HomeMy WebLinkAbout2024-05-08 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
Action Agenda: May 8, 2024 2
Council Chambers & Virtual 3
6:00 PM 4
5
Call to Order / Roll Call 6
6:01 pm 7
Chair Summa: Good evening, everyone and welcome to the Planning and Transportation 8
Commission regular meeting of Wednesday May 8th. If you could take the roll, please. 9
10
ROLL CALL 11
12
Ms. Dao: Chair Summa? 13
14
Chair Summa: Present. 15
16
Ms. Dao: Vice‐Chair Chang? 17
18
Vice‐Chair Chang: Here. 19
20
Ms. 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
2
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 3
4
Commissioner Hechtman: Here. 5
6
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Reckdahl 7
8
Commissioner Reckdahl: Here. 9
10
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: Here. 13
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Ms. Dao: We have a quorum. 15
16
Oral Communications 17
The public may speak to any item not on the agenda. Three (3) minutes per speaker.1,2 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.
Chair Summa: Thank you so much, now we will go to public comment period, and this is a time 1
when members of the public may speak to things that are not on the agenda. Do we have any 2
cards, Ms. Dao? And I’m looking on the list, I don’t see any … 3
4
Ms. Dao: I have no request to speak for Oral Communications. 5
6
Chair Summa: No request to speak. Okay then we will move on to Agenda changes, additions, 7
and deletions please. 8
9
Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions 10
The Chair or Commission majority may modify the agenda order to improve meeting management. 11
12
Ms. Amy French, Chief Planning Official: There are no changes. 13
14
Chair Summa: Excellent. Moving right on to City Official Reports then please. 15
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City Official Reports 17
1. Directors Report, Meeting Schedule and Assignments 18
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Ms. Amy French, Chief Planning Official: Thank you. One moment. Amy French, Chief Planning 20
Official sharing the upcoming Planning and Transportation Commission meeting dates. Looking 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.
out until August actually, this slide, things do move around, note that we do in the staff reports 1
give target dates, these are not always solid dates but we do try to aim to have reasonably 2
balanced agendas and this gives you a little sneak preview of what’s coming. And then, of 3
course, Council items, looking towards the rest of the fiscal year and then as everyone knows I 4
think, Council takes a break in July, so we have a few things that are coming to Council that the 5
May and June PTC reps will be interested in coming forward that the Planning and 6
Transportation Commission did review. I think the open space home is not coming to the 7
Planning Commission but some of these others are coming through. So, that concludes Item 1, 8
presentation. If anyone has any questions. 9
10
Chair Summa: Any questions? And I don’t know if there is anyone else here from staff who 11
would like to give us an update… I do see Rafael’s hand is up so why don’t we let Rafael go and 12
Mr. Ruis, Rius … sorry. 13
14
Transportation Senior Engineer Rafael Rius: Perfect. The last one is correct. Thank you Chair and 15
Commissioners, Rafael Rius with the office of Transportation, just to give a brief update mainly 16
on the Rail Committee update, the next one Rail Committee Meeting is scheduled of May 23 17
and then that will be followed by a Council meeting… a Council action that was planned for the 18
June 10th meeting regarding the Great Separation Alternatives and I don’t recall if I updated 19
during the last meeting or not but the striping at El Camino and Charleston/Arastradero is now 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.
