to see us keep that word. I also 19
had written down about Safe Routes as the Vice-Chair mentioned so I'll share my thoughts. I 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.
love the idea she mentioned about the overlay. I think that would be very smart and 1
informative and help reassure parents because we do want to encourage people to do that. We 2
also want to make it safe. So one thing that we lack in our reporting is age ranges for the fatal 3
and severe injuries and as much as I don't want to see any numbers on that, we have them and 4
we need to face that as we determine how we’re prioritizing our children's safety. So I would 5
say that that needs to be a lens that we can filter on and say and we should also think about our 6
elderly, especially in the pedestrian situation, how safe are our facilities for walking? I know 7
sometimes I feel like our sidewalks aren't safe in certain areas because maybe they haven't 8
been designed or updated to modern safety standards. I know we're working on that in some 9
areas but it'd be very informative to understand the age lens for those kinds of collisions and 10
injuries. I also agree about – I strongly desire something like 311 and have attempted in the 11
past, sorry guys, to use 311 for reporting this kind of stuff because I didn't know how else to do 12
it. So if it's a collision and it's not fatal, the kid ends up at the ER, the kid ends up at high school. 13
If it's a collision, we should be able to tell you whether the police are there or not. And your 14
reporting is very much incomplete without that information. And I do believe that our high 15
schoolers would be willing to – we have a training in elementary and middle school, they don't 16
all have phones then, by high school they do and it'd be really nice to be able to share that and 17
have reporting on it at the same time. I see Ms. Star-Lack is approaching the mic. Would you 18
like to chime in? 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.
Assistant Transportation Director Sylvia Star-Lack: Thank you. 1
2
Commissioner Templeton: Through the chair. 3
4
Sylvia Star-Lack: Is this – It’s on? Great. Yes, hi, thanks. Sylvia Star-Lack, Transportation Planning 5
Manager. Some of the safety items that you've been talking about tonight actually also are 6
being addressed in the Safe Streets for All Safety Action Plan. For example, they'll also be 7
looking at the overlay with the suggested routes to school. So that analysis is going to be 8
happening. Regarding an interactive map or some kind of place to log a near miss or a collision 9
that maybe your child wasn't paying attention and hit a parked car. Those are the 10
underreported things that don't get to the police but still might need to be reported. I am 11
looking at – I'm researching. There are some already existing websites that do this work that 12
collect and so I'm trying to – I'll be looking into that as part of our Safe System Action Plan. So it 13
might not be part of this work for the bike plan but I am looking into that because I do think 14
that there is going to be some value for people to go to a map and say this is what happened to 15
me here. So, just wanted to let you know that is a thing that I'm looking at. It might not be part 16
of this effort. 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: It's great. Thank you for that update. And yes, it's not always the kid 19
running into the car. Sometimes it's the car running into the kid just to think about the variety 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 things we have to report on and some of them are even just the alignment of our streets to 1
the sun can lead to more collisions and we don't have any reporting on some of those 2
problems. So anyway, I'll move on from that. And then, last thing I just wanted to say, as a city, 3
if we're coming up with a Bike and Pedestrian Transportation Plan, then I'm wondering what 4
are we doing as city staff to utilize these things and source ideas from our own pool of staff. So 5
I'm thinking, for example, I don't even know the answer to this, we probably do, do we have 6
our policemen and women on bikes ever? I don't – You don't have to have the answer if you 7
don't know. But it'd be interesting to think about as much as we want to promote biking in our 8
city, we need to find ways to get that feedback from our trusted sources like our police and our 9
other traffic safety officials. 10
11
Chair Summa: Philip Kamhi? 12
13
Philip Kamhi: Thank you. I'm not expecting Ozzy's going to know this answer off hand but just 14
noting that that is something that we're looking at through the SCAP process actually is getting 15
more city fleet available for other departments as well. 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: I love it. I love to hear it. And I love that there is some cross 18
pollination here and that's something to think about in terms of how you present it, especially 19
when you bring it to other bodies besides us is to reference more your colleagues programs 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 once we seem to have things more integrated, we're going to have more support. 1
That's just how things work so I think promoting the other projects you have going on and 2
showing how it's integrated and well connected and well thought out would be very valuable. 3
Thank you. 4
5
Chair Summa: Commissioner Reckdahl? 6
7
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. Thank you. This is really good stuff. First, I'll start with the vision 8
statement. One of the public speakers talked about that we don't talk about increasing biking at 9
all. And we really should. That's one of our visions that more people are going to bike and 10
they're going to bike more often and that really should be in the objective or vision statement 11
or something. You talk about we're making this more pleasant and all those other things that 12
kind of entails that people are going to do it more but we don't explicitly state it. We really 13
should. And one thing, Commissioner Akin mentioned this, is making it more convenient. The 14
vision statement does say this, making biking more convenient than driving. And for me, if I'm 15
going to Stanford during rush hour, the fact that I can avoid Alma and Churchill and Page Mill 16
and El Camino by biking, that wins. It's much faster to go through and that’s – even if it's a 17
drizzly day, I'd rather bike because it's faster. And speed is one thing that people really drives. 18
And that's why people take Caltrain in the city, because it's faster than driving. So the speed 19
and making more convenient is a really big thing. So I think we should also tout that. Another 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.
speaker talked about e-bikes. And I love them because seniors can bike but they might not be 1
able to bike. People who maybe have a short range can go longer. And so now the commute 2
becomes feasible just purely because of e-bikes. And so we really should say, what are we 3
planning to do with e-bikes and how we’re going to encourage them and how we’re going to 4
manage them? Cause I love them but they also scare me. They zip by me in the bike lane and 5
they quite often are going so fast you don't hear them coming. So how do we manage them, 6
manage the good stuff, and prevent the bad stuff? You mentioned that we aren't looking at 7
recreation. The Replika data doesn't have recreation trips, people walking their dog or going for 8
bike rides. That's a big omission. Is there any way we can get that? 9
10
Ozzy Arce: We’re – Let me just say they're not included in the Replika data, but they are taken 11
into consideration as a whole in the plan. Obviously, they're a bike and walking trip, so we 12
definitely don't want to exclude them by any means. But to capture some more of the data, 13
we're looking at obviously input from you all and like I mentioned earlier, establishing a count 14
program in the long term, but as far as including some information for this plan, we're also 15
looking at potentially doing counts now to better understand some of those movements and... 16
17
Commissioner Reckdahl: Have we looked at other sources like Strava? 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.
Ozzy Arce: We are looking at other metadata sources, if you will, all of which have their own 1
limitations and models and so it's just a matter of understanding what data we have and just 2
want to emphasize that Replika has its own model and I would say it may not be a complete 3
picture of what's happening locally but it's not to say that those trips are not happening. I think 4
the information that Replika provides is useful and is there other ways that we can enhance it 5
through conversations with our community, our Commission, our Council, as well as, again, 6
looking at more traditional sources such as counts. 7
8
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. Philip, do you want to say something? 9
10
Chair Summa: Philip Kamhi? 11
12
Philip Kamhi: If I can, I just want to note that Replika data is validated so it does have a high 13
level of reported accuracy. There's certain recreational trips that might be missing from that. As 14
an example, if you were to take a trip from your house and ride somewhere and then ride back 15
to your house, that one might not be counted as a trip. So that's the kind of thing where it 16
might be missing some data. It doesn't mean it's missing all recreational trips or that no 17
recreational trips get counted. It uses cell phone data so similar – it uses mobile data like Strava 18
would be the kind of thing that would – if you're using Strava, you're being tracked, but also 19
they're collecting that same kind of data. And I'm far from the Replika expert so I'm not trying 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.
to provide too much detail on it because I'm not an expert on it but I can tell you what I know is 1
that it's giving us a lot of robust data that we wouldn't have otherwise and so we're finding it to 2
be a very useful tool. 3
4
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. One public speaker has mentioned we're not counting school 5
trips, that Replika doesn't? 6
7
Philip Kamhi: I thought I was going to sit down, but just… 8
9
Commissioner Reckdahl: [Inaudible 1:27:35]. 10
11
Philip Kamhi: …no, that’s fine. 12
13
Chair Summa: You might as well join us up here, Philip Kamhi. 14
15
Philip Kamhi: So the concern with not counting school trips is similar to that with just any other 16
is that it's tracked mobile data. So as an example, a student might or might not have a mobile 17
device that's tracking – that’s able to provide geolocation information. I think that data is higher 18
right now than it probably was five years ago. My 10-year-old has a mobile device, shame to 19
admit, because I want to know where he is when he's riding the bus. So yeah, just to provide 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 context, it's not going to capture every single trip that happens, but they have some 1
validation that they do. That's why we show a high level of school trips occurring in our data. 2
3
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. It'd be really good if we can do some manual counts in your 4
schools because that's such a big population of bikers. If we could do manual counts and verify 5
that we're getting the same thing from Replika or that… 6
7
Philip Kamhi: Yeah. And to note, we do do manual school counts through our Safe Routes to 8
School program but I think that's kind of what we're talking about in the future is how can we 9
set up a program to really do counts… 10
11
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. 12
13
Philip Kamhi: …as part of this in the future. 14
15
Commissioner Reckdahl: Very good. Thank you. Okay. Let's see. On page 14, you talk about the 16
bicycle parking inventory. That's awesome. Is that published somewhere or will it be published? 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.
Ozzy Arce: We have a memo that we can share. Short of us making the staff report that's in 1
front of you longer, we try to just add a summary of the efforts but we can definitely look to 2
share. 3
4
Commissioner Reckdahl: If the public wants to see this, is it – can you go to the website and say, 5
click, show me all the parking spots in Palo Alto? 6
7
Ozzy Arce: We do not have a map of the information, I don't believe. But we can – short of me 8
promising we're going to do it, I think we have data to share, but... 9
10
Philip Kamhi: So that is our intention is to eventually be able to provide locations but also to use 11
that information to determine where there's a shortage or not enough and all that. And just to 12
note that we have never had this information in a holistic manner where we can say this is 13
where all the bike parking is. So this is really the purpose of this effort is to get that figured out. 14
15
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. Very good. That would be a really good resource to have. Packet 16
page 16 talks about the Adobe Creek and where you can cross and where you can't cross. And 17
you're missing three crossings. We have a crossing at East Meadow that's not mentioned. We 18
have one in Mitchell Park, right by the Magical Bridge, and that's crossing Adobe there. And 19
also over by Green Meadow as you go south from Charleston to Green Meadow there's 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 there and they all cross Adobe Creek. So they should be included. Another thing is for a 1
safety standpoint, these – three things that really irritate me is if I'm biking down the bike lane 2
and there's a car parked in front of me or quite often an Amazon or UPS driver and now I have 3
to stop and look and try and get into traffic and traffic's heavy, that's quite dangerous. And they 4
assume it's not being used. There's no cars there so they park their Amazon truck there. Over 5
on Charleston, when they redid, they have parking and then the bike lane. So that's really good 6
because the cars that park there, the Amazon trucks, they don't interfere with the bike lane. 7
And on trash day, they also have room for the trash bins. But on the other side of the train 8
tracks there, the trash bins are right in the middle of the bike lanes. And can we work with who 9
does the public waste? Is it public… 10
11
Female: [Inaudible 1:31:34]. 12
13
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah, but what part of the city controls that? Is it Public Works or 14
anyway, the trash pickup people. 15
16
Female: Public Works. 17
18
Commissioner Reckdahl: Public Works? Okay. There aren't that many busy streets that have 19
bike lanes where you have the trash. And so can we find some solution there so on trash days, 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.
they can find other ways – other places to put them so they're not interfering with bike lanes. 1
Because that can be quite dangerous because now you have to dodge traffic and dodge 2
garbage trucks. Okay. And finally, the last thing, this is mostly about bikes. So pedestrians, I 3
don't think, are given quite enough attention in this report, particularly kids and seniors 4
crossing streets and refuge islands, I think, are a really important feature. And we aren't talking 5
about that. And how can we encourage – On Charleston, the fact that there's a refuge island in 6
the middle has made that so much safer for all those kids crossing and so we really need to 7
encourage that. So there should be something about that. How are we going to make the 8
crossings on El Camino, which we don't control, but that's a really big source, as [Kerry 1:32:52] 9
will attest, of risk for all those kids that are crossing there. And it's just not pedestrians. It's also 10
bikers, young bikers, sometimes if they're walking their bikes or if they lose their balance and 11
have to stop and all of a sudden they're in the middle of El Camino without a refuge island. 12
13
Male: M-hm. 14
15
Commissioner Reckdahl: It can be rather scary. So anyway, that's a really important feature that 16
we need to incorporate. Thank you. 17
18
Chair Summa: Commissioner Lu, do you want to go again? 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: Yes, I'll make just a few comments. So firstly, I agree with all my fellow 1
Commissioners about making the vision statement more concrete. I would love to elevate some 2
of our key metric goals, like greenhouse gases or actual ridership, to be included in the vision. 3
We say we want to be, or we say that we aspire to be a leader but it's not really clear what that 4
means. There's a lot of generally nice things, not a lot of specifics. And also to be clear, we don't 5
need to include a specific metrical in the vision statement but we should at least mention some 6
of the key things that we're trying to grow. On the vision statement as well, like Commissioner 7
Reckdahl mentioned, I just want to second the inclusion of convenience and speed for longer 8
trips as well. Right now, that's only mentioned in the context of short trips. And overall, I'd also 9
like the vision statement to be a bit tighter. Sustainability is mentioned several times. Things 10
like overcoming barriers are mentioned but not clearly explained but then you can piece it 11
together a little bit what that means in three different sentences on what we mean by 12
overcoming barriers. I think we really need to take a just copy editing pen and be very clear 13
about what we mean because that's how we miss some kind of basic stuff. Like Commissioner 14
Reckdahl mentioned, we don't explicitly say that we're trying to grow ridership even though I 15
think that's part of the mandate of this plan. And so, there's just a round of tightening that 16
needs to happen, notwithstanding all the other comments. On the metrics, I agree with 17
Commissioner Akin that some of these are pretty directional and may be better just to leave 18
out. Things like street closures, even worse than that, there was something for grants for 19
temporary street closures, which is just a more indirect version of the actual street closures 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 happen. So, I think there are a couple of other things as well that we should just take a 1
serious look at. I think there was a mention of promotional events. I think there was some 2
compliance with some checklists. I don't have the full details and context there but I think staff 3
should consider them. On the metrics, though, I really do love the mention of bike counts and 4
accidents and am thrilled that we will have a plan to track those more rigorously. Other things 5
we could include, as a public commenter noted, we could include mode share. We'll have bike 6
counts. We may well have vehicle counts through some other means or we could include 7
vehicle counts as part of this data collection and I think having a consistently trackable mode 8
share metric would be incredible. Couple other suggestions, potentially citations for parking in 9
bike lanes or citations for violating the three-feet rule. I think that would also send a clear 10
message that we really care about safety and if we – I'd actually be interested in seeing where 11
those metrics sit right now but I would definitely be interested in tracking those on an ongoing 12
basis. And yes, okay, a couple last notes. There's a discussion about accessible – or a mention of 13
accessible intersections as a success metric. Like Commissioner Reckdahl also mentioned, we 14
should include other pedestrian accessibility improvements but also I specifically go into flag, 15
we should include the number of intersections that are safely updated for cycling with bump 16
outs like bike protection islands and things like that. And yes, those are my comments. Thank 17
you. 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. And I want to thank you for the presentation and also our public 1
speakers who I thought made very good points today. I don't have a whole lot to add that 2
hasn't been mentioned already but just to pile on with the vision statement needs a bit of 3
clarity and a bit of work, especially that we invest more in walking, that concept. I really 4
appreciated the comments of my colleagues and Vice-Chair Chang's comments about the 5
uncertainty of how to read some of the charts, which seemed to make good sense to me, and 6
maybe we can get a little better data there. I do like the idea of – that came from the public 7
about maybe a 311 or some kind of reporting system so we get a handle on a broader 8
perspective on bike accidents and the low stress routes added into the vision statement and 9
increasing the overall number of cyclists is a goal for our vision statement, I think. And I know 10
some of this is going to happen in the future but looking at how the accident maps align with 11
safe routes to school. And I like the comments that my colleagues made about some of the 12
metrics could be different or some things weren't – like the street closure item wasn't really a 13
strong metric to have there. I also think a bike parking inventory map would be pretty cool, 14
working on that, because people tend to just put their bikes everywhere they're not supposed 15
to. You know, I didn't notice if there was something in here that I missed but I also think it's 16
important to emphasize that for, maybe it's in here and I didn't recall it or make a note of it, 17
that it's important for bikes to, when they're in the streets, to follow the stop signs and stop 18
lights with regards to pedestrians. I don't know if that concept of safety is in here, but 19
sometimes bikes are pretty scary for pedestrians also. And not that we want to discourage 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.