complete including bike lanes through the intersection going east/west bound, and those are 1
the only updates I have for today. 2
3
Chair Summa: Thank you so much for that. Any questions from my colleagues? Not seeing any 4
so we can move on to our first action item and this is a Planning and Transportation 5
Recommendation to City Council to Certify the Supplemental Environment Impact Report for 6
the North Ventura Coordinated Area Plan (NVCAP) and to adopt an ordinance adding Chapter 7
18.29 and amending chapters 18.24, 18.14 and 16.65 in the Palo Alto Municipal Code. So, we 8
will go straight to our Staff presentation please. 9
10
Action Items 11
Public Comment is Permitted. Three (3) minutes per speaker. 12
13
2. Planning and Transportation Commission Recommendation to City Council to Certify 14
Supplemental Environmental Impact Report (SEIR) for and Adopt the North Ventura 15
Coordinated Area Plan (NVCAP), and to Adopt an Ordinance Adding Chapter 18.29 16
North Ventura (NV) District Regulations) and Amending Chapters 18.14, 18.24, and 17
16.65 in the Palo Alto Municipal Code (PAMC) to Implement the NVCAP. 18
19
Planner Kelly Cha: Good evening, Planning and Transportation Commission my name is Kelly 20
Cha, I’m the project planner for the North Ventura Coordinated Area Plan it is an exciting night, 21
hopefully everyone agrees, staff is asking Transportation Commission to consider and 22
recommend to the City Council to adopt the NVCAP and as well as a draft NVCAP ordinance and 23
certify the Supplemental EIR. Just to provide some context before we get into the details, this 24
whole process started back in November 2017, it was prompted by Comp Plan policy that 25
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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.
basically established… establishing the North Ventura Area CAP process. The City Council 1
initiated the CAP process in November of 2017, shortly after that they also adopted goals and 2
objectives and appointed working group members to guide the plan process, and upon Planning 3
and Transportation Commission recommendation on preferred plan alternative in 2022 City 4
Council endorsed a preferred plan alternative and with that plan staff prepared a draft NVCAP 5
and it was published back in 2023. Staff took the draft document to Planning and 6
Transportation Commission and Architectural Review Board, received feedback on them and 7
we have incorporated those feedback as well as some reorganization to remove redundancy 8
and publish the revised draft NVCAP along with the draft Supplemental EIR in March of this 9
year. So we went to ARB, Architectural Review Board in April to discuss the draft zoning 10
ordinance and received feedback on them and just few weeks ago on the 22nd of April, the 11
required public comment period ended and we’re here tonight for the Planning and 12
Transportation Commission recommendation on the NVCAP. So, this is the NVCAP goals and 13
objectives that was endorsed by the City Council earlier in the process and this is showing the 14
NVCAP area roughly abounded by Page Mill, El Camino Real and Lambert, as well as the Can 15
Train tracks on the north and it’s approximately a 60 acre site that has the Cannery Site inside 16
as well as Matadero Creek. And this is a concept plan visualizing the [TIMESTAMP 18:38 17
Unintelligible] bird alternative endorsed by the City Council that primarily includes 530 dwelling 18
units and adaptive reuse of the cannery structures and envisioning naturalization of the creek. 19
And this is the land use map reflecting the endorsed plan as well, so this shows the current use 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.
zone as commercial to be rezoned to mixed use and also reflects that 530 additional units of 1
build out. So, the draft and NVCAP documents have it has seven chapters: introduction, vision, 2
and design standards and guideline chapters and implementation chapters, this is similar to the 3
one that was reviewed by PTC last year, the difference is that chapter 4 was expanded to 4
include all of the mobility related standards and guidelines, including the street sections and 5
gateway intersections. As a result, the implementations chapter has been condensed. In 6
addition to the revised NVCAP document, Staff has some modifications recommended it is 7
included in attachment F of Staff Report; majority of the changes are in chapter 4, and they are 8
on street sections and gateway intersections for better consistency with the proposed zoning 9
ordinance and other City projects like John Bowler Park Design. This is showing the crosswalk 10
between the NVCAP land use as well as and the zoning districts. As you all know, one of the 11
main implementation for area plan like NVCAP is a zoning ordinance update; Staff is 12
recommending adding a new chapter for NVCAP. The development standards are similar to 13
comparable zoning districts and has a lot of reference to city‐wide context based objective 14
design standards, and has….but has specific street yard standards for each NVCAP district, 15
which might be a little bit different to…compared to the existing zoning chapters. On April 18th, 16
Staff took the draft zoning ordinance to ARB, and ARB provided comments and feedback on 17
them and has some recommendations to modify the zoning ordinance that includes: increasing 18
the lot coverage for NVR3 and NVR4, and changing the minimum street yard to 10 feet for….to 19
encourage high density and more flexibility, and also they’re asking for increased height for 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.
higher density areas as well as considering a way to measure a setback and calculate lot 1
coverage for buildings with basements. So, that concludes the Staff presentation, but the 2
following slides kind of provides the information to... for Planning and Transportation 3
Commission discussion. These are lot coverage setback and maximum height and sidewalk 4
width. So, this slide is showing the comparison between existing zoning and proposed zoning in 5
NVCAP area, and this is showing the changes in development standards that were a reflected 6
after ARB’s feedback, so those are lot coverage and setbacks. The height…maximum height as 7
well this is highlighting the changes from the indoors plans or preferred plan alternative. So, 8
upon recommendation from Planning and Transportation Commission, Staff will take….will 9
forward the recommendation from the Commission to City Council to consider for adoption on 10
June 18th. This is….the Staff recommendation, so…Staff is recommending the commission to 11
forward these actions so that the City Council can consider and adopt the NVCAP in June. So 12
that concludes staff recommendation…..staff presentation and I’m ready to answer any 13
questions you may have. 14
15
Chair Summa: Okay, before we go to questions, I would like to welcome Chair Baltay from the 16
ARB, who is here to help us tonight answer any questions, and also to ask him if he would like 17
to make any kind of presentation. 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.
Chair Baltay: Sure, good evening, thank you for having me address you. We spent quite awhile 1
looking at these standards on several occasions, most recently April 18th of this year, after a lot 2
of review and discussion, we kind of narrowed down parts that we thought were important. 3
4
Chair Summa: Sorry, we can barely hear you, it’s these crazy microphones. 5
6
Chair Baltay: Okay, okay so we narrowed down our thoughts to essentially five categories of 7
things, mostly relating to development standards, which is what the ARB is focused on. Before I 8
do any of that though, we’ve come to think at the ARB that a really valuable zoning tool is the 9
daylight plane, and if we enforce it, a good daylight plane, we get with it really good privacy 10
protection for neighbors, and really good control of the bulk and the mass of buildings relative 11
to the community as a whole, the context based development. We’ve figured it out starting 12
with objective standards a few years ago, but every time we look at this we end up coming back 13
to a daylight plane being the simplest, easiest to enforce, easiest to regulate, easiest for 14
applicants to understand means of regulating this. I say that, because that’s what lets us feel 15
very comfortable with things like saying you really outa have a consistent 10 foot setback, and 16
we ought to allow taller heights on buildings, being comfortable that the daylight plane steps 17
that down at the edges where it affects neighbors and communities; that’s sort of the rationale 18
behind our thinking we should have a higher absolute minimum on height, because we’re 19
confident that our daylight plan requirements regulate the bulk and the mass of a building to 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.
greater, and more sophisticated extent; they’re relative to the property line and things like 1
that. We’ve come up with recommendations, or actually they’re in the code now, requirements 2
for daylight plans in our objective standards, so one thing to understand is that the NVCAP must 3
have in it a requirement that the current objective standards apply to this area, if you don’t 4
have that, then you don’t have the daylight plane and then a lot of what we’re saying doesn’t 5
really work. So, with that, we think 10‐foot setbacks make a lot of sense, rather than having 6
odder numbers, 12 ½ feet for example, throughout the area, keep it simple, keep it 7
straightforward. We think the height can be much higher on multi‐family housing units, R3 and 8
R4 zones, especially in this area; certainly 35 feet is just very low. The reason we’re often 9
concerned about going too much higher is the impact on adjacent R1 or lower density 10
neighbors, residential neighborhoods; the daylight plane will regulate that, let the building be 11
taller if it still is set back properly from the residential neighbors. Same thing applies to lot 12
coverage, although there we see a lot as a practicing Architects, having a 40 or 45% lot 13
coverage just doesn’t give you enough space to work with if we’re trying to get higher density, 14
so we’re recommending 60 and 80% for R3 and R4 zones, just, if we’re serious about increasing 15
the density, you’ve got give a little more space to build. The last thing really is, the…this notion 16
of measuring lot coverage and setbacks for below grade structures, several feet below the 17
ground. We’ve discovered that….frequently we’ll see projects wanting to put parking garages, 18
mostly, below the ground out to the property line. They have to maximize the space to get the 19
parking to make it work, and we’re generally all for that, the problem is that those parking 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.