anyone from biking, but that's a real aspect of safety too. Other than that, other than agreeing 1
with all my colleagues and thinking that we covered everything, I think that's all I need to add 2
right now. Do my colleagues have any additional comments? No? Okay, if that's enough 3
feedback for you to work with for now. 4
5
Ozzy Arce: It is. I appreciate the feedback received and I know there was a lot of material to 6
cover today so thank you for your time and again, if you have more to share, please do send it 7
to transportation@cityofpaloalto.org and then also we will send out follow-up information on 8
those mid-April in-person engagement activities that we mentioned including the community 9
workshop at Mitchell Park on April 16th, the bike ride with Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition on 10
Thursday, April 18th, I'm going out of order here, and then the walk with Avenidas here in 11
downtown on Wednesday, April 17th. So look out for more information on that and hope you 12
can join us. Thank you. 13
14
Chair Summa: Great. Thank you very much then. So I think we should – we don't need a break 15
now, do we, colleagues? 16
17
Female: [Inaudible 1:41:58]. 18
19
Chair Summa: No? Okay. So we will get set up to move on to our next item here. 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
Amy French: I just wanted to make a note that with Bryna remotely working for Just Cause, 2
there's a requirement, in case she hasn't noticed my text, that if there is an adult in the room, 3
an 18-year-old in the room where she's participating, she'll need to call that out and the name 4
of the person, that kind of thing. So Bryna, if you're hearing that, before there's any action, 5
yeah. Sorry? 6
7
Vice-Chair Chang: I'm here by myself. 8
9
Amy French: Okay. Thank you. Just wasn't sure you saw my note. Thank you. 10
11
Chair Summa. Thank you, Commissioner Chang. Okay. 12
13
Action Items 14
Public Comment is Permitted. Applicants/Appellant Teams: Fifteen (15) minutes, plus three (3) minutes rebuttal. 15
All others: Five (5) minutes per speaker. 16
17
3. PUBLIC HEARING / QUASI-JUDICIAL. 739 Sutter Avenue [24PLN-00005]: 18
Recommendation on Applicant’s Request for Approval of a Vesting Tentative Map to 19
Allow for a Condominium Subdivision to Create 12 Units on a Single 16,720 Square Foot 20
Parcel. The Subdivision map Would Facilitate Construction of An Approximately 18,000 21
Square Foot Mixed-use Development Project (22PLN-00201). Environmental 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.
Assessment: Exempt from the Provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act in 1
Accordance with CEQA Guidelines Section 15332 (In-fill Development). Zoning District: 2
RM-20 (Multi-Family Residential). For More Information Contact the Project Planner 3
Claire Raybould at Claire.Raybould@cityofpaloalto.org 4
Chair Summa: So we'll move on to our action item for this evening which is a public hearing 5
quasi-judicial on 739 Sutter which is a recommendation on an applicant's request for approval 6
of a vesting tentative map to allow for a new condominium subdivision. And because this is a 7
quasi-judicial matter, I think we'll just go down the row with disclosures. 8
9
Commissioner Akin: Nothing to disclose for me. 10
11
Commissioner Reckdahl: Nothing to disclose. 12
13
Commissioner Lu: Nothing to disclose. 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: Nothing to disclose. 16
17
Chair Summa: I will disclose that I made a site visit and I specifically did it on Tuesday morning, 18
which is the garbage day on Sutter Street because I wanted to observe what was happening 19
there. So, just so everybody knows. And with that, we will go on to the presentation. 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
Senior Planner Claire Raybould: All right. Give me just one second. 2
3
Amy French: I'll introduce Claire Raybould, who will be presenting the project. Claire has 4
brought the project to the Architectural Review Board previously and she is uploading her 5
presentation now. 6
7
Claire Raybould: Great. Thank you, Amy. Good evening. What is going on? Good evening, 8
commissioners. The project before you tonight is a vesting tentative map for 739 Sutter 9
Avenue. A vesting tentative map. Oh, sorry. This won't go away. 10
11
Female: It's okay. [Inaudible 1:44:38]. 12
13
Claire Raybould: This is a vesting tentative map for a single lot subdivision of an existing 16,720-14
square-foot parcel for a 12-lot condominium subdivision. It requires a waiver from the private 15
street width, which was also required and tentatively approved as part of a streamlined housing 16
development project review. The existing parcel is code compliant, meaning it meets the 17
minimum lot size, minimum width, minimum depth and there's no change to that parcel size. 18
Condominium subdivision requires private streets per Title 21 requirements and they are not 19
meeting the minimum street width of 32 feet so they are requesting a waiver to the minimum 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.
street width and that minimum street width is 20 feet at a minimum, 24 feet in some areas. 1
And the subdivision map findings for approval are provided in attachment B of your packet in 2
the draft record of land use action. And other key considerations for you tonight are just the 3
fact that it does include that request for a waiver as part of the application as well. And the 4
project is exempt from CEQA in accordance with CEQA guidelines section 15.332, which is for 5
class 32 exemptions for infill development. The city did prepare documentation to support that 6
exemption which includes but is not limited to air quality analysis, historic analysis, 7
transportation analysis and noise analysis. And that is included in the last attachment. A link to 8
that report is included in the last attachment of your package. And staff recommends that the 9
Planning and Transportation Commission take the following action: Recommend approval of 10
the proposed tentative map to the city council based on findings and subject to the conditions 11
of approval in the draft record of land use action and attachment B of your packet. And with 12
that, I'll turn it back to you and recommend – I believe the applicant is available tonight, along 13
with their civil, but I don't believe they have a presentation. 14
15
Chair Summa: Okay. Thank you for that. I see that Commissioner Akin's light is on. 16
17
Commissioner Akin: Clarifying questions? You ready? 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
Commissioner Akin: Okay. 2
3
Chair Summa: Go ahead. 4
5
Commissioner Akin: Just a quick one. The existing public utility easement. Why is that no longer 6
needed? 7
8
Claire Raybould: It's just no longer in use. And the reason we want to remove it is, one, because 9
it's no longer necessary. And most importantly, because the neighbors are very concerned 10
about their privacy. And so we want to be able to plant trees in that rear lot area. 11
12
Commissioner Akin: Great. Thank you. 13
14
Chair Summa: Other clarifying questions? I have a couple, actually. So in our code 18.15.020.J, 15
which is a definition of for qualifying for a density bonus law, it mentions that it's available for 16
applications that propose to add 5 new units or more. Is that no longer – is this still a current 17
regulation or… 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.
Male: Yeah, that's still one of the qualifying features for density bonus is that you have to be 1
adding five units. 2
3
Chair Summa: Okay. But this project is adding… 4
5
Claire Raybould: [Inaudible 1:49:02] new units, but it's a total of 12 units that are being 6
proposed. 7
8
Chair Summa: So it's not, so 18.15.020.J says 5 new units. So we're not adding five new units 9
here. So I was just curious if that was an artifact in our code or if it's still the regulation that 10
they have to – a regulation that I assume is based on state regulation that they have to add five. 11
12
Albert Yang: Yeah, I'm sorry. The net new aspect is an artifact in our code. 13
14
Chair Summa: Okay. I didn't recall that that was going to be – that that was one of the changes 15
we were making when we had our density bonus update but maybe I didn't recall that. So did 16
that stem from a recent change in the density bonus law? 17
18
Albert Yang: I'll have to go back and look to see when that changed. 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. Because I don't know where that – I don't know if we know where that 1
came from or if it's no longer valid. Maybe it was from a different state code. So I would look at 2
that a little and think about taking it out of the code if it's incorrect because it quite clearly 3
states adding five new ones. Okay. And then I wanted to ask on packet page 45 there's a 4
statement about, bottom paragraph, consistency with the comp plan area plans and guidelines. 5
I was wondering what was meant by guidelines. 6
7
Claire Raybould: That's just the standard thing – title we put for that section. In this case, there 8
are no guidelines that are relevant but in some areas there's South El Camino design guidelines 9
and... 10
11
Chair Summa: Okay. 12
13
Claire Raybould: …yeah. 14
15
Chair Summa: Thank you for that clarification. I understand that. And then I have a question on 16
packet page 55 condition 5 and it refers you to – to understand what it means it refers you to 17
the project plans. So it might be easiest to answer this if we put that – the page I think is 18
pertinent of the project plans which is A0.5. If we h-, if we could bring that up on the computer 19
because it's maybe what is a boilerplate statement. It's the additional CC&R requirements. 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.
CC&R shall also include a provision that dictates the responsibilities of tenants for trash pickup 1
for the townhomes. And then after that, it says as shown in the approved plan set. And when I 2
looked at that, I have a lot of questions about that that will come up when we have discussion 3
but for now I wanted to know if the diagram of the cans is to scale. And that's the trash cans in 4
this. It’s AO or A zero, I’m not sure, dot five. 5
6
Claire Raybould: Yeah. So to be clear the plans I was actually referencing in that is the 7
architecture review plans which has detailed information on the storage of the trash and then 8
shows how it will be brought out on trash day and located. I think that in fact, on C50, I'm not 9
seeing where you were referencing. There is no… 10
11
Chair Summa: Well, A0.5 shows the garbage cans. 12
13
Claire Raybould: Are you looking at the architectural review plans? 14
15
Chair Summa: The latest plan set. 16
17
Claire Raybould: So, okay. 18
19
Chair Summa: We can come back. 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're looking at the vesting tentative map right now. 2
3
Chair Summa: Right. 4
5
Claire Raybould: So, okay. But you're asking about the architectural review plans. 6
7
Chair Summa: Yes. 8
9
Claire Raybould: Okay. 10
11
Chair Summa: I'm asking about the project plans. 12
13
Claire Raybould: Okay. But it's not the project before you tonight, to be clear. 14
15
Chair Summa: No, I understand that but th-, but we do have to make the findings for the 16
conditions of approval on the record of land use. 17
18
Claire Raybould: Sure. 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: I'm just trying to clarify what that means and I wanted to ask specifically if that 1
page of the plans, the cans were shown to scale. 2
3
Claire Raybould: I believe they were because there were very specific requirements that have to 4
be met by our zero waste division for distance between cans and the cans themselves. 5
6
Chair Summa: Okay. All right. But then – thank you for clarifying that. And later when it comes 7
to the discussion, I'll have a few more questions for that but if there are no other clarifying 8
questions, we can go to the public. Do we have any speakers? 9
10
Veronica Dao: No, I have not received speaker cards or raised hands on zoom. 11
12
Chair Summa: Okay. Then we can bring it back to the commission if we have no speakers and 13
who would like to make some comments or continue with the discussion. Okay. Then I will. So 14
the plan page I was c-, what I was concerned about with this condition and you can correct me 15
if I'm mistaken, is that it refers to the plans to mark no parking in front of the frontage of the 16
building for it says something and it's on that page, plan page. It's not anywhere in the narrative 17
for the hours of scheduled pickup. And I just didn't understand that. So maybe staff can explain 18
more what that means and what the hours of pickup are. And we didn't have this view in our 19
plan set… 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: Yeah. 2
3
Male: [Inaudible 1:55:45]. 4
5
Chair Summa: No, from the project plans on the – so it shows… 6
7
Claire Raybould: I can [inaudible 1:55:53]. 8
9
Chair Summa: …that on garbage day, which is why I went and looked there on garbage day 10
because I wanted to see what the can situation is because trash cans in – when there's 11
apartment buildings, can take up a lot of the parking. Like my street, because I don't live in R1, I 12
live in R2, which is basically R2 but there's a lot of grandfathered little apartment buildings and 13
garbage cans where each unit has a full complement of the cans, meaning 1 for trash, 1 for 14
recycling and 1 for compost. They can actually take up a lot of the parking. So I was wondering 15
about this. Yeah, that's the right picture. Because what happens, I went over – well, so a 16
number of things. One is how – what is the intention for the hours that parking would be 17
prohibited here? 18
19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Claire Raybould: I would have to confirm with GreenWaste what the – how often they 1
anticipate that they would have to pick up, if they would do it just once a week. I'm not sure. 2
Each one has their own bins. I know most single family residents only pick up once a week so I 3
presume that it would probably be once a week pickup. 4
5
Chair Summa: Yeah, it looks – well, when I went over there Tuesday morning, which is garbage 6
day, it looks like all of the – there's two buildings that are exactly the same as this building. 7
There's mirror images of this building and they look like they all have their own garbage cans, 8
the black cans, and that they sort – they share recycling and compost so they don't all have 9
them but there certainly is no prohibition against parking to accommodate cans. And what 10
happens on a street like that is that you park where you can park and people have to put their 11
cans out. My street, we have problems with that and I put my cans in my driveway and block 12
my driveway to be courteous to my neighbors because if everybody puts their cans on the 13
street, even on my street, which is a mix of small apartments and single family homes, you can 14
take up all the parking. So I’m concerned about this as a solution in this case. And I'm also – 15
where else do we use this in the city that we prohibit parking on garbage day pickup? 16
17
Claire Raybould: So it all depends on the width of the street. So this was actually a required 18
condition of approval of the development for Transportation. They recommended it because 19
they were concerned about the – how it might affect continued traffic on the street if during 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 pickup hour and so if people parked and people couldn't put out their bins and so they 1
recommended that we put a no parking sign for the hours of pickup. Again, each single family – 2
each residence in this development has its own bins in this scenario. So I would presume that 3
you're going to have once a week pickup at some morning hour, likely, and then that would be 4
the one time that it's restricted. 5
6
Chair Summa: For how long? 7
8
Claire Raybould: I would have to ask but I think they usually have about a couple of hours of 9
time – a time span of a couple hours that it's restricted. 10
11
Chair Summa: So when you say usually, is that based on other places in the city where we… 12
13
Claire Raybould: Yeah, we have this in a lot of other places in the city. 14
15
Chair Summa; Oh, we do? 16
17
Claire Raybould: Yeah, m-hm. 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: Okay. And do they pay for the privilege of using the public right-of-way? Is there 1
a fee? 2
3
Claire Raybould: No, it's actually allowed per Title V of the code to use the public right-of-way 4
for trash. Now, thinking about your comments on the earlier, it has been something that 5
planning has very much been grappling with, not so much for smaller projects, but especially 6
with larger projects, and especially as we think about existing and planned bike lanes in those 7
areas, then it becomes a lot more complicated. 8
9
Chair Summa: Yeah, and I wasn't aware we did this anywhere else in the city. I've just never 10
knew about it or heard about it and it seems pretty problematic. Why wouldn't everybody want 11
that privilege and then where are people going to park? 12
13
Claire Raybould: Yeah. We like to have it on site if we can but that's not always an option. And 14
there are GreenWaste and R0 Waste Division have gotten a lot stricter, thinking about the 15
safety of the drivers and also safety of residents and bicyclists. And so they've really cracked 16
down on having trucks go into developments and having to back up. They also get a lot of 17
complaints about noise from the backup of the trucks and I think it's also increased with the 18
increase in waste streams so now they're having to go in and back up for every single waste 19
stream so now they're doing it three times or six times if you're in a townhome development 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 have to do both sides. So I think that's where it's become stricter and so it has been a 1
harder thing to grapple with in terms of how to deal with it on a project-by-project basis to find 2
the best solution. 3
4
Chair Summa: Well yeah, it really surprised me and didn't seem like the best solution. And in 5
addition, since you verify that it's shown to scale here, that isn't even a configuration that 6
GreenWaste would find legal because they require a much larger space between the cans. So I 7
don't even think this would fit for this building. 8
9
Claire Raybould: That was a significant discussion during the review of the plans and this was 10
the final plans that was approved by Zero Waste so… 11
12
Chair Summa: Zero Waste, I mean GreenWaste, approved these plans? 13
14
Claire Raybould: M-hm. 15
16
Chair Summa: Oh that's – I'm surprised also because they say they want two feet between the 17
cans when you put them out. They don't want them touching each other because of the 18
automated thing, I guess, that lifts them up. 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: I don't know about two feet. I thought it was six inches between cans but I'm 1
not sure. 2
3
Commissioner Akin: Yeah, my recollection is that it's two feet, as well, although the mechanism 4
is capable of using less. 5
6
Claire Raybould: I think there are, well, yeah, I'd have to confirm but I know that they reviewed 7
these plans and they were – they found them acceptable. I know there are two different types 8
of trucks that they run so I don't know if that is potentially why they do a different type of 9
truck, like the overhead bin versus a side-arm bin, so that might be a difference. I'm not sure. 10
11
Chair Summa: I just – I have a hard time understanding how this is going to work if we extend 12
this privilege to multiple people, and to your point in Title V, there's also – which is the only 13
place I could find any description of – that might fit, like the regular refuse pickup times, the 14
language that's in here, refuse service hours, and that was that you are allowed to put your can 15
out for three days, the day before your scheduled service, the day of your scheduled service 16
and the day after your scheduled service. Other than that, the bins are supposed to be put 17
away so I was thinking that maybe this would be a three-day. But to be consistent with that 18
right that everybody has to have a little flexibility in putting their cans out and taking them in 19
because of people's schedules and this also specifies in one of the arrows that the bins 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.
brought to the staging area along Sutter Avenue for service and immediately brought back in 1
place after servicing. So I don't even see how this is practical or enforceable and currently – and 2
I took photos but I didn't send them to you or anything, but currently because they share the 3
tenants, there's eight units currently, and everybody had a little black trash can and they had 4
ver-, they had one or two compost, I mean recycling, I didn't see a compost, and that's how – 5
pretty much consistent with the other buildings the same – that are the same configuration as 6
this building and at the same time that these people are giving – being given what I think is sort 7
of a special privilege compared to other people, they're going to take up all the parking and it's 8
five parking spots there. The day I went, there were three parking spot, three car parking spots, 9
two with cars in it, and one which a car had obviously left because bins were all jammed 10
together and I can just imagine with the amount of development that we think we're going to 11
get and who knows, maybe these – the other two buildings that are the same as this building 12
might go up for redevelopment rather quickly. It won't work very well to not be able to have 13
people use parking spots because it's designated. I also don't see how it would be enforced but 14
I know that most of enforcement, 80 percent, is just putting a sign up and people don't want to 15
risk a ticket. So I don't know. I didn't know that we did this anywhere else in the city. I was 16
thinking we hadn't done this. It also seems a little weird – I know you can, in Title 5, you can 17
have alternate companies pick things up and stuff and you can make your own deal, you don't 18
have to use GreenWaste but I was just concerned that this was setting a precedent that might 19
become very difficult in the future and that it wasn't really even workable the way it is. If 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.
GreenWaste thinks they're far enough apart then they should let everybody else know that 1
they can put their cans closer together. I guess – so it seems like they're getting a little bit of a 2
special privilege. Other people that use public right-of-way and I'm thinking about restaurants 3
and parklets and Cal Ave, are going to have to pay a fee to use the right-of-way and obviously 4
this is not permanent or all the time but it's awfully hard for me to understand ho-, what the 5
impacts would be when the information is not very specific also. So that was my biggest 6
concern about this and it is something – the conditions of approval are something that we have 7
to be comfortable with, I think. 8
9
Claire Raybould: Yeah that condition of approval is a condition of approval of the development. 10
We added it in as a CC&R just to reinforce that because it has a stronger reinforcement if it's 11
also part of the covenants and restrictions on the site to ensure that property owners 12
understand their responsibilities related to that but it's a condition of approval of the 13
development as well. So I do understand your comments on that. Like I said, it's pretty 14
standard, even in a lot of the areas where we have trash enclosures, they are being brought out 15
to the street for servicing. So there's a short period of every time where that area is being 16
blocked by those. 17
18
Chair Summa: Well, yeah, but everybody – it's just the same for everybody. There aren't some 19
people that have theirs specially signed and reserved for them. It's just – and it seems like 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.
they’re – seems to me like they're getting a special privilege for one and that it would be very 1
unworkable if everybody wanted that same special privilege. And I also don't feel like I have 2
enough – I would prefer another solution be found and that might have to be having the refuse 3
stored on site until the day of pickup and – but not in this configuration. And I can understand 4
with the extra narrow street and it's also… 5
6
Claire Raybould: It is being stored on site until pickup, just to be clear… 7
8
Chair Summa: No, I know. I didn't say that right. 9
10
Claire Raybould: …it’s only being brought out for [inaudible 2:09:43]. 11
12
Chair Summa: I sort of misspoke. 13
14
Claire Raybould: Okay. 15
16
Chair Summa: But I understand that they don't want to have a garbage container. There's no 17
room for that on this the way it's being developed but I don't – I'm sort of uncomfortable with 18
this. I also think that maybe one of the reasons a garbage truck can't go back to a shared area 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.
here is because of the narrow width of the private street and also it's shared with the next 1
building. So to me, I would prefer this be rethought and maybe a different solution. 2
3
Claire Raybould: Yeah, I do understand your thoughts. Just to be clear, the only way that it 4
could be redesigned so that it could be picked up on site would be to have a complete U-5
shaped thing that went all the way through. So there's no way that they would access the site 6
no matter what the street width is. Well, that is relevant but that's not what's prohibiting them 7
from going on site here. It's that they won't go on site and then back up. So it does have to be a 8
complete turnaround for them to be able to go on site or a K-turn that they can do on site to be 9
able to turn out. 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: I just wanted to bring up some examples because I know we were 12
just speculating about how much this is happening in other parts of the City. It happens pretty 13
frequently on Vista, I think it's called Vista Avenue. It's in Barron Park. All of those units are 14
bringing their stuff out to the street cause the garbage trucks don't go down their private road. 15
So it's definitely happening. And that's all I was just trying to say. 16
17
Chair Summa: Oh, I understand. Thank you for that. I understand that. It's just that I haven't 18
seen a situation where the parking was restricted for everybody in a public right-of-way for the 19
garbage. Everybody just takes it out and they deal with the situation, however. 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: I think it's intended that way on Vista but I'm not sure if it's actually 2
happening how it was written. But certainly there's no parking on trash days. 3
4
Chair Summa: Oh, Okay. 5
6
Claire Raybould: I'll note that just the last 2 projects at 420 Acacia and 3001 El Camino both 7
have this for their trash pickup as well, an area that's designated for parking. And 3001 actually 8
doesn't even have – I believe their bins actually stay on the site but they still have an area 9
because they have to have an area where the trash truck can park to be able to pick it up. So it's 10
still restricting parking in front of that area. 11
12
Chair Summa: I see that Commissioner Chang's hand is up. 13
14
Commissioner Reckdahl: I have a follow-up here. 15
16
Chair Summa: Okay. 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: So best practice is, at some point when – because right here we have 1
12 units and each 1 has their own little containers. So that means we're going to have 36 2
containers out there. At what point do we transition into common containers? 3
4
Claire Raybould: Based on the timeframe for which this project was filed, they were still 5
allowed to do this but there were new code changes that don't apply to projects that were – 6
that will apply to projects that were not deemed complete at the time the ordinance was 7
adopted that now make it so you have to do a trash enclosure on the site. It will reduce the 8
number of bins kind of coming across but it may not stop them from still having to pull the bins 9
out, yeah bins versus carts. These are – smaller ones are carts and the bigger ones being bins. 10
11
Commissioner Reckdahl: But it would be more compact than... 12
13
Claire Raybould: But it would be more compact, yeah. 14
15
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. 16
17
Claire Raybould: And for just reference, 420 Acacia, we did require that they do a trash 18
enclosure because they had more bins. It was 16 units versus 12 and it actually extended 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.
beyond their frontage and we wouldn't allow them to use anything beyond their frontage and 1
so we required a trash enclosure. 2
3
Commissioner Reckdahl: But this frontage has enough room that you can fit all 36? 4
5
Claire Raybould: Yes. 6
7
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay, I looked at the website. The city's website does say two feet 8
between it but that may be nice to have as opposed to requirements. Okay, thank you. 9
10
Chair Summa: Commissioner Chang? 11
12
Vice-Chair Chang: Yes, thanks. I just wanted to echo my concerns about this because I received 13
a little note from GreenWaste saying that I did not space my cans properly so we definitely 14
need to verify that. Maybe it's because there's a different truck that they're using that has 15
different capabilities. But also – so I want to understand and cl-, just to double check that I 16
understand what you're saying, Claire Raybould, about there are other developments where we 17
ask that a sign is provided that indicates that parking is not allowed. Is that correct? 18
19
Claire Raybould: Sorry, say that one more time. 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 understand that all over the city where on trash day, parking goes away. I 2
understand that. That's just the way things work. However, I think if I heard you correctly, 3
you're saying that there are other developments where we require that a sign shall be provided 4
that indicates that parking is officially not allowed during trash collection hours. Is that correct? 5
6
Claire Raybould: That is correct. 7
8
Vice-Chair Chang: And then in those other situations, how do we define refuse service hours? 9
10
Claire Raybould: The signpost – so I'd have to check with transportation on how many hours but 11
my understanding is it's a short period of hours that is the period where they're expecting the 12
bins to be taken out and it ends within a few hours. But I can get confirmation on that from our 13
transportation division. But I'm just trying to think. Generally, it's not going to be a multiple day 14
period. It's the hours that they're going to be bringing, they would presumably be bringing the 15
bins out to the street. But they don't restrict the hours after that for when people end up 16
bringing their bins in, whether they do or not, they're not going to keep restricting the street 17
for that period of time. And I think they only restrict on streets where they might have concerns 18
about the width of the street, and alternatively, if the trash truck actually needs to be in that 19
area where the parking is to be able to access. 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: Okay, I understand. So yeah, I think I'm just worried about precedent setting 2
here but glad to hear that there's been a change in the ordinance that bins would be required. 3
And am understanding correctly if I say that if today, this project submitted an application, it 4
would be required to have a bin. Is that correct? Rather than the carts? 5
6
Claire Raybould: Correct. 7
8
Vice-Chair Chang: Okay, that makes me feel a little bit better. Is it possible for us to approve the 9
vesting tentative map but contingent upon us getting some clarification on this one additional 10
condition of approval? 11
12
Claire Raybould: You guys could always make a recommendation to Council. This is going to go 13
to Council. So you can make a recommendation with a specific thing to look into or anything. 14
15
Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. 16
17
Chair Summa: Are you finished Commissioner Chang? 18
19
Vice-Chair Chang: Yeah sorry, I'm finished. 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: Okay. And the only other thing I was going to add that this street doesn't have 2
parking strips, it has a rolled curb and then a sidewalk. So on my street, literally, if I get home 3
and all the bins are still out, you can put them up on the parking strip and park. But here, you 4
wouldn't be able to do that. They'd be blocking the sidewalk also. So I think it's – I'm really sad 5
that there’s a timing issue that made it impossible to require shared bins, bigger bins on the 6
site. But if that's the timing, that's timing, I guess. And I hope this doesn't become a problem in 7
the future. And I would like to see a motion that at least calls this – something in the motion 8
that calls this out to Council to take a look at and possibly fix, if there's any way to fix it. And 9
maybe, what would be more fair from my point of view, is to not treat it as a privilege for this 1 10
new building and just let them do it like everybody does on garbage day and…I suspect that not 11
everybody in these 12 condos will have a compost bin, a big compost bin, for instance, because 12
they'll probably have a service and that they wouldn't all need one, which would alleviate some 13
of the issue of the bins stacking up there. I don't know why it says two feet on GreenWaste 14
rules for pickup if they don't need that. That's crazy. I'm sorry that there was no way to design 15
this with the site providing its own shared things. I think it's big enough. And now – so you said 16
there was a change in law. Is there a unit break at which this happens? Like so many units they 17
have to have? 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.
Claire Raybould: I am not entirely sure. I'd have to review the regulations. We h-, I just am 1
aware because for our Architectural Review Board, trash pickup has become such a hot topic 2
that we actually had Zero Waste come into the retreat and talk to us about what their 3
regulations are and… 4
5
Chair Summa: I guess what… 6
7
Claire Raybould: …ways we might find solutions. 8
9
Chair Summa: … I'd like to consider is that they have the same right as any unit and any home 10
has to garbage pickup as condos. They can get all three bins if they want. But I don't think they 11
should have on this street, they alone have any condition that's different that means they need 12
it labeled no parking for any length of time. I just don't see why compared to the other people 13
on the street who have the same – everybody's in the same boat so... 14
15
Claire Raybould: Again, it was a condition of approval that was added by transportation. And I 16
think it related to safety so I'd have to talk with them to understand it better but… 17
18
Chair Summa: Too bad that they left. I would like to see that aspect of it removed. But anyway, I 19
see Commissioner Lu's light. 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: I'll just say a quick word about the trash situation. I do find it peculiar that 2
that is a condition of approval. Perhaps Chair Summa could confirm but from doing some 3
sleuthing around Google Maps and Street View, it seems like each unit does have their own 4
bins but presumably they just choose not to roll them out all at once or consolidate in some 5
way or at least from Google Maps [inaudible 2:23:08] recycling bins, it seems like tucked behind 6
the fence. And people figure reasonable solutions out when their car's in the road, they'll find a 7
spot just to the side, put it in, they'll talk with the neighbors, they'll find some way to 8
consolidate. It's a peculiar condition of approval and I'll just leave that as a comment. I did have 9
one question about the affordable units and perhaps Mr. Yang could help clarify. So my 10
understanding from the state density bonus ordinance from last time was that the state density 11
bonus requires an equivalent number of affordable units as there are currently lower income 12
tenants. Have we done any reach out, or do we have any sense of, okay, there are actually 13
three lower income tenants so therefore we actually need three affordable units instead of 14
two? 15
16
Claire Raybould: Yeah, we definitely did that analysis as part of it and there are no existing that 17
qualify as low income tenants or any deed restrictions on these. It is part of Senate Bill 330 18
regulations that you have to explore that and confirm any resident who's lived there in the past 19
5 years, actually. 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: Okay. That's great due diligence and I'm glad we're not displacing people 2
from naturally affordable housing that really, really need it. So thank you. 3
4
Chair Summa: Any other comments from my colleagues or motions? Nothing? 5
6
Commissioner Akin: Yeah, I'm feeling a distinct lack of room to maneuver here. So with respect 7
to making a motion, I'm not sure what kind of additional review is possible given the constraints 8
that have been described. Do you have an idea? 9
10
Chair Summa: Additional review I don't think is necessary at this point. I do think it's been 11
thoroughly discussed and I understand the limitations. But I don’t – I personally think that the 12
parking restriction that is solely for this new building should be removed and that everybody 13
should just get their garbage picked up with the same rights and privileges to share the street 14
and the parking and garbage bins as is currently there. Commissioner Chang? 15
16
Vice-Chair Chang: So I would like some help from colleagues to craft a motion. I think we're all 17
sort of looking at this with the – not in the room but it seems that we all kind of share some 18
similar concerns here. So I would like to craft a motion we recommend the staff recommended 19
motion but that we somehow flag this one additional condition of approval to City Council 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.