garages have concrete ceilings, which are generally right at the ground, so they put some sort 1
patio, but that precludes having planting; trees or any kind of landscaping, we frequently see 2
then planters being created on top of these things, that precludes mature trees going in. So, it 3
seems to us to make sense just to say that, if we push it down, say 3 feet, you can really 4
landscape the border of a property very well, and you can still have a garage underneath that, 5
but about 3 feet down lets you have real trees; look at the City Hall, the front of the Plaza, 6
those are big trees, on top of a parking garage. They’re there because we have 3 feet of soil; 7
we came up with 3 feet as a.. not arbitrary, but a recommended number, but if you can just 8
wrap your head around measuring below grade stuff, deeper in the ground, we get the benefit 9
of being able to landscape the perimeter of a property for privacy. We have other 10
requirements for setbacks, daylight planes, that give us that space at the edge, but we have to 11
make it possible to put plants there, that also lets us have open space that’s useful outside 12
that’s green…that’s landscaped. So those two….that really came to us as a real good way to get 13
both things, it’s not that much harder to put the parking garages deeper underground. We 14
struggled, and this is more your issue than ours, that implementing a rule like that, just for the 15
NVCAP, is not very consistent throughout the town, that’s the kind of standard that should be 16
applied uniformly for all development, so the question for you perhaps is, is that appropriate to 17
bury that into the NVCAP regulations, which is what you’re doing today. We struggled with that 18
question, but we felt in the end…our recommendation should go to you, or Council on how you 19
want to deal with that, but our strong consider….our strong thought was that just measure 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 things a couple feet down and it works. So that’s the summary of what we did and 1
thoughts about all this, so I’ll answer any questions, but thank you very much for hearing me. 2
3
Chair Summa: Thank you so much for that, and we will go to questions from PTC… and then to 4
the public. So, I am seeing Commissioner Templeton’s light. 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you… this question is for Staff, and I’m just wondering if you 7
can help us set some guidelines for tonight… as you know we are a body that has a tremendous 8
number of suggestions and opinions, and unafraid to provide them, but we also understand 9
that this is going to go forward in front of the Council; do we have any scope for what kind of 10
feedback we should provide, for example, do we want to be comfortable with making 11
modifications to those numbers for example that we were just discussing or…. or is that too 12
broad, would that set us back to step 1. 13
14
Planner Cha: So, it is Planning and Transportation Commissions discretion to make any 15
modifications to any Staff recommendation, So… 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you, I understand that. 18
19
Planner Cha: That includes the numbers or the height regulations….okay. 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
Commissioner Templeton: What I’m trying to discern is… what kinds of boundaries do we have 2
that would impact the ability for this to go forward to Council. 3
4
Planner Cha: I think as long as the modifications doesn’t impact the… the CEQA analysis, I think 5
we can definitely accommodate any changes. 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: Great, thank you for clarifying that. 8
9
Chair Summa: Commissioner Hechtman. 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you, two questions…for Staff. The first is a timing question, I 12
see on packet page 20…that…two of our grants from CALTRANS and HCD are at risk if we don’t 13
complete the project by the grant due dates, but I couldn’t find in the Staff report when the 14
grant due dates are; can you…..and that may affect this is going to Council June 18th, so can you 15
tell me when those grant due dates are? 16
17
Planner Cha: So initially when we were preparing for Staff report, it was June 30th of this year, 18
so Staff….but at the same time Staff were in coordination with those HCD and CALTRANS and 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.