make sure that we are – I share commissioner – I share Chair Summa's concern about uneven – 1
why are we giving a special privilege to this one development. Does anybody have any ideas? 2
3
Commissioner Reckdahl: I have a question for staff. So is there anything in this design that 4
precludes them having a common bin apart from GreenWaste not wanting to back up there? 5
But if GreenWaste got a smaller truck and was willing to do it, there's nothing about this design 6
that would preclude them from going 10 years down the road and putting in bins? 7
8
Claire Raybould: I don't know where they would put the bins without removing a unit because... 9
10
Commissioner Reckdahl: On the picture I was looking at, looks like on the side… 11
12
Claire Raybould: …there's a transformer at the end of the drive aisle. 13
14
Commissioner Reckdahl: Oh. 15
16
Claire Raybould: Yeah. And you couldn't put it at the end of the… 17
18
Commissioner Reckdahl: You can't put it in front of that transformer? 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: It can't go in front of the transformer and it couldn't go on the end of the 1
private street on the other side because there wouldn't be enough room and the units wouldn't 2
be able to back out. So without removing a unit, I don't – I will say that the original design 3
included a proposal with it on site at the front of private street A, kind of all along that unit one 4
frontage or side frontage and Zero Waste couldn't support it for various reasons. Still the issue 5
of the trash pickup and also the issue of reducing the street width too much. 6
7
Commissioner Reckdahl: But right when you come in there, there's the T. There seems to be a 8
chunk in front of that transformer. Why couldn't you put it there? 9
10
Claire Raybould: You can't put a trash enclosure in front of a transformer. You have to have 11
clear access in front of the trash – in front of the transformer. 12
13
Commissioner Reckdahl: But you can't put a rolling trash bin there? The issue is that if you had 14
a gate… 15
16
Claire Raybould: You have to have a trash enclosure with the bins inside. And you would have 17
to have enough… 18
19
Commissioner Reckdahl: 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
Claire Raybould: …bins to serve all of the 12 units. 2
3
Female: A roofed enclosure, too. 4
5
Claire Raybould: Yeah, a roofed enclosure. 6
7
Commissioner Reckdahl: So we're kind of stuck here. 8
9
Commissioner Akin: Yeah, I believe the insight we're looking for is on sheet C4.0 which 10
describes the turning movements for the vehicles going in to unit number 12 that blocks the 11
area that I believe Commissioner Reckdahl had in mind. 12
13
Commissioner Reckdahl: So if they were proposing this today, we could force them to have a 14
trash bin or can they waive that with builder’s – with density bonus? Can they waive trash 15
pickup? 16
17
Claire Raybould: It would be certainly possible that they could waive it too. 18
19
Female: Is Albert there? 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 2:31:20]. 2
3
Commissioner Reckdahl: Albert, do you want to share your wisdom? 4
5
Albert Yang: Yeah I think it’s – we'd have to look at it more closely but it's likely something that 6
could be waived. The only reason it might not get waived is if there's some sort of quantifiable 7
impact on public health that we could show as a result of having these individual cans rather 8
than one large shared bin but I'm having a hard time imagining what that quantifiable impact 9
on public health would be. 10
11
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay, thank you. 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. So I've been thinking about this during our discussion 14
tonight and I'm not really clear on whose interests we're protecting with this argument. Other 15
places in the city have similar requirements. Trash needs to be picked up and we need housing. 16
So I don't understand what the issue is. If the issue is that one day a week parking has to give 17
way to trash pickup, that's just like every other place in the city. All of us can't park where we 18
put our bins. 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: No but it's just in front of this one development. 1
2
Commissioner Templeton: It's wherever I put my bins, too, and you put your bins. We can't 3
park there. 4
5
Chair Summa: No, but… 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: Well, okay, in your case, you have a driveway. 8
9
Chair Summa: No but my point is, it’s the only – the restriction is for this building alone. The 10
other people on the street don't have the privilege of th-, or the responsibility. You can look at 11
it both ways that – and I think that removing the park – the parking restriction solves the 12
problem for me. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: I think the reason that's there is for public safety because if you had 15
to put the bins on the other side of cars parking there, the road wouldn't be passable. So I think 16
it makes sense. People do have to have their trash picked up. 17
18
Chair Summa: But the whole road already works in the way it works most places, where people 19
share on garbage day, some parking goes away, and people share the parking and the place 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.
put their bins. This will be the only place on the street that has the restricted parking. And I 1
don't think it's fair or necessary or good. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: Who's it not fair to, I guess is what I'm trying to understand. 4
5
Chair Summa: To the other people on the street who already live there. 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: They can't park there if there's trash bins there. 8
9
Chair Summa: I know they can't park there. It might result in the same thing. But I don't think 10
we need a restriction. I don't think it's enforceable. And I think it's giving a special condition to 11
one property. I don't think it's really necessary and I don't think it's desirable. 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: So I think what we're saying is, there's a semantic difference here 14
and we've spent a while talking about it and that's what Bryna’s hoping we can highlight in our 15
motion? 16
17
Chair Summa: Yeah. 18
19
Commissioner Templeton: 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
Commissioner Reckdahl: My only concern, I think this will work but what happens if every 2
apartment complex on the street does the same thing? 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: Trash will be removed without harming cars. That's what that will 5
happen. 6
7
Commissioner Reckdahl: It just seems like having 36 bins out there is not the most efficient way 8
of doing it but... 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: That I agree with but the company has agreed and the City has 11
agreed that that is doable. And that's the part, if they've already decided, I don't know other 12
than highlighting it for Council and saying this is a semantic issue we need you guys to figure 13
out because we're split on it. That's fine. I think that's our job, right, is to highlight these issues 14
for Council. 15
16
Chair Summa: Would someone like to make a motion? 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 2:35:18] right, or no? What? Bryna, did you make a 19
motion that was the staff motion plus notes? I'm happy to second 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
Vice-Chair Chang: I'd like to ask the Chair, did you have a suggestion for how we can best fly 2
this? 3
4
Chair Summa: Yes, I think we should move staff… 5
6
Vice-Chair Chang: [Inaudible 2:25:34]. 7
8
Chair Summa: We should move staff recommendation. And I don't have to read it all now, it's 1 9
and 2 on packet page 42 with the addition of removing the parking restriction for refuse pickup 10
hours for the applicant property referred to in conditions of approval and on – and plan page 11
A0.5. So all we're doing is removing the parking restriction. 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: I thought we were going to highlight it for them to decide because if 14
– we're going to go for an hour if we have to discuss this. It's something that we're highlighting. 15
We don't have clear direction from Council about whether we can or can't or from staff. 16
17
Chair Summa: Well, if people don't want that amendment, they don't have to vote for it. But 18
Commissioner Chang did ask me if I had language and I think that's the simplest thing. 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: I'm only highlighting that we had talked about moments ago doing it 1
as a highlight and not as part of the motion. So let's hear what the motion is, whoever wants to 2
make it. 3
4
Chair Summa: If no one else wants to make the motion, I'll make the motion. And that is to 5
move staff recommendation on packet page 42, which is 2 part, consider the project exempt 6
from CEQA in accordance with CEQA guidelines, section, blah, blah, etc. And part two, 7
recommend approval of the vesting tentative map to the city council based on the findings and 8
subject to the conditions and approval, etc. So that's staff recommendation and add remove 9
the parking restriction for refuse pickup hours for the applicant property referred to in 10
conditions of approval and on plan page A zero, unless it’s an O, dot five. 11
12
Commissioner Reckdahl: [Inaudible 2:37:43] Thirty-six carts out there put between cars is just 13
not going to be a safe situation. I can see why Transportation said that they wanted this whole 14
chunk of area to be free so they can have all the carts crammed together. I would be more 15
inclined to say something, consider check with GreenWaste if there's a better way of handling 16
waste removal. But I don't think I w-, I don't have the information to tell me that we can 17
remove this. That's between GreenWaste and Transportation to figure out what's the optimal 18
way of configuring this. I don't like it, but I think it might be the lesser of two evils. 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: I would second the motion as written on the screen. I don't know if anybody's 1
making the – I can make that motion as written on the screen and consider rather than… 2
3
Chair Summa: I just made it. 4
5
Vice-Chair Chang: Okay, you made it. 6
7
Chair Summa: Yeah. And I haven't got a second yet unless your second was not conditional but 8
you meant it for real. So are you seconding the motion? 9
10
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah. Notice that they added consider to your – I don't think you said 11
consider, did you? 12
13
Female: No. [Inaudible 2:39:05]. 14
15
Chair Summa: Go ahead. 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. Without the language of consider, I w-, I also find it unsafe and 18
insufficient data from staff for us to make that part of our recommendation. However, we do 19
want staff to come back with the council with clear answers on these things. 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'll accept the addition of the word consider if it makes it more palatable to my 2
colleagues. 3
4
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah. I'm happy with this. 5
6
Vice-Chair Chang: So are you seconding Commissioner Reckdahl? 7
8
Commissioner Reckdahl: I thought you seconded it. 9
10
Vice-Chair Chang: I don't know. That's why I'm trying to [inaudible 2:39:47] staff here. 11
12
Commissioner Reckdahl: I will second it. 13
14
Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. 15
16
Chair Summa: Everyone ready for the vote? Okay. If you could call the vote, please. 17
18
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Akin? 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 Akin: Yes. 1
2
Veronica Dao: Vice-Chair Chang? 3
4
Vice-Chair Chang: Yes. 5
6
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Lu? 7
8
Commissioner Lu: Yes. 9
10
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Reckdahl? 11
12
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yes. 13
14
Veronica Dao: Chair Summa? 15
16
Chair Summa: Yes. 17
18
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 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: Yes. 1
2
Veronica Dao: Motion carries 6-0. 3
4
Chair Summa: Thank you very much for that. 5
6
Veronica Dao: I'm sorry, who made the second? We were just, okay. 7
8
Chair Summa: Commissioner Reckdahl. So we can put that to bed now and I'm suggesting we 9
take a brief break, maybe 10 minutes. Does that sound good? Five? 10
11
Male: Yeah, five is fair. 12
13
Chair Summa: Seven? 14
15
Male: [Inaudible 2:40:39]. 16
17
Chair Summa: Seven minutes and we'll be back to continue. Thank you. 18
19
Study Session 20
Public Comment is Permitted. Three (3) minutes per speaker. 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
4. Study Session: Retail Study - Recommendations for Strategies 2
3
Chair Summa: Everybody back? 4
5
Male: [Inaudible 2:50:01]. 6
7
Chair Summa: Okay. Let's get started on our next item and I will note for the record that 8
Commissioner Chang i-, has left the meeting. Thank her for coming at all. She wasn't feeling 9
well. So okay, we're on to our study session for retail. So I do not know, this is a continued 10
meeting. I do not know if there's anything additional that our consultants or staff would like to 11
add. 12
13
Amy French: Just noting that the consultants are here. I was going to check to see if they're 14
floating out there in – can you see, are they there? Okay. I was messaging them that we're 15
about to start. And that we do have – we did have an ad hoc meeting yesterday that I know two 16
of the members of the ad hoc were present for so – but I don't believe the consultants have 17
new slides from the last time. The slides are in your packet to make it easy from the last time to 18
refer to during tonight's discussion. 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 you for that. Okay. So what I think we'll do is have the ad hoc report out 1
and then we'll open it to public – to the public for comment because we didn't do that at the 2
last meeting. And then we'll come back for discussion. So ad hoc? 3
4
Commissioner Akin: All right. I will take the lead on this and I was hoping Vice-Chair Chang 5
could attend because she could fill in some gaps but I will ask Commissioner Reckdahl to take 6
that on if I've missed anything crucial or misunderstood something. So Vice-Chair Chang 7
couldn't attend the ad hoc meeting last night but did report the council ad hoc's desire to make 8
immediate improvements in things that were in their purview. So things like cleanliness, 9
signage, code enforcement and presumably Council will follow up with medium and long-term 10
improvements still to be determined. I think it's useful for us, for the PTC, to recommend 11
actions that fit within that framework as well. So we think about things as being short, medium, 12
and long-term. But before I get into those, we did spend some time asking for explanations of 13
some of the data that the consultants had presented previously. And this included things like 14
vacancy rates in Palo Alto that didn't match our personal observations. The vacancy rate on 15
University Avenue, for example, seems lower than the approximately 19 percent that we 16
believe currently exists. We were trying to resolve that. And there are some really striking 17
differences like the 70 percent higher vacancy rate in the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa 18
Monica and so we asked about what might be – what the possible explanations for that might 19
be and Mr. Wery suggested that we were looking at pandemic-related phenomena mostly so if 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 businesses that were on 3rd Street were tilted towards in-person services then they might 1
have been adversely affected to a greater extent than our own and then the long lead time in 2
finding new tenants just amplified that. The vacancy time in Town and Country seems quite 3
high at 40 months and I don't think we understand exactly what's going on there other than, 4
again, the long lead time. It just seems particularly acute in that space. And there was also 5
discussion of the total amount of retail space oversupply, which is enormous. So it's a little 6
unclear which areas are being counted that lead to that estimation of oversupply in Palo Alto. 7
There are still some mysteries about downtown. We don't understand whether there might be 8
floor area counted as retail that's not first floor frontage. So there’s things we might want to 9
look into later but they're not consequential for the rest of the discussion. We heard a lot about 10
stakeholder requests but there were consistent themes and I tried to boil them down to just 11
three. One is simplifying the rules, two is reducing uncertainty, and three is relaxing restrictions. 12
So you might think those things are interrelated but they really are pretty independent. You can 13
have simple rules that are not implementable. So keeping restrictions relaxed and simple rules 14
and then reducing the uncertainty, each is important. The consultant's presentation offers 15
many proposals that address these things, but I believe there was good consensus for at least 16
three of them. One is removing some or even all constraints on formula retail on Cal Ave, 17
another is limiting the areas to which the retail preservation ordinance applies and third is 18
making code changes to ensure that changes in use are not locked in if market conditions 19
change. And this is worth a little more discussion because it came up in stakeholder requests 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.
multiple times. You might say, well, we'd like to encourage conversion of office to retail but if 1
the retail preservation ordinance then prevents it from being changed back, if it's not 2
successful, then that's a deterrent for people who might otherwise be willing to experiment 3
with conversion to retail. And Amy French enlightened us on the complexities involved in that 4
issue by explaining that not all of the lock-in provisions are limited to the retail preservation 5
ordinance. You might convert something from office to retail but then be tripped up by the 6
office space limitations if you attempt to convert it from retail back to office. And those are not 7
in the retail preservation ordinance. Those are elsewhere in the code so... 8
9
Commissioner Reckdahl: There's kind of two generations of retail preservation and this is the 10
first one. 11
12
Commissioner Akin: Right. So we would have to look a little more broadly to make sure that 13
we're not accidentally locking in changes. And the goal there would be to encourage 14
experimentation to fill vacancies, regardless of what the type of retail or retail-like application 15
might be. So we'll need to do a little further review on that. When I spoke to Vice-Chair Chang 16
earlier today, she also raised the issue that we will – we the PTC, at least the ad hoc, perhaps 17
the whole Commission, will want to look at the code again to make more concrete and specific 18
proposals for council to consider. So, for example, if we elect to retain some constraints on 19
formula retail on Cal Ave, there are constraints on the number of similar businesses 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.
constitute formula retail. We might change those numbers and that requires scanning the code 1
to come up with more specific proposals. So that's something that Vice-Chair Chang argues 2
pretty strongly belongs in our court. So we have yet to do that work. There was some interest in 3
making sure that new rules, whatever they are, are fully predictable and not context 4
dependent. For example, you might want to avoid rules that depend on fluctuating things like 5
vacancy rates or the other nearby retail uses because those conditions might change between 6
the application and the entitlement. So what – given that there's a window of opportunity for 7
those conditions to be violated, you've introduced uncertainty that is then a deterrent for 8
people exploring new retail uses. So keeping things predictable, consistent, not context 9
dependent has some value. In the long term, it makes good sense to scrub the municipal code 10
and either simplify it or at least make it feasible to document which uses are allowed in which 11
areas. We had versions of that that existed for, what did we decide, 17 years ago? But nothing 12
that's recent enough to resolve the uncertainty that plagues potential applicants today. And 13
finally, I wanted to comment on a side discussion, which was about incentives Council might 14
implement in conjunction with zoning changes that we propose. And there are many that seem 15
promising. They're outside the scope of what we're discussing tonight but they include things 16
like what incentive programs could Council implement in order to ensure a desirable mix of 17
retail types with an area that could be done flexibly and could be – could react quickly to 18
changes in market conditions so that they don't have to be baked into the code. So once again, 19
that's beyond the scope of what we discussed tonight but it is something that Council should 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.
take a look at and at some point, we may want to recommend that formally. All right. I think 1
that's all that I have for the summary. Keith, what did I miss? 2
3
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah, no, that was a really good summary. One of the things is that the 4
RPO gets – some people love it, some people hate it. But with – Commissioner Chang sent a 5
summary of – she listened to the ad hoc for the Council and there they were saying, well, it 6
wasn't so much that it was RPO issue, it was that people were leaving downtown to go to the 7
Stanford Shopping Center, actually paying more rent, because they had more certainty of – for 8
example, they're not going to have tents blocking their signs and stuff like that. And so some of 9
the uncertainty is what is, I should say, is the issue, is a issue. The uncertainty of how is retail, 10
both in Cal Ave and University, going to – what requirements are we going to have on it? The 11
propane heaters in front of your store and some of the signage and some of the garbage 12
collection was a complaint. And that would be one way of fixing things without changing 13
zoning. And that was a major complaint. It wasn't just hypothetical, it was, yes. But then the 14
second thing is, like Allen said, we really want – we don't want to micromanage and in the 15
meeting you brought up the case where we had five bagel stores on University Avenue. And is it 16
the market's job to determine that or is it the City's job? And we kept our nose out of it and 17
they – it all kind of shaked out. Now, some of those bagel stores went out of business and 18
switched over so there's always this transition but that's probably the easier thing to do than 19
micromanage by zoning what you can have down there. Let's see, there was also, oh yeah, the 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
RPO. So now if we change the RPO, there's – you don't have to necessarily get rid of it 1
altogether. You can change, say, instead of, if you have retail in some areas we may be happy to 2
have that retail replaced by the dental office. That still brings in people. And so you may not 3
want a dental office on University itself but on Hamilton that may be fine. And that would bring 4
people downtown, they go to the dentist's office or go get their nails done over on Hamilton, 5
then they walk over and have food on University. And so we may want to have different 6
regulations for University and the side streets or Cal Ave and Cambridge, for example. And so if 7
there are concerns about what you have on that main street, that doesn't necessarily – you 8
shouldn't have those same concerns elsewhere, because you want to bring people in the area 9
and if they're nearby, they'll go to the other businesses. And so when we loosen RPO, we aren't 10
necessarily allowing tech offices. We may be just expanding what is considered resident-serving 11
businesses. 12
13
Chair Summa: Well, I think Council already changed that downtown. I think they allow medical 14
retail, as we called it. I believe this is right. Maybe they just had a discussion and didn't do it. 15
But on the side streets, they now allow retail-like medical downtown, I think. So those kinds of 16
changes have been made in some places. 17
18
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Akin: If Commissioner Reckdahl is finished or when Commissioner Reckdahl is 1
finished, we should probably ask our consultants if they would like to speak to the discussion 2
from last night as well. 3
4
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah. That’s – I’m ready. 5
6
Chair Summa: Okay, I see that Mr. Wery is here now and also… 7
8
Dan Wery: Excellent presentation. I'm getting feedback here. Can you [inaudible 3:05:40]? So 9
thanks again for the summary. We had, I think, a pretty productive discussion yesterday with 10
the ad hoc committee and I think those were really excellent points that were brought up. Our 11
objective tonight was to try to facilitate the discussion of those zoning strategies and to see if 12
there are recommendations that the full PTC could make. One of the points that I was starting 13
to think about when we had our discussion yesterday is the importance of – and I think Keith or 14
Allen might have mentioned the idea of experimentation, and just action, taking some action. 15
Don't let the perfect prevent the good. And so there may be some things that you can do now 16
that you feel confident with. There may be some things that you want to study further. And 17
there may be certain things that are priorities, certain changes, and one that we talked about as 18
an example, comprehensive code revisions. That's a long-term, complex, expensive, resource-19
intensive effort. There's other things that we could do on the interim, slight amendments, 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.
targeted amendments. And so the idea would be to think about maybe the gradation or the 1
spectrum of recommendations. There’s some you may feel very strongly about and can be very 2
specific and succinct. Others you might be a little more general on and provide guidance to the 3
City Council. And I think some of the examples were keep it simple, make sure that it's certain, 4
it's clear, and then even some things may be phased in. For instance, in terms of the 5
comprehensive revisions and simplifying the broader code, trying to make it more 6
understandable, the recommendation I had mentioned, I think, two weeks ago and certainly 7
yesterday was start with those use tables, because those are relatively simple tasks to put them 8
together, create the comparison and that's when you start to see the gaps, the overlaps, the 9
conflicts. And in the end, you end up with a useful tool, a comprehensive table, like the – what 10
use is where from 2007 that works for staff, it works for applicants and property owners and 11
people thinking about coming to Palo Alto. So the long way of saying we're trying to get you to 12
some recommendations to City Council and the idea is that I don't think you need to – not all of 13
them have to be perfected. I think some of them you can be pretty specific. I think you've got 14
some good ones that were coming out of our ad hoc committee and what you heard tonight. 15
Other ones may need some more work. Others may be more kind of thematic and that would 16
be okay but I would encourage you to do what Allen just did and with Keith as well, is collect 17
those thoughts and forward those on to the City Council. If you can sharpen the 18
recommendations, that's great. The one thing that we were hoping to help facilitate with you is 19
if we look back at those strategies, if there's certain ones that do sound worthwhile then we'd 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.
want to talk about more specifically to the extent you're comfortable and can where they 1
would apply. So we talked about some revisions, perhaps reducing or eliminating RPO in certain 2
areas or that our modifying district or the ground floor modifying district, maybe those ground 3
floor retail spaces on side streets are allowed and it's converted. And then you preserve the 4
focus and the retail attention along Cal Ave and University Avenue. So I think that was 5
something that seemed to be pretty strong consensus as an example of being a specific 6
recommendation. So with that, I guess I would try not to speak too much and try to answer 7
some questions and facilitate any further recommendations you guys might be willing to 8
elaborate on. 9
10
Chair Summa: All right. Well, thank you for the ad hoc’s work and your summary and also our 11
consultants but I think now we're going to go to the public and I know there's – I saw one 12
speaker on Zoom, but… 13
14
Veronica Dao: Correct, just the one on Zoom from Winter Dellenbach. 15
16
Winter Dellenbach: Yes. Hi, commissioners. So I have my recommendations and you don't have 17
to pay me as a consultant so that's really good. For God's sakes, keep ground floor retail 18
protections on Cal Ave, on University Ave. And I don't know if you consultants have taken time 19
to go into the – along El Camino to the Barron Park and Ventura neighborhoods but we're a 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
walkable neighborhood and there's not a lot of those in Palo Alto. And what makes them 1
walkable is that we have protected ground floor retail. We have a lot of mom and pops. Some 2
of them are a little shaggy looking but most of them are very vital businesses. And those sh-, 3
have protection and they should continue strong protection. And the same goes for the Cal 4
Avenue Shopping District and University because people want services. They don’t want – 5
Here's a story. Quite a few years ago, University Avenue loaded up on financial institutions and 6
so the city stepped in and said – and put a limit on how many financial institutions because it 7
was suppressing other types of business and retail and the whole health of University Avenue. 8
Same thing happened on Cal Avenue with nail salons and hair salons because they were just –9
they were proliferating like rabbits. And it's not good. It wasn't a good, healthy environment. 10
And we can't just not have regulations. The market is a dumb beast. And of course, instead of 11
leaving it to the supposed market, the city of course has to be involved. It's called planning for a 12
reason. This has to be planned. It has to be – and the City's involvement has to continue to be 13
strong. One of the things that's happening is that we're losing retail along Barron Park, Ventura 14
neighborhoods on ECR. I'd be interested if you folks have gone there and have you now gone to 15
Midtown and have you now, this is the consultants, have you gone to Charleston Center where 16
our very, very important shopping areas and retail areas and other services. And I sure as heck 17
hope you are because if you're earning your money as a consultant you should be looking at the 18
whole range of retail areas and not just one or two. So – and that's what I want to say. Thanks. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Summa: Thank you. I think that's our only speaker. 1
2
Veronica Dao: Correct. 3
4
Chair Summa: Okay, thanks. So I'll bring it back to the Commission for discussion. Would 5
anyone like to start us off? 6
7
Commissioner Akin: Sure. I'll say just a few more words. Since Vice-Chair Chang isn't here I 8
wanted to reinforce some of the points that were of concern to her and perhaps the top one is 9
simply that we need to go through the code because we perhaps don't understand well enough 10
how all the constraints are interacting right now. And that's the way we'll get workable 11
proposals is to look at some of the details. During the ad hoc discussion last night, I proposed 12
just cutting the Gordian knot on Cal Ave and allowing formula retail of all kinds. And I'll throw 13
that out there and just say, what's your immediate reaction to that? 14
15
Chair Summa: Are you asking me? 16
17
Commissioner Akin: The Commission as a whole. Yeah, all of us. 18
19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Summa: The thing about formula retail is that I think many people would find things like 1
that very useful. We even had a doofy little pharmacy on Cambridge. It was this little, tiny, 2
independent pharmacy. I think having a pharmacy – and I think pharmacies are by and large 3
now, a drug store. Not that I'm suggesting this specific thing but I think that having formula 4
retail is not something we should take off the plate completely. And I think the reason – and I 5
know that won't be popular with everyone perhaps listening out there in Zoom land but I think 6
particularly if you're going to allow formula retail with a CUP to any formula retail applicant that 7
has only 10 or fewer sites across the nation, to me that doesn't seem to make any sense. It just 8
feels arbitrary. That being said, I don't know – I think that any formula retail on Cal Ave would 9
have to fit in with the rhythm and size of the existing storefronts. Just like McDonald's, when 10
they go in the Vatican or Paris or Rome, they don't look like a McDonald's on El Camino. So I 11
think they would have to fit in. I'm not sure how attractive any of those places are. I feel very 12
strongly that we talk about bike ped, goals for bike ped, getting more people on those and we 13
acknowledge that many of those will be short trips. I just think if we don't preserve walkable 14
retail, we're going to have a very unbalanced city with more car trips because more people are 15
going to drive to do errands than are going to bike. And so I don't feel that removing the ground 16
floor retail protection is a wise thing to do. I think we need a whole new ground floor retail 17
ordinance for San Antonio that's going to be built out but I'm afraid it's a little too late for that. 18
But many of the comments about the ways in which the code could be fixed were so broad and 19
I think Mr. Wery just said rewriting the code actually is a huge project and I don't think 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.
do that tonight but I think there's some strategies we can discuss. But doing away with 1
somebody's ground floor retail to reduce the overall vacancy rate in retail in Palo Alto does not 2
seem wise to me. It doesn't s-, I was hoping for an approach that was more proactively, 3
positively suggesting how to get some more retail. So it's really a problem and I do think the 4
biggest problem is when you have a retail gallery house left California Avenue and they went to 5
Santa Cruz, they're on Santa Cruz in Menlo Park, that is a cost of rental decision. And we had 6
sort of an impromptu list of businesses, and we never followed up and made it more official, 7
that had moved to Menlo Park or Mountain View or Los Altos because it was less expensive. 8
And I understand that the problems I think that Commissioner Reckdahl was referring to, I think 9
what you meant was that the parklets are obstructing the storefronts. So, yeah, these are big 10
tradeoffs and they're pretty hard but the formula retail one, not getting rid of it, but adjusting it 11
a little. That being said, I don't think we're getting a lot of applicants of that type because of the 12
size of the storefronts. So, that's kind of my opinion on that one. And I see lights from 13
Templeton and Lu. 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. So, yeah, I guess my thoughts here are a little bit – might not 16
directly answer your question but a little bit more abstract. But what I would say is the places 17
we've listed as competition for us are destinations, right? Going to the Stanford Mall is a 18
destination. Going to University Avenue has been a destination in the past. And that's – those 19
are things we have to think about and I think what that means is a place that's vibrant during 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 workday, after school and at nights and weekends, right? They have something on these 1
locations that's interesting to do at all of those times. And that's a process or approach that has 2
been studied in planning for many years that they know that this is what makes a place vibrant 3
and attractive and that you can just go and hang out. You don't even have to be necessarily 4
with a shopping goal in mind. You want to go there and then you spend money. So, those are 5
something that we can think about and it involves a mix of things to do, right? We have the 6
ground floor retail, I think, is the key attractive factor, right? There's something to do, 7
something that you can always do. But we have to have a proper mix. One thing that's 8
happening on California right now, Winter said that it was nail salons and hair salons and we 9
have moved that. That was certainly my experience 10 years ago when I was doing those things 10
but now I feel like it's all gymnasiums and smoke shops, right? It’s things that just don't interest 11
me. Maybe I should be more interested in the gymnasiums. But because California Avenue 12
currently still has a mix of things, I enjoy going there because they have other o-, a variety of 13
options. But I worry that every time a shop closes that it's going to become a gym, right? It's a 14
thing that's happening. So I don't know if there's a way for us to manage that. Think about 15
Town and Country, another great destination. They have a management company, the mall has 16
a management company. Is there a way for us to say this is the, oh, this is a group of people 17
that are going to manage this? I think that's a possibility, but it's complicated, right? Because of 18
the duration of these leases and commitments. So I know that's not a solution but you wanted 19
to know what I think. That's what I think. All right. Thanks. Bye. 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: All right. I'll make a few specific comments and maybe just kind of ask a 2
general question at the end. So I was speaking with a local retailer on Cal Ave, a pretty small 3
business, they said that their perspective on this has changed over time, that they favor 4
relaxing formula retail, also favor just more development in general along that corridor. And for 5
them, the most important thing was just getting people on the street with any purpose in mind 6
so that they can swing by and meander into there shops or fulfill other shopping needs while 7
they're there. And I think that makes a lot of sense. Relaxing formula retail, a 100 percent in the 8
context of pharmacies and potentially some similar kinds of stores and I'd have to think this 9
through but likely many other uses too would make sense for me. I think increasing the 10
threshold from 10 would certainly be a start. I think like Santa Monica, how they exclude 11
restaurants from their – or only exclude restaurants in formula retail, something like that would 12
also be a start. I do agree that people aren't applying for conditional use permits now but I 13
think there is a perception that going through the effort to actually propose a plan and have a 14
concrete plan and go through conditional use permit is too risky. And I think if we can just relax 15
this upfront that would make a lot of sense to me. Like our public commenter noted, I am a 16
little bit skeptical of loosening ground floor retail restrictions. I think one benefit that's not 17
mentioned is that a medical office or a dental office can pay pretty good rent and we know that 18
supply and demand is somehow broken here but adding a lot of demand that can pay pretty 19
high rent may displace mom and pops and I'd be really concerned about that even on the side 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.
streets, even on the Hamiltons and other streets, that medical offices will cannibalize some of 1
the retail we really do want to preserve. And so, okay, sorry, going through my notes. I do 2
support loosening ground floor retail restrictions in theory. There were mentions of dog 3
grooming businesses or other kinds of uses that weren't permitted and I think things like that 4
makes sense to me. Yeah. So I guess my kind of more general question is where does staff and 5
consultants want us to be at this point? I see we have one more meeting with the whole 6
Commission before we actually recommend this to Council. Should we be actually 7
workshopping specific zoning changes? Now are we on schedule or are we going to arrive at 8
May 8th and be a bit lost in terms of what to actually recommend? 9
10
Dan Wery: I'll take a shot at that and thank you. Those are good thoughts. In terms of where to 11
be, I was a little verbose, but I think you should feel comfortable with having a spectrum of 12
recommendations. I think if you can make specific ones that you have a majority or consensus 13
on, make those. But don't feel limited to just the things that you've got consensus on. I think 14
we're getting a lot of good discussion and ideas here tonight. And I think those – even if you 15
stopped right there, you can record those and forward those on to City Council and that's good 16
direction to use. So I think you actually provide a lot of good thought here tonight. And I think 17
that's all valuable to City Council. Just as a reminder, the idea is not to have specific zoning 18
amendments at the end of this, in this period. The idea is these are the strategies that are going 19
to lead to specific amendments or other actions. And so you're looking at kind of – think 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.
more as a menu. Hey, these are the things that we think have the highest promise or here's an 1
approach and if you can be specific, that's great. If you can agree on changing the threshold as a 2
formula business, great. If you can agree on limiting the formula to certain types of businesses, 3
such as restaurants, all the better. And if you can agree on some of the recommendations 4
maybe allowing or repealing the ground floor restrictions on certain side streets, that's great. 5
Those alone would be three really good concrete recommendations. And then again, maybe 6
there's some other ones that might need a little more time and effort. And that's fine. I think 7
that's your role and the value of your recommendations. And then City Council and staff can 8
come up with a plan to prioritize and implement those or develop those further. So I would say 9
what you're doing now is exactly the right thing. 10
11
Amy French: I would echo that and I would also say I can upload the presentation that's in the 12
packet if it would help to have something to stare at and yay, nay. If there's – If that's of value 13
I'll just do that right now. 14
15
Commissioner Reckdahl: I want to get feedback for – Allen asked a specific question and I 16
wanted to get your opinions on that formula retail on Cal Ave. On one hand Cal Ave always had 17
this kind of unique vibe about it and if you bring in formula retail now it has just become 18
another boring retail spot or the other hand, would you rather have a subway next to you or an 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.