have extended until next year, of June 30th of 2025. So, we do have time, but definitely we 1
would like to move forward…if we can. 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay, thank you. Second question…relates to…the information that 4
we just heard from the Chair of the ARB, it appears that there are…two places in the draft 5
ordinance where the ARB recommendation and the Staff recommendation are different; in 6
each case the ARB recommendation is 10‐feet higher than the Staff recommendation, and I 7
think we just heard the ARB explain that the comfort level they had in recommending the 8
elevations that they recommended is the daylight plane, that applying the daylight plane, the 9
extra 10‐feet compared to the Staff recommendation, you’re protected. Staff understands how 10
the daylight plane works. I was curious… to hear from Staff why with the daylight plane Staff 11
was uncomfortable recommending, sort of adopting the ARB recommendation as they have 12
done in practically…on all the other ARB recommendations as near as I can tell. 13
14
Planner Cha: I’m going to share some slides, to kind of visually represent the changes in height, 15
so this slide is showing what’s been included in the draft NVCAP. So this the original 16
recommendation of the heights… and this is showing ARB recommendations, so it is kind of… 17
when we are looking at the numbers it’s not as impactful… but when you’re looking with the 18
colors, you can kind of see how it’s… very… abutting… low density areas where the 65‐feet are 19
proposed; so Staff, looking at these… we kind of wanted to make sure that. we can minimize 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 impact to the lower density residential area, and usually Staff is comfortable with…when 1
there’s difference between… like the maximum difference of 15‐feet, is what Staff usually 2
recommends in between the low density and high density. So, looking at that we have 3
recommended lowering some of those medium density areas; so, NVR3 and NVMXM, the 4
medium density mixed‐use designations… but we do agree that the daylight plane definitely 5
provides… a great tool to provide… that… protect the privacy and… ya know… the mass and 6
bulk impacts… reducing the mass and bulk impacts. 7
8
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay, so let me… I think the explanation is… you’re recognizing the 9
daylight plane, but notwithstanding that they’re protected by the daylight plane… you… Staff 10
are sort of uncomfortable with just the bulk and massing even if the daylight plane is satisfied; 11
in… and it’s just in these two instances; am I understanding right? 12
13
Planner Cha: Yes, that’s correct. 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay, alright, thank you for that clarification. 16
17
Chair Summa: Commissioner Chang. 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.
Vice‐Chair Chang: Okay, I’ve got a bunch of clarifying questions. Okay, so, I had a question 1
about the effective density bonus… on height. So, my understanding is that with density 2
bonus… we could see up to 33 additional feet… over and above whatever we ultimately decide 3
for NVCAP in every single area; is that correct? 4
5
Planner Cha: That is correct….So 6
7
Vice‐Chair Chang: So, like 65‐feet would become 98‐feet... 8
9
Planner Cha: That’s correct. 10
11
Vice‐Chair Chang: And then… ya know… if somebody took advantage… 12
13
Planner Cha: Yeah. 14
15
Vice‐Chair Chang: Then… my other question is, does… does the density bonus have any impact 16
on daylight plane, in other words is that one of the things that can be waived, or not? 17
18
Planner Cha: I believe it is one of the things that the applicant or developer can ask as a 19
waiver… so, yes… the answer would be yes… yeah. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Vice‐Chair Chang: Okay, that also was very helpful. Go… you want to… 2
3
Albert Yang, City Attorney : Sorry, I’d just like to jump in on the previous questions about the 4
33‐feet. So, 33‐feet is something that is provided for developments that are 100% affordable. 5
Height can still be waived, or developments that don’t… that aren’t 100% affordable… but that 6
waiver will be based on what’s necessary to permit that development… you know, at the 7
density that’s permitted. 8
9
Vice‐Chair Chang: What implication does that have given that we’re not talking about density 10
for NVCAP, we’re doing FAR instead. 11
12
Mr. Yang, City Attorney: Right, so relying on FAR does provide us with some more control over 13
that bulk and mass…rather than we’re trading that for control over the numbers of units, and 14
so…If someone for example, would normally be intitled to a 20% density bonus, they’ll 15
get…they’ll be intitled to a 20% FAR increase…. and then…. whatever waivers are necessary to 16
accommodate that additional 20% FAR. 17
18
Vice‐Chair Chang: Okay, so if I understand though, it’s sort of based on the design of whatever 19
the applicant submits, so, if they decide to have very high stories, like 14‐feet, or ceilings for 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.