empty store? And so that's the trade off is that what are you willing to give up and would 1
bringing in some formula retail enhance Cal Ave or ruin it? 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: Well, let me let me use University as an example instead of Cal Ave. 4
When I used to go to University as a destination, a place to hang out and shop and buy things 5
and whatever, you guys remember when the Borders was there in the old theater? I loved it. 6
Right? That's a for-, that's a big nationwide chain. But we had all these other really cool places 7
around it. We had a couple of those restaurants were also nationwide chains, right? 8
Cheesecake Factory used to be there. But that wasn't my vibe. I know that maybe some people 9
visiting from out of town or people who love cheesecake. I'm looking at you, George. So maybe 10
it had variety of options but for me, that was a hub. I loved to go to the bookstore and then 11
walk around and buy ice cream or go out to dinner or whatever. This was probably pre kids. So 12
maybe that was a different vibe. And I go to California Avenue now with my kids because they 13
can play in the street. But anyway, so I think there's some value in having them there but also 14
their tolerance for competing with the online retailers had them leave too early. I think if they 15
were there now, they would be popular again. Right? And so we were kind of subject to our 16
corporate overlords deciding those things instead of the mom and pop owners, right, that 17
we've been talking about. So it has its pluses and it has its minuses. It can be a draw but they're 18
not invested in the community the same way some of the smaller companies might be. So I go 19
to Town and Country now and I shop at Books, Inc. 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: So if we came with a proposal to allow formula retail on Cal Ave, 2
you're saying you don't know right now. You might – you see the pros, you see the cons and 3
you're not sure which side of the coin you're going to end up on? 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: In the end, I really – I prefer the model of Town and Country, which 6
has at least as they've discussed with us that their approach is to find really quirky people to 7
rent to. And if it is a chain, it'll be a special chain that fits in somehow nicely with their other 8
retail shops that they're renting to. So it's a conditional yes. It's like your question, Subway, 9
McDonald's, CVS probably are not the vibe we're looking for in this City for long term 10
investment. I don't know how long term their investments are. The McDonald's on El Camino 11
has been here since I've been here since a long time but that doesn't mean that others would 12
be so it's – I would probably prefer – I have gotten used to the fun, locally owned businesses 13
that we have and I want them to be successful and I hear what I think both of you have said 14
that if we have more of the larger chains that it will change the rental pricing and drive out local 15
businesses. I think that would be tough to swallow. But then again, I can't deny that I liked 16
shopping at the big bookstore. 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: But there's a lot of vacancies on Cal Ave and so it's one of the points 1
that we made in the ad hoc was well, it doesn't seem like formula retailer has ruined University. 2
So if we have the same… 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: Well, to you. I don't go there anymore. 5
6
Commissioner Reckdahl: Because the… 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: I don't know why. I'd have to really take some introspection. Like I 9
said it was different phases of my life as well. 10
11
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah. 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: But do I miss the bookstore that's not there anymore on Cal Ave? 14
15
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah. 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: I do. So sorry that is not a definitive answer for you. I'm just 18
demonstrating the struggle is real. 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: Doria, do you want to – what do you think? Formula retail... 1
2
Chair Summa: So what I think is that I don't see what the magic number of 10 that makes it evil 3
or undesirable, evil’s the wrong word. But I do think – I do worry about small mom and pop 4
businesses leaving. I think that's – they're leaving anyway. 5
6
Commissioner Reckdahl: But if you had if you had some chain like Subway come in, is that going 7
to bring more people in and help those mom and pops or is… 8
9
Chair Summa: I will say that… 10
11
Commissioner Reckdahl: …there going to be more competition and drive the mom and pops out 12
more. What's the [inaudible 3:35:02]? 13
14
Chair Summa: I will say that I would not have formula dining because I think the one really 15
successful draw on California Avenue besides the market are the restaurants and I don't want 16
to compete with those. And the only – the two Cal Ave piz-, there’s a Pizza Hut or something on 17
Cambridge and there was a subway on Cal Ave. Those are the only restaurants. Those both 18
went out of business. They didn't they weren't a draw as did the luxury hot dog business. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Reckdahl: There was a Starbucks. 1
2
Chair Summa: Huh? 3
4
Commissioner Akin: There was also Starbucks. 5
6
Chair Summa: Yeah. And Starbucks, so I don't – those – I'm – I would not want to compete with 7
the local – and I think of the success of Backyard Brew and it's packed all the time because it's a 8
quirky, adorable, lovable place that provides a great service. I'm glad that Starbucks left more 9
than I would be if Backyard Brew failed. But they're not going to fail because they're so busy. 10
Something could happen. But I do think that problem – I don't see formula dining on Cal Ave 11
and this this came up sort of for a little reminiscence about everybody's favorite project, the NV 12
cap, the North Ventura. There was a time before COVID when they thought they were going to 13
get a specialty Target there and the representative from – he was almost from – Sobrato was 14
almost kind of sheepish saying, oh, well, you wouldn't want that in Palo Alto and I'm like, “Are 15
you kidding?” They have boutique Targets, they're called boutiques, in Manhattan. And they fit 16
in like what I was saying about a McDonald's in the Vatican or Paris. They fit in to the streets 17
rhythm and storefront structure. They're much smaller than big Targets and even the signage is 18
appropriate. And I thought people would love having that there to walk to but that didn't 19
happen. But that's why – and that was 60,000 or 80,000 square feet, right, so that's different. 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: No, it was actually much smaller than that. 2
3
Chair Summa: I forget. 4
5
Commissioner Reckdahl: The building was 60 or 80 but I think Target only wanted a small… 6
7
Chair Summa: No Frys. 8
9
Commissioner Reckdahl: Maybe Frys was 60 or 80. But Target didn't want that whole thing. 10
11
Chair Summa: Yeah. But anyway, I'm just saying that I don't think that was – would be a 12
disaster. I actually think it would be a practical place that people would go to. I do not want to 13
do things that hurt our existing businesses. But half of the business – half of the people that 14
have businesses on Cal Ave didn't want the street closed and half did. And I don't know. I'm 15
glad that – I hope everything works out for the best. But I think people are leaving because of 16
the cost of rentals. And I know that the guy who opened not too long ago now, the hardware 17
shop on California Avenue, which I desperately try to go to as often as possible, that – he told 18
me, the owner of the store, that worked out for him finally, they wanted location there because 19
the property owner or manager dropped the price. That's why they were able to move in. 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.
So that being said, I'm willing to believe that some of the way we structure our zoning code and 1
regulations might be a turnoff. I continue to think that conditional use permits are a very good 2
tool to control a mix because if you have to have a conditional use permit for something it can 3
be turned down because your discretionary view that there's already too much of that type of 4
thing. And it does control gyms, which I think is good because gyms don't really draw the public. 5
They draw the members of the gym in. So I just can't think of many of these zoning strategies 6
that were recommended that really seem like a good idea to me. And I don't want to take away 7
anybody's walking area. I am more open to sort of expanding uses on side streets. As for animal 8
services, pet grooming is already allowed in our – as a retail use. One thing we could go through 9
– we could do is go through the allowed retail uses and see if there's something missing. I 10
would prefer to approach it as adding a clause that was like – or any other business that really is 11
open to and for the public. That's really what retail is. It's something anybody can choose to go 12
to. Because I don't know what we're missing in those definitions. So I think a broad 13
discretionary clause like that could be useful. We no longer – and as to – somebody mentioned 14
something, I forget who, about if there's not the ground floor retail requirement, I don't 15
understand what's going to go on the ground floor. There's also a huge vacancy in office space. 16
And so what would go there? 17
18
Commissioner Reckdahl: Like over on Ramona, right off Hamilton, there's tech offices ground 19
floor. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 know. There's – and I'd like to know how much – because there was some sort 2
of – one of the bigger buildings downtown on Hamilton is what we call, back in the day, faux 3
tail. It's actually an office parading as retail. I want to know – I would want to know how many 4
of those were counted as vacancy and when – do they count as retail vacancy or office 5
vacancy? It's funny the way the numbers are kind of counted, too and we did have some 6
conversions to non-ground floor retail uses that may have been errors and then they were 7
allowed to continue. So there's that also. But I don't – I wanted to see ideas about – I wonder – 8
I went to – there's – I want to see ideas that positively go and court the kind of businesses that 9
we want here. 10
11
Commissioner Reckdahl: The City's doing that. This is a zoning issue. As they’re courting, one of 12
the complaints they have is the uncertainties of well, I have to go apply for a CUP and I'm not 13
sure if I'm going to get it and so that's one of the things that the applicants are pushing back to 14
the city on saying the uncertainty is making me less likely to jump in and rent the place. 15
16
Chair Summa: But I think – I don't know, I've never applied for a CUP but I think that if there is 17
– I think staff has dealt with it often enough that if there are reasons why you're not going to 18
get it, they'll tell you and then you should leave. But I think the CUP’s for larger gyms is a good 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.
way of not having too much of that on Cal Ave and some people already think there is too much 1
in the way of workout spaces on Cal Ave. So what… 2
3
Commissioner Reckdahl: Gyms are personal service, right? They're not retail. 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: If they're retail, they're allowed in ground floor. 6
7
Commissioner Reckdahl: They’re allowed, okay. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: Have we thought about – I'm going back to the – what we're all 10
saying is we wish there was somebody curating and cultivating and courting these people and 11
that already have a level – set expectation of permission already granted. What we're talking 12
about as a management company or a management service, is that something we can, as a City, 13
do? 14
15
Commissioner Akin: Yeah. This is part of the discussion from last night that I deliberately 16
skipped today. 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: Sorry. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Akin: But perhaps that was a mistake. For a good part of the meeting, Steve 1
Guagliardo, who's our economic development person in the city manager's office, attended. 2
And it's clear that a lot of these issues are in – those balls are in his court. But we discussed a 3
number of possibilities that Council could pursue, as well. They're simply not within the purview 4
of the PTC. So these things are going to get looked at. And there is a person who is in charge 5
nominally of making sure that they get looked at. Council has at its disposal, a huge number of 6
[inaudible 3:44:16] that can be applied to encourage particular kinds of tenants and I think it 7
would be well for us to suggest a few of those but I sort of doubt that we're coming up with 8
anything that they haven't already thought of. But still, your point is well taken and I just 9
wanted to be encouraging that yes, people are thinking about it. It's not getting lost. 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: That’s good to know. Thank you. 12
13
Commissioner Lu: Yeah, I just want to make a couple of quick comments and clarifications. So 14
when I was speaking earlier about formula retail, I just wanted to be clear, for restaurants, I am 15
not against blocking formula retail of restaurants but just increasing the threshold. I think I 16
maybe made that point in a disjointed way. For example, Coupa Cafe apparently has nine 17
locations and if they had one more, they would not be allowed to open on Cal Ave but they're a 18
hyper local business that has a lot of character and so restaurants can be allowed up to some 19
pretty high limit, I think, that still has character and certainly something more than 10. 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.
other areas, I haven't thought about all the uses but I'd also be generally very permissive of or 1
more permissive of formula retail. I think CUPs are incredibly painful for businesses to actually 2
pursue and I think it's a really strong disincentive from even getting a proposal together to have 3
to do a lot of negotiation with the landlord and then have even a 10 percent chance or a 20 4
percent chance that your project gets blown up can radically alter the economics of opening in 5
Palo Alto versus opening in the neighboring city next door. So I think anything possible to avoid 6
CUPs for reasonable use cases is a line I would want to take. 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: That's why I was thinking, trying to do something like that for a 9
district or a couple of blocks as a group. Is that something – even though it's different buildings 10
and landlords and – I know that's a little different but if you can make that part of the process, 11
the reason that's so painful for our small business owners is they don't know it. So if we could 12
have somebody who knows how to navigate that process, kind of help them with that, it might 13
make it easier. I don't know. 14
15
Commissioner Akin: Yeah, that's one of the options. Dan mentioned this. I think some of the 16
others have described it as well. The spiritual successor to the [inaudible 3:47:27] document. 17
And just as long as we stay simple and consistent as possible so that it's predictable and 18
understandable. I'm amused by the discussion about formula retail restaurants because I've 19
been around here long enough that I remember generations of these things coming and going 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.
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
downtown. How many people here ate in the Burger King on University Avenue? The TOGOS? 1
The Roundtable. Right. So these things existed and yet somehow, the local restaurants 2
managed to survive and even survive, I mean and even thrive. So I'm less worried about that 3
than I once was just because of remembering the history here. At any rate, to try and bring this 4
to some close, we need to move on to other things. I guess what my thinking is is that 5
Commissioner Reckdahl and Vice-Chair Chang and I need to take what you've just told us and 6
make a pass through the code and come up with some – at least some pointers to the areas 7
that might be fruitful. And then we can consider suggesting changes in those areas to Council. 8
Does that seem like a good next step? 9
10
Female: Yes, to me. 11
12
Chair Summa: I think so because unless we just want to react to the slide that Amy French had 13
up, hoping we would look at it, and we didn't talk about it. Unless we want to react to those 14
seven bullet points or whatever, how ever many there are, five, I forget. I'm looking for it. But 15
we could do that and give some direction to both, to everybody. 16
17
Commissioner Reckdahl: What I think I want to – I want to understand what you guys are 18
thinking. So when we're in our group, we're not in our tiny little group without taking your 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.
opinions into account. So any guidance you can give us by saying, oh, not that one, or yes, I like 1
that one. 2
3
Chair Summa: Okay, here it is. So I would say that there's a considerable interest amongst the 4
group of – in number one. Not to eliminate it but to find a way to so it will be more usable. I 5
didn't hear much interest in two. I think three, the interest… 6
7
Commissioner Reckdahl: But two, could you broaden that? Is there – should we look through 8
the list of retail, not tonight, but look through the list of retail and propose perhaps adding 9
these categories. We think that these categories in a ground floor retail would not ruin the 10
retail vibe. 11
12
Chair Summa: I guess that would be useful, but we'd have retail – what's allowed is retail and 13
retail-like. And there's a lot of things, like animal – pet grooming is allowed, that we need to 14
understand clearly amongst us all. Limiting number three, I didn't hear any interest in that 15
based on region, district or whatever. But maybe there's interest in having more leeway on side 16
streets like the Council decided to do downtown. I don't know what lower relief standards 17
means. 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 Akin: Perhaps Dan would like to speak to that but there was one specific 1
example in the RPO where to get a waiver essentially requires a legal standard that's so high it 2
would never ever be met. And that seems like low-hanging fruit. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: So, somebody couldn't rent this property ever because it's this way 5
that's not, it's zoned in a way that's not popular anymore and they can't change it. 6
7
Female: [Inaudible 3:51:49]. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. 10
11
Chair Summa: So, I wasn't sure what that meant. It's to allow – broaden – allow more waivers 12
from the ground floor retail. I'd have to think about that. I didn't know what it meant so I didn't 13
read – I didn't review the waiver process. And simplifying the zoning code to make it more user-14
friendly is a whole separate thing that I don't think we were specifically being asked to. And I 15
think Commissioner Aiken sort of said that also. And if anybody else has comments on these 16
five things. 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: I just want to correct the record because I said that Town and 19
Country is mostly not these formula places but they do have a CVS, 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
Chair Summa: They have a CVS, a Trader Joe's, a Pete's. 2
3
Commissioner Akin: And a 40… 4
5
Chair Summa: I don't know how many Sur La Table there are. 6
7
Commissioner Akin: And a 40 percent vacancy rate. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: Dang it. 10
11
Chair Summa: Yeah. 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: But I like to go there. And so, I'm still trying to say the destination 14
idea is fine and what I'm trying to correct is it does tolerate some of this formula retail use. 15
16
Chair Summa: Exactly. I think it's mostly formula. And so, I've kind of commented on the 17
possible zoning strategies preliminary. Would anybody else like to? Or we've kind of all talked 18
about them. And what else specifically could we – it's hard to discuss the simplifying the zoning 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.
code without having the zoning code with red line and additions in front of you to compare. It's 1
too broad and open a thing and… 2
3
Commissioner Akin: It's too long term. 4
5
Commissioner Reckdahl: The consultants looked at this and they're newbies, right? And they 6
say, oh my God, this is really complicated. And even – I've been through the zoning code a lot 7
and it's still complicated for me. And so, that can't be a good thing. Is there ways of reducing 8
the overlays or reducing the number of different types of zones so there's less complexity? Or is 9
that complexity necessary? If you think it's necessary, that's a valid opinion. 10
11
Chair Summa: I think there's – I'm sure the code could be rewritten better because it gets kind 12
of – it gets added on to and changed in an ad hoc sort of manner. It's not one thing. It's a 13
compilation of things. I don't know if it's worse than other cities codes. But I do think that allow 14
alternate active uses, of there are uses that we have left out that are not retail and retail-like 15
uses that are left out, we should definitely accommodate for adding those in. I just think… 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: More libraries and bookstores. 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: Well, we can't tell people to open libraries and bookstores. I don't know if that's 1
enough for tonight or if the consultant and the ad hoc and staff needs more than that. 2
3
Commissioner Akin: Speaking only for myself, yeah, I think we have enough to work on. We can 4
do something useful and be ready for another round. 5
6
Female: Okay, that's good. 7
8
Commissioner Reckdahl: But we don't want to go open loop and propose something that you're 9
drastically opposed to. So, getting your opinions is very valuable. 10
11
Chair Summa: Okay, thanks. Mr. Wery, is there something else you would like our specific 12
feedback on this evening? 13
14
Dan Wery: I think we've actually got – made a lot of progress here. I think when we start to kind 15
of record it and we've been taking good notes, there's quite a bit to go on that is guidance, and 16
that's good. So, I think you've made some real progress. The – I'll just loop back to the last 17
discussion quickly on simplifying the code. Under that category, there was a couple of items 18
there. One was what Allen had mentioned about the, sorry, that's the relief standard. You do 19
have a relief standard in there, which is the alternative active uses. That's a good – reasonably 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.
good standard. One of the things you could do in terms of simplifying the code and or lower the 1
relief standards would be more reasonable. The other standard that was in there, by the way, is 2
an unconstitutional taking of all economic use of your property. That's an impossible standard. 3
You don't want to go there. I'm just advising you. That's not a good standard threshold. That's 4
the ultimate – it's life or death. It's existential. The alternative active use is a typical reasonable 5
hardship standard is the parlance. There's other provisions in there that when you – how you 6
prove that, your code says, well, you need to look at 10 years of history. That's a long history 7
that – so again, the other details start to pile up on that. It becomes, again – if you want to deny 8
something, you've got every ability to deny something. So again, all these things kind of feed 9
into each other. So there's opportunities there to lessen that up. And I can – we can get into 10
more details perhaps with the ad hoc committee. In terms of simplifying the code, one of the 11
examples that I suggested was kind of those use tables. I think Allen had mentioned that and 12
Keith had mentioned that as well. That, I think, is a great starting point. You can do that. We've 13
already started that just for our own understanding of the code. And I think that's something 14
that can be done relatively quickly that'll pay dividends again for staff and property owners and 15
applicants and will lead to more specific changes. When you look at the code through that lens, 16
you'll see gaps and conflicts and inconsistencies as we did. And I think that's a good method. So 17
I think that would be a recommendation in terms of simplifying the code. And then with any 18
other provisions that you're looking for, again, simplifying the code in general, great idea. I'd 19
make that a recommendation. And then you can get into, well, how do we implement 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.
And again, as I mentioned, there's a couple different ways. Any other amendments that you 1
make, again, keep that same thing in mind. You want that certainty. You want that ease of use. 2
And simplify wherever you can. So let's not add more complexity to the code. Let's make it 3
simpler. So even if you're looking at formula retail or the ground floor, R or GF modifying 4
districts, think of it that way. Hey, maybe we can simplify that. There is redundancy, for 5
instance, between the RPO and those R and GF modifying districts. And then as was pointed out 6
earlier, there's kind of the inverse, which is the restrictions on office uses. And they're all kind 7
of circling and competing and working together. So there's opportunities there to simplify. One 8
of the things I think, Chair, you had mentioned that I specifically noted was in terms of the 9
permissible uses, the retail and retail-like, focusing on other public uses that are open to the 10
public. And that's an approach that has been used elsewhere. So rather than trying to define 11
each and every type of use, that, again, uses come and go, they evolve, focus on the outcome 12
that you want, which is you want activity. You want people going in and out of the door. You 13
want to have a use that drags or generates pedestrians past the doors of the other businesses. 14
So you have that synergy there that adds to vitality. Just as an example, the city of San Diego 15
has certain streets and districts that they require a certain amount of active street frontage. 16
And they give examples of uses and it's much like your retail and retail-like but the standard is, 17
does it generate that activity? And that's very similar to what, Chair, you had mentioned about, 18
is it generating that open to the public? Is it generating that traffic? That's something, I think 19
that would be a relatively discreet, easy change that could open up flexibility into your uses. 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 it kind of mitigate against some of the other restrictions where you're trying to be so 1
precise and you're never going to get it right. If you have it's – if it's only this use and not those 2
uses, there's always going to be some use that falls through the gap or doesn't quite fit the 3
interpretation. So I think those were just a couple of things I'd – maybe we can follow up on 4
with the ad hoc together. I think those were good opportunities. So… 5
6
Chair Summa: Okay. Is that enough for us for this evening? Does anybody have anything to 7
add? Okay. Well, thank you very much. I will release our consultants. 8
9
Dan Wery: Thank you. 10
11
Chair Summa: And thank you for coming this evening. And we can move on to our final item, 12
which is the Palo Alto link evaluation and report. 13
14
5. Study Session: Palo Alto Link (PAL) Evaluation and Report 15
16
Philip Kamhi: Good evening. Thank you. I'm actually going to be turning the presentation, I did it 17
again. Philip Kamhi, Chief Transportation Official. Sorry. It's been a long week. But I'm actually 18
going to be turning the presentation over to Nate Baird, who's our transportation planning 19
manager, who'll be giving this presentation. Nate, are you there? 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
Transportation Planning Manager Nate Baird: Hello. Good evening, all. 2
3
Chair Summa: Good evening. 4
5
Nate Baird: All right. The presentation should be up. Does this look good to you all? 6
7
Chair Summa: Looks good. 8
9
Nate Baird: All right. I will go through this pretty quickly and try to save a lot of time for 10
questions and feedback. Our Palo Alto link microtransit program began in March 2023. And we 11
are presenting to you all and to City Council next week, a 12-month evaluation report. In this 12
report, we've got some performance evaluation and then also some rider demographics and 13
insights based on a customer survey that was done. Palo Alto link has completed over 50,000 14
rides over the last year or so. Eight hundred and forty riders per month. Average 13-minute 15
wait time. And average 4.8 out of 5 ride rating. It operates similarly to Uber or Lyft but at a 16
transit pricing, $3.50 for the regular fare and $1 for our special use cases. On the right is the 17
branding that Palo Alto link uses, as well as the app for requesting a ride Monday through 18
Friday, 8 to 5 PM. We've grown steadily since March 2023, up 54 percent from that first month. 19
We continue to attract new riders while still engaging a number of repeat riders. Our top 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
destinations are Stanford Research Park, Palo Alto High School and Stanford Mall. Stanford 1
Research Park is a funding partner and we are in conversations with other partners potentially 2
as well. Even though we've had the same fleet the whole time, we've been able to be able to 3
increase our rides over time. The main reason we've been able to do this is through the shared 4
trip model. So when you get into a Link car, you will often be paired with other riders as you go 5
toward your destination. And we've done a good job of meeting the ride requests over time. 6
Although some riders have had wait times up to 30 minutes, most of our rides, over 77 percent 7
of them, are below 20 minutes. As the fleet has become busier with more rides, wait times 8
have slightly increased since launch. In the beginning, we had under 13, 11 minutes there. On 9
the left, you can see we had really good wait times. Those wait times have increased a little bit 10
but over time, we're still kind of meeting the standard from microtransit with an average of 13 11
minutes. Our riders have really, so far, have enjoyed using the service. We get a lot of good 12
feedback. Many of them would be very disappointed to not be able to use it. We have a pretty 13
diverse user base. People like to use it for affordability, for convenience, for saving money, for 14
commuting, for midday trips. We have pretty diverse employment status and age. So we're 15
serving commuters in the morning and evening hours. And then during the day, we have a great 16
number of seniors who use it, as well as students and other folks. We're also just kind of – 40 17
percent of our riders – over 40 percent of our riders are using the discounted fare types. So we 18
have $1 fares for disabled, low-income youth and seniors. And for seniors during the day, it kind 19
of gives them an extra independence and helps many of them not have to rely on their own 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.
vehicles to do day trips. It also makes it possible for some folks to live without a car in Palo Alto. 1
It links them pretty well to transit. And for folks who want to live without a car Link gives them 2
access to most of the addresses in Palo Alto. It's also a much better option than Uber or Lyft 3
because Uber or Lyft still is just a personal vehicle, personal trips. For a while, Lyft was 4
providing shared rides but they got rid of that option in the last couple years. So this is – shared 5
rides are a much better usage than the single passenger rides that Lyft and Uber use. In terms 6
of the feedback from the public, the biggest requests are that we would start sooner in the day 7
and go later in the day. And then potentially to add some additional destinations just outside of 8
the city. Our busiest times are 8 AM to 9 AM and 5 PM to 6 PM and so we know that we could 9
pick up a few more commuters and be a bit more efficient if we had a slightly longer day. So 10
that concludes the presentation. We are really looking just to hear your feedback and input on 11
how the service is going, whether folks really want it to keep going. It was originally thought of 12
as a two-year pilot program and now we're – as our pilot funds start going away, we really need 13
to consider how to keep it going or whether we want to and whether there are any service 14
changes we want to prioritize. 15
16
Chair Summa: Okay. Thank you for that presentation. Are there any quick questions for staff? 17
Then I think if there's no questions, I'll go to the public and then we'll come back. Do we have 18
any? 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Veronica Dao: No, I have no raised hands or speaker cards. 1
2
Chair Summa: Okay. Thank you. And then we will bring it back to the Commission, 3
Commissioner Templeton? 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. Thank you so much for this presentation. It was very interesting 6
to see all the feedback and that it's being received so well, this program. I remember when you 7
started and it's really exciting to see this have come so far so great work. I have been very 8
enthusiastic about this program but I'm going to tell you, I have not used it. I have downloaded 9
the app. I have tried to use it and I'm always either just outside the time frame or just outside 10
the City. For example, my daughter's bus drops her off at Lincoln Park in Los Altos. It's a mile 11
from our border. I can't have her get home if I'm at Planning Commission from her bus stop. So 12
similarly I worry about how’s my son getting from his school to Mitchell Park? And I just heard 13
about your new program and I'm really excited to tell you how useful that will be for him 14
because he goes down there for studying and meeting with a tutor so it's really a great program 15
that you've expanded to celebrate your anniversary. And you also take people to alllcove as 16
well, and some oth-, libraries and other things like that. So I think that's a wonderful addition. I 17
guess I'm just sharing my stories to say I like both of the major suggestions that you highlighted 18
about expanding your hours and figuring out how to deal with those just over the border 19
situations, like the shopping center on Showers and the medical center that's in Menlo, things 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 that. So I'm not sure how you would do that. I've been thinking about that. Is that – you just 1
pay a premium to go across the border or something like that? I'm not sure. But I love that 2
you're thinking about it and taking that feedback so seriously. So great job. 3
4
Chair Summa: Commissioner Lu? 5
6
Commissioner Lu: Thank you. I also have actually not ridden the service, though I really 7
appreciate that it exists and see a lot of value in it. I had several questions and I'll try to 8
combine that with some quick comments. So firstly, I know when this was discussed about a 9
year ago in Council, there was some concern about being accessible to all communities and 10
having surveys and also just, well, I guess, mainly surveys available in Chinese and Spanish. Do 11
we know if any of the replies for this survey that was presented here came from those 12
languages? And if those responses were potentially different by language? 13
14
Nate Baird: I do not have that information right now. I can follow up with – we had our vendor 15
do this survey for us so I will follow up with them to see if we have this available in other 16
languages. 17
18
Commissioner Lu: Yeah, I think confirming the availability of other languages would be good, 19
since I know Council specifically flagged that before and they may well ask about it again 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.
that, I think, would be useful information to have. And if we don't have it, I think that's certainly 1
something we could try to improve in the future. Yeah. I also wanted to ask about the overall 2
climate impact of this. Do we know what percent of trips included more than one destination at 3
a time? The logic, of course, being that if you're just taking it from point A to B and you're not 4
actually pooling a meaningful portion of the time, it's no different from a private vehicle, in 5
terms of sustainability. 6
7
Nate Baird: We do have some metric – I'm bringing it up right now. 8
9
Philip Kamhi: As Nate’s pulling that up, I believe it's the shared ride, it’s what percent of our 10
trips are actually shared rides, I believe, is the data that he's pulling up. 11
12
Commissioner Lu: Ah, okay. Sorry if I missed that. That's definitely concerning and I hope that's 13
a point we can really improve on. 14
15
Philip Kamhi: Um, I'm sorry, which part is concerning? 16
17
Commissioner Lu: Wait, you said one percent of rides are shared? 18
19
Philip Kamhi: No, I'm 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 Lu: Did I miss it? I'm sorry. 2
3
Philip Kamhi: Sorry. I didn't say the percentage. I said what he's pulling up is the percentage of 4
shared rides. 5
6
Commissioner Lu: Okay, sorry. 7
8
Philip Kamhi: It's the percentage of trips that are shared rides. 9
10
Commissioner Lu: Right. Sorry. It's getting late [inaudible 4:13:52] I start to hallucinate. I'm so 11
sorry. That's the strong reaction over nothing? 12
13
Nate Baird: It's definitely higher than one percent. 14
15
Commissioner Lu: Okay. Yeah. 16
17
Philip Kamhi: Actually, and as he's pulling that up and maybe it might not be fast to find, I will 18
say that every time I've taken that, it's ended up being a shared trip. It might not have started 19
as a shared trip but it ends up being a shared trip along the way. If it doesn’t – if I'm not 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.
picked up when somebody's already in it, but I was going to say, it'd be great, and I hate to do 1
this, but to give the Commissioners some homework and have you take a trip and let us know, 2
give us your feedback. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: Expand the hours and service area and we might. 5
6
Philip Kamhi: Yeah. I'll be using it tomorrow to get to a meeting at Stanford. So yeah, I'm 7
definitely trying to walk the walk but… 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: Stanford’s campus is in the zone? 10
11
Philip Kamhi: Yeah, sorry, the Stanford Research Park. 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: Ah, okay, because I know a bunch of Stanford interns that would like 14
to use that service. 15
16
Commissioner Lu: Nate, did you – were you able to find that? 17
18
Nate Baird: Yeah, I'm just scanning through. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Female: He’s trying to find it. 1
2
Nate Baird: Okay, I have it here. 3
4
Commissioner Lu: We can come back. 5
6
Nate Baird: Sixty-five percent is the shared ride rate. 7
8
Commissioner Lu: Okay. 9
10
Nate Baird: So 64 percent higher than the 1 percent. 11
12
Commissioner Lu: Okay, that's an encouraging number and definitely in a pretty solid, strong 13
ballpark from my perspective. Could always get a little bit higher when we get more riders but I 14
think that'll come with the natural growth that we're already seeing. I think it would also be 15
useful context in this packet, or maybe for Council's presentation or packet, to just have some 16
comparisons with the shuttle. I know the shuttle’s been discontinued long enough that it's hard 17
to interpret. I think I recall from the Council packet about a year ago, though, it said that the 18
shuttle had 500 daily unique riders and this program has around 200 from data that was 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.
otherwise shared. How do we interpret those numbers? Do we know where those non-riders 1
are? 2
3
Nate Baird: Yeah, I can provide a little bit of context to this. I will say that comparing to the – 4
and I would say the real comparison is to the Crosstown shuttle… 5
6
Commissioner Lu: Yeah. 7
8
Nate Baird: …which was the service that we actually directly operated. 9
10
Commissioner Lu: Okay. 11
12
Nate Baird: It's really hard to make an apples to apples comparison on these things but I did 13
actually put some stuff in the City Council staff report that add some additional information on 14
this. The final year of the shuttle service that we operated it, we provided 39,377 rides in the 15
year, noting that it was – the service was terminated in April of 2020 so – and talking about a 16
financial year so that's a few months early but our average monthly ridership was 3,998 that 17
year. We had 4 straight years of declining ridership on that service so I'm not sure what... yeah, 18
I'm not sure what data point the 500 riders a day would be but I can tell you that if we were 19
averaging 3,938 riders, that's certainly not 500 riders a day in a monthly period. I don't know 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 we were ever that high. I know that at 1 point we had close to 95,000 riders back in, I 1
believe, 2016. 2
3
Commissioner Lu: Yeah. 4
5
Nate Baird: We had close to 95,000 annual riders or 97,000. It was much, much higher but it 6
declined every year… 7
8
Commissioner Lu: Yeah. 9
10
Nate Baird: …for several consecutive years. Back in 2017, we presented to Council a transit – a 11
shuttle transit service vision that really, I guess, suggested that in order to grow the passengers, 12
we would need to really expand and enhance that shuttle service and that's when City Council 13
actually directed us to look at this on-demand microtransit type model. 14
15
Commissioner Lu: Yeah. Okay. I think that context is useful. 16
17
Philip Kamhi: Yeah. And one more thing – another thing about the apples to apples, I'm sorry, I 18
don't mean to go on a long...I know it's late but this service really provides rider – opportunities 19
for ridership everywhere and our prior service model with the fixed route transit, including 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.
both shuttle routes that we had, the Caltrain shuttle route, our shuttle route and all of VTA’s 1
service only provided coverage to 61 percent of our population within a quarter mile walkshed. 2
So this service is very different in that regard, that it really does provide options for everyone. 3
4
Commissioner Lu: Yeah. Got it. One mo-, or a couple more questions. How do we think this 5
interacts with our Safe Routes to School program? And do we think this is cannibalizing cycling? 6
In particular, I also think it's interesting how Paly has so many more trips than Gunn and I 7
wonder if Gunn trips are just routed a block over to the research park where people can ride for 8
free and maybe that Gunn ridership is actually underreported and inappropriately lumped in 9
with Stanford Research Park. So curious if there are any comments on that. 10
11
Philip Kamhi: Yeah, well, that is something we're looking into and we're trying to see if 12
potentially we can do a specific survey in order to find out more information about how would 13
you take this trip otherwise if the shuttle service was not available? Which is a common 14
question that we would ask for that. I'm not sure about the – I can't speak to whether people 15
are inaccurately getting off in the Stanford Research Park zone. That's something we can look 16
at, though, based on the time of day. We could easily kind of determine that. And that's the 17
kind of thing we could have our – that's actually one of the benefits of the – I'm sorry, Nate, I'm 18
not letting you talk at all but that's one of the really great things about this as a service is it's 19
really, really data rich. 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, I think that makes sense. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: And I will add anecdotally, I see two or three of these Link vans at 4
Gunn every day. 5
6
Commissioner Lu: Okay. 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: When I'm driving out or when I'm driving home because [Holly's 9
4:20:49] – I have to pass that to take my daughter to her stop. 10
11
Philip Kamhi: And actually my last shared trip I picked up students at the high school along our 12
way. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: Do you know if you pick – if the pickup was inside the school parking 15
lot or adjacent? Because it could be that the address of pickup is not the same address as the 16
school. 17
18
Philip Kamhi: It was – no, it was right in front of the school. 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: Okay. I'm not saying that's a super high priority thread to investigate. I know 1
that was flagged as a council concern way back and it's the kind of thing that if we're providing 2
an over subsidy or a loophole, we're only in year one. It's great that we'll have the ability to 3
quickly verify and close these over time so, I’m not overly concerned [inaudible 4:21:43]. 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: But to your accessibility, I mean your inclusion issue, a lot of the 6
students that are comfortable taking public transportation to and from school, live – some of 7
them live in adjacent cities. 8
9
Commissioner Lu: Right. Okay, I had – okay, just a couple more questions. So it looks like the 10
cost to continue for another 12 months is around $1.7 million and so far, the city has spent 11
around $1.5 million for a bit less than a year but that includes, I guess, a $95,000 startup fee. It 12
also includes presumably the capital costs of the actual vehicles and it just seems interesting 13
that, in that first year when we expect costs to be significantly higher, those costs are still less 14
than the operation for this kind of second ongoing year, if that makes sense. One point seven 15
million for a year without startup costs versus $1.5 for this first year with startup costs. Can we 16
comment a little bit about the costs and really whether we think there's any hope of getting 17
them to actually trend down or trend down per ride in a meaningful way in the future? 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.