example, then that would result in… higher height… correct? Because they’d [TIMESTAMP 1
37:42 Unintelligible] FAR. 2
3
Mr. Yang, City Attorney: Yes, there is some grey area… around… you know, what is actually 4
necessary to accommodate development to that… at a certain density… but that is what a 5
developer would certainly assert… you know, what we need is 14‐foot ceilings, and therefore, 6
we need this height. 7
8
Vice‐Chair Chang: Okay, and then something that you brought up, Councilor Yang is… that the 9
density bonus 33‐feet really wouldn’t be reached unless it was 100% affordable, but then the 10
100% afford… affordability definition would be based on the states definition, correct? So, the 11
moderate… kind of 80 to 120% would quality as… like if it were 100% moderate, then that 12
would qualify for (interrupted) 13
14
Mr. Yang, City Attorney: No, in this case, the definition of 100% affordable… is going to be at a 15
lower affordability range. Under density bonus law, generally moderate income units don’t get 16
credit for rental projects, but they do get credit for ownership projects. 17
18
Vice‐Chair Chang: That’s right, I forgot about that then. And then I do have… but it… it’s still 19
going to be the State definition, and not the NVCAP definition of 100% affordable, 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.
Because there’s an NVCAP definition, I think on page 24, on packet page 24, which I also had a 1
clarifying question about. 2
3
Mr. Yang, City Attorney: Yes, so it will be the State definition, not the NVCAP definition. 4
5
Vice‐Chair Chang: Okay, since we’re talking about that NVCAP definition on packet page 24… 6
hold on let me get there… okay, so my question is… I’m a little bit confused about the wording 7
here… am I correct in saying that for the purposes of the NVCAP chapter, it is 100% affordable… 8
if a project is a rental project, it would be considered 100% affordable only if the average AMI 9
does not exceed 60%, is that correct? I just couldn’t understand 18.29.040A. 10
11
Planner Cha: So, I think in… as you can see in attachment A, we have both the ARB 12
recommendation as well as Staff recommendation. One of the Staff recommendations was to 13
remove the section… 18.29.090, so that’s the housing incentive program. We initially had…a 14
very NVCAP specific affordable housing incentive, but we’re recommending that with the city‐15
wide housing incentive program, we’re just referring that chapter instead of having a specific 16
one in the NVCAP chapter, so therefore, the definition actually becomes… we actually have to 17
recommend removal of that definition so that we have consistency between that H… Housing 18
Incentive Chapter as well as… 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
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Vice‐Chair Chang: So, what is considered 100% affordable in the HIP? 1
2
Planner Cha: Albert… could you? 3
4
Mr. Yang, City Attorney: Yeah so, that’s still being developed, but for… for rental projects I 5
would expect it to be at lower income…. so 80% to the MRI of below. 6
7
Vice‐Chair Chang: Okay, so if we allow HIP to supersede, then this 18.29.040 becomes moot, is 8
that what you’re saying? 9
10
Mr. Yang, City Attorney: So, I think Ms. Cha was explaining that we just forgot to delete it. 11
That we had recommended removal of this later section that relied on that definition… and… 12
since we removed that later section it’s really not relevant anymore… the definition. 13
14
Vice‐Chair Chang: Okay, but then it means that the new… since we removed that definition, 15
the new definition affordability is going to be at a higher percent AMI 80, instead of 60… is that 16
correct? 17
18
Mr. Yang, City Attorney: Well, so that’s still… going to determined… the city‐wide HIP 19
amendments are going to come the PTC… likely over the summer sometime. 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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1
Vice‐Chair Chang: How about the timing for when this goes to Council… like, is this ordinance 2
going to be approved… like which one’s going to come first? Are we going to have HIP in place? 3
4
Mr. Yang, City Attorney: No… no we’re not. So, what this ordinance says, is that right now for 5
NVCAP we have these new zoning standards, and the NVCAP will also be eligible for HIP 6
enhancements when those are developed. 7
8
Vice‐Chair Chang: Okay…but then if the NVCAP goes into place without this definition of 100% 9
affordable then what definition of 100% for affordable would there be within NVCAP? 10
11
Mr. Yang, City Attorney: Well, so, there wouldn’t be any definition of 100% affordable just for 12
the NVCAP, because nothing would rely on such a definition… 13
14
Vice‐Chair Chang: Right, no I understand…. so then it would be the City’s definition of 100% 15
affordable which at the moment… 16
17
Mr. Yang, City Attorney: No, but… sorry… nothing would rely on a City definition of 100% 18
affordable either. Like, there’s nothing you get for meeting some City definition of 100% 19
affordable, the only benefit that would exist at this time, before the HIP is developed and 20
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enacted, is the density bonus definition of 100% affordable; which is… I was just looking it up… 1
it’s at least 80% for lower income households and at most 20% for moderate income 2
households. 3
4
Vice‐Chair Chang: Okay, so lower incomes defined up to 80%, is that correct?...or is it 50? 5
6
Mr. Yang, City Attorney: It is a State Law definition that I would have to…yeah…follow through. 7
8
Vice‐Chair Chang: Okay, if you don’t mind that would be really great, because I know that this 9
is sort of like a big stumbling point… for our… that’s come up in… for City Council as well as it’s 10
kind of in our city. Okay, I’ve taken up a lot of time. I do have other clarifying questions, but 11
other people can go if they have other clarifying questions. 12
13
Chair Summa: Commissioner Reckdahl. 14
15
Commissioner Reckdahl: We’re introducing this new zone the NV R‐1, and what’s the 16
difference between NV R‐1 and just regular R1? 17
18
Planner Cha: So, the NV R‐1 is basically the low density single‐family home. So most of the 19
development standards that we’re recommending… that it’s consistent with the existing R1 20
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district, but the only difference is that… that is listed in Table 1, so that’s the street yard and 1
parking; because parking we have no requirement of minimum or maximum different from the 2
existing chapters, so the difference… only differences are in the street yard, which is a little bit 3
different from front yard, and the parking; other regulations and standards were relying on the 4
existing requirements in R1. 5
6
Commissioner Reckdahl: So, you said in Table 1. 7
8
Planner Cha: Table 1, under 18.29.060… that’s… I believe packet page 31. 9
10
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay, there’s also Table 1 in 18. So, page 31… so that… well the 11
parking is irrelevant because if we kept it R1 we still can’t enforce parking, right?... by the State 12
Law. 13
14
Planner Cha: Right, so because of the proximity to the CALTRAIN Station, the entire NVCAP 15
area is… we can’t require any parking, so… 16
17
Commissioner Reckdahl: So, that in itself would not require a zone change, but you’re saying 18
that the street yard for R1 is… what is the street yard for R‐1, 20‐feet?... front… 20, okay and so 19
we’re shrinking that, okay. So, second question is… in NVCAP there’s a lot of R1 lots, and a 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
some of those have been converted to NV R‐1 and others have been converted into NV R2, and 1
why were those lots treated differently? 2
3
Planner Cha: I think it’s just the… the NV R1 and NV R2 is basically low density area, but in our 4
NV R2… are facing some of the higher density, so we wanted to have some… a little bit of 5
flexibility allowing additional development standards that might be applicable for like duplex if 6
in the future if it’s… if there’s a desire. 7
8
Commissioner Reckdahl: So, you’re saying that because they have to put up with the height 9
behind them, we want to give them the ability to put a duplex. 10
11
Planner Cha: Well, R2 is basically two family zoning district. 12
13
Commissioner Reckdahl: Correct. 14
15
Planner Cha: So, and then if you see the zoning district map, the NV R2 is along Olive Avenue, 16
and it is in between high density residential and VR4, VR3 medium density residential and 17
surrounded by medium density mixed use, so there is a potential if there is any desire, that 18
provide some potential in flexibility there. 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
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2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
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Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay, so you’re saying that because they’re being impacted by the 1
height on both sides… 2
3
Planner Cha: surrounded, yeah. 4
5
Commissioner Reckdahl: You want to give them the benefit of being able to do duplex. 6
7
Planner Cha: Right, and just to kind of … yeah to be consistent.. 8
9
Commissioner Reckdahl: But NVR1 over on… like in the Pepper area, that’s surrounded by 10
density too... it just seems strange that we’re treating them differently, and