Philip Kamhi: Probably going to need Nate to speak to this but I want to make sure I understand 1
your question. Trend down per ride, you mean the cost per trip? Is that what you're... 2
3
Commissioner Lu: Right. Right now it's $30. We spend $30 for every trip and I don't expect 4
super high farebox recovery but if we get more trips and we get to the point where we're $20 5
per trip or $15 per trip, I think that's at a more sustainable level still above other transit services 6
but maybe more, yeah. 7
8
Nate Baird: Yeah, so I think the actual answer to your question is that the capital costs are kind 9
of built into the monthly operating because Via leases the vehicles and there's just ongoing 10
capital maintenance costs built into those operation costs. And at the beginning in March, 11
when we had the startup costs, Via has a pretty efficient startup team. They transitioned us. We 12
had a startup team, five, six team members of theirs that we worked with pretty regularly that 13
do all their – they have a lot of specialists on their team. And so all those capital costs for – I 14
think that $90,000 initiation fee covered most of that first month's startup things but in terms 15
of real capital costs, it's not like we buy a bus and then... 16
17
Commissioner Lu: Got it. 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.
Nate Baird: …have – it's more that they've figured out how to spread those infrastructure costs 1
of this type of program out into their operating costs over time. And in general, microtransit is 2
more expensive 3
4
Commissioner Lu: Yeah. 5
6
Nate Baird: …than other forms of transit. But in a suburban environment where we don't have – 7
where so many folks are far away from our trunk transit lines, I believe it's pretty good – it’s a 8
good option for us if we can figure out how to pay for it. And again, I don't – I really, speaking to 9
the earlier question about active transportation, I really want to think about single occupancy 10
vehicle driving as the target of our efforts and also of our Safe Routes to School Program over 11
time. Transit and bicycling and walking go really well together. I think the right way to think 12
about it is how should we make – how can we make transit, walking and bicycling easier than 13
driving? And this program really does help all of those, make more trips possible for all of those 14
modes. 15
16
Commissioner Lu: Yeah, I appreciate that. And yeah, I feel like I'll also have to think offline 17
about how we can ride or how we can grow ridership in a way that maintains overall costs at a 18
similar line so we can actually get the cost per ride down. And I think there's a lot of 19
opportunity for growth. Okay, I'll try to make some quick comments and just kind of batch it all 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.
together. I overall am really appreciative of the work from staff and from Via for making this 1
program work. I think the equity and access benefits are great. I think the costs for consumers 2
are actually really great as well. I know there were some concerns about the costs but that the 3
actual average realized cost as a dollar per ride is, I think, really accessible and great for 4
consumers. I think the overall costs for the city are manageable and will hopefully go down on a 5
per ride basis. I think the environmental sustainability and traffic reductions are reasonably 6
solid as well if we're pooling 65 percent of rides. I am really encouraged by the recent program 7
to offer free services for teens to various destinations. I think it's really exciting and I think, in 8
the years to come, we can find other opportunities like that where we have really targeted and 9
focused benefits that we can unlock through programs like this. A few general points that I 10
don't have the answers for. I do wonder how to make this more successful with Caltrain. We 11
want it to be last mile. Caltrain's only 2 percent. I realize it's probably pretty hard for you to get 12
off a Caltrain and have to wait anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes and you don't really know how 13
long it'll be in advance. I don't have the solutions but I think that's a significant opportunity and 14
maybe also a challenge just in terms of actual last mile connectivity. I would also love for us to 15
explore a partnership to expand not just to Stanford Research Park but Stanford overall. If 16
Stanford was willing to pay for that or if we could just charge trips to Stanford at a higher rate, 17
remove the discounts, I think it would still be a really compelling service. And, yeah, one last 18
kind of more detailed note, looking through the data, which was also awesome and thank you, 19
by the way, Nate Baird. Well, actually, I do have a couple of nitpicks. I'll email you offline 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.
the data but it seemed like we had 700 plus canceled or no showed rides per month and that 1
was a pretty significant percentage. I forget, 15-ish percent of the overall rides. I feel like that's 2
a pretty significant margin to inconvenience people, waste some vehicle miles traveled. And 3
maybe there can be some penalty or – either financial or a one day lockout from using the 4
service if you cancel or no show or something like that. So, yeah, I appreciate the program 5
overall. See a lot of exciting opportunities. Thank you. 6
7
Philip Kamhi: I just have to quickly respond to one of the, well, it wasn't exactly a question, but 8
the note about the Caltrain. I think one of the limitations that we see with Caltrain trips is they 9
often would occur outside of our service window. So if you're working a normal job hours and 10
you need to either… 11
12
Commissioner Lu: Right. 13
14
Philip Kamhi: …you're leaving Palo Alto and you need to get to work, you're probably leaving 15
before eight, potentially. 16
17
Commissioner Lu: Right. 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.
Philip Kamhi: And you're probably coming home after five. So that, yeah, that's the challenges. 1
And this is – one of the keys to the questions… 2
3
Commissioner Lu: Yeah. 4
5
Philip Kamhi: …or a lot of the comments that we received basically are, I would use this if it was 6
– or I could use this more often if it was working in those hours so... 7
8
Commissioner Lu: That definitely makes sense. But if you work at the Stanford Research Park 9
and you get take Caltrain and arrive in Palo Alto at 8 AM, that's incredibly reasonable for you to 10
take a Palo Alto link to the research park, but – or yeah, okay. You're right. You can take the 11
Marguerite, but yeah, maybe there aren't too many other major employers where this would 12
be a significant draw during commute hours. I'd have to think more about that, but yeah, that's 13
a good point. 14
15
Philip Kamhi: But it is something that – you're absolutely right. It is something where we would 16
love to see an increase in that, really that first last mile connection. 17
18
Chair Summa: Commissioner Akin and then Reckdahl. 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 Akin: In fact, Commissioner Lu asked all the questions that I wanted to ask. So 1
that was very thorough. Thank you. I'm very happy to see this. I think it's successful. I hope we 2
can sustain and grow. And by the way, well done on the ride sharing percentage. That's very 3
encouraging. Thank you. 4
5
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah. Sixty-five percent, that's really impressive. How do you do that? 6
Is there a human dispatcher in the loop or do you have software that does this or… 7
8
Philip Kamhi: Yeah. I wish that I could have our contractor, Via, speak to – I'm not sure if I'm 9
going to get a text message telling me but I believe it's by algorithm. It's done by algorithm. 10
There is actually a person there that would take – yep, algorithms. That's a simple text, 11
algorithms. But there is a person there that will take calls and will book trips for people if they 12
don't want to use the app. We do have an app as everybody probably knows but there's a 13
person there that will book the trips and I suppose will manually add it into their algorithms. 14
15
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. So in theory, you could have just drivers and a software server 16
somewhere and you could route everyone. There's no human required for the dispatch. 17
18
Philip Kamhi: So we have required a human because we want somebody that maybe doesn't 19
have a smartphone to be able to do that. But yes, otherwise you're 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
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. Yeah. I have elderly parents and having that person on the 2
phone is really a safety net for them. And how do you do it with rush hour? I would think that 3
there's so much demand that you could get a hundred requests and do you turn them down 4
during rush hour or what happens? 5
6
Philip Kamhi: So I think that's when you see the wait time extend and so that's why if 7
tomorrow, when I'm going to the Stanford Research Park at 1:30, I'm probably going to get a 8
ride that's going to pick me up very, very quickly here from City Hall. So that is – really what 9
happens is as more demand, the vehicles become more impacted, you'll have more shared trips 10
that take longer or longer wait time. 11
12
Commissioner Reckdahl: So if I try something during rush hour, it'll say 40 minute wait and then 13
I can say, no, I don't want it. Is that how it would work? 14
15
Philip Kamhi: Yes. But I don't think we've had any 40 minute waits. I think the one outlier was 16
30 minutes in the wait time, I believe. 17
18
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah. On slide nine, I'm actually quite glad for slide nine because 19
during when I was reading the report is given the mean and mean really doesn't tell 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.
anything because you get nine trips that are two minutes each and then you have a half hour 1
wait. That's a big difference. So this is a nice breakdown. But what I'm worried about is does 2
that tail go out further to the right. 3
4
Nate Baird: Yeah, you are correct that there are some rides that are – and I've experienced it 5
myself trying it one time to have some be a really bad wait time at those rush hours so... 6
7
Philip Kamhi: And actually just to add a little more context, there's more vehicles that are 8
available at the higher peak service times. So there's more vehicles than say the midday or less 9
frequent hours. There's less vehicles available. 10
11
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. But when I book it, say I really should do my homework and do 12
this, but if I book it, it says we think it's going to take 40 minutes or – how does the booking 13
process work? 14
15
Philip Kamhi: Yeah, it's very similar to Uber app. It tells you your estimated ride time and all or 16
arrival time and all that, pickup time I should say. 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: Okay. A couple of sustainability questions. Do we have EVs? On some 1
of the pictures, they have Priuses and they used to have Teslas but I don't think we have Teslas 2
anymore, do we? 3
4
Philip Kamhi: Yes. So we do not have Priuses. We have Teslas and we also have Toyota 5
Highlander hybrids. Those are our wheelchair accessible vehicles. 6
7
Commissioner Reckdahl: I've seen them. Yeah. 8
9
Philip Kamhi: Yeah. Although we do have a grant and are looking to change all of the vehicles to 10
EV in the future. Nate, I'm not sure. Did you want to speak to that at all? 11
12
Nate Baird: Yeah. We have three Toyota Siennas that are hybrids that with the transportation 13
for clean air grant, we'll convert those to fully electric, but the rest of the fleet are Tesla Ys. 14
15
Commissioner Reckdahl: Oh, so we don't have any gas vehicles? We just have a hybrid vehicle? 16
17
Nate Baird: Well, hybrids use gas. 18
19
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah, 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
Philip Kamhi: No full gas or diesel. We have the hybrid electric. 2
3
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah. Okay. How about bike racks? Do we have bike racks on them? 4
5
Nate Baird: Yes. 6
7
Commissioner Reckdahl: All of them do? 8
9
Nate Baird: Yes. And they're working on being able to give us a count of the usage but we don't 10
have that data right now. 11
12
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. And finally, so my parents are getting older and driving is much 13
harder for them and so something like this is awesome. It goes point to point. You're talking 14
about the shuttle quarter mile walk. My parents can't walk a quarter mile anymore. 15
16
Nate Baird: Yeah. So for seniors and disabled, you need to go to the discounted fare section on 17
the menu or let the booking agent over the phone know that you're a senior or disabled and 18
that will unlock address to address trips. 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: Oh, very good. Okay. 1
2
Nate Baird: And in my presentations and discussions with seniors, that is a common topic and 3
unfortunately, we're not able to toggle that on their accounts until they let us know about it. So 4
it does take some outreach and some education in some cases. 5
6
Philip Kamhi: But they can toggle it on their own, just to know they can go into the fares and… 7
8
Commissioner Reckdahl: [Inaudible 4:36:49]. 9
10
Philip Kamhi: …yeah, they can go in and toggle it on their own. 11
12
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. And the request that I see is seniors wanting to – or people 13
wanting to go over to say CVS in Mountain View or Safeway in Mountain View and that's hard 14
because your city’s now paying to go somewhere else and pay sales tax in another city. But I 15
could see like PAMF down in Mountain View, that Palo Alto and PAMF is so tight. My parents 16
live in a county that does this and they s-, if you're a senior, they go to any medical facility 17
within a certain radius even outside the county, they'll drive you to if you're a senior. And 18
maybe something like that would be a way of – and especially medical community would be 19
something that would be fairly in demand. 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 4:37:35]. 2
3
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah. Okay. Anyway. Yeah, I think this is a really good program. I think 4
it's worth the money. I – We can try and find the money and keep it going. Thank you. 5
6
Chair Summa: Okay. I will take a few minutes to thank you very much for this program. It seems 7
to have been very successful and I hope the city can continue to support it and also expand it 8
and expand maybe some of the partners. So places it's going to frequently can participate. And 9
it's great that you recently expanded services to teens. I think anything we can do to help our 10
teenage community is a great thing. So all in all, I think it’s really succ-, I think it's been really 11
successful. I was very happy and I agree with Commissioner Lu that it provides a really great 12
service for some of our community that needs this kind of thing really badly. So it's great. And I 13
see all these things working together to make our city more walkable and – so people have 14
options, they don't have to get in the car every time they want to. So I am very much in line 15
with my colleagues in supporting this program and wishing you the very best in your next year. 16
It sounds like you would have – if you had more hours and expanded the service in some other 17
ways, you would have even more – you'd be able to satisfy more requests. And so I don't want 18
to take more time and just thank you very much and wish you good luck at Council. 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: I have one more last question. I'm sorry, I forgot to ask this. It's two 1
parts. One is how – you take minors from what ages? 2
3
Nate Baird: Thirteen, yeah, 13 and up, you can ride alone with consent. Below 12 and under, 4
you can ride with a parent and an appropriate child seat. 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: Okay, great. The follow-up question, the reason I asked that, I was 7
talking to a friend of my daughter's who doesn't live here but comes to visit us and she also has 8
a boyfriend in Palo Alto. And so she wants to go from our house to his house and what I didn't 9
see in the report, because I told her about the service, you should use this. You don't need to 10
have people come all the way over here and drive you from here to there. And so she wants to 11
go from one friend's house to another friend's house. And she said, well, what's the security 12
like? I don't know if it's safe. And so I would love for you to have some – amongst your 13
statistics, something that says this is a really safe service so that I can show her, prove to her 14
that she should take this service. I assume you didn't show anything because there's been no 15
incidents. Is that correct? 16
17
Nate Baird: It depends on – we've had – I'm trying to think what sorts of incidents we've had. 18
We've had minor fender benders. We have a record of all of those. It's actually in the data that 19
we shared. So they keep track of everything. But yeah, in general, it's a very safe service. 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: Yeah. I think it would be really wonderful to advertise that because 2
people like to know that they're going to be safe in using services. So I think – hopefully we can 3
save a lot of parents from driving to their friend's houses and get people to use this service. 4
Thanks. 5
6
Chair Summa: Okay. Thank you very much. And do I have any additional comments or questions 7
from my colleagues? 8
9
Female: [Inaudible 4:41:39]. 10
11
Chair Summa: Okay. Then call it a wrap. Thank you. 12
Adjournment 13
10:46 PM 14
15
/pw 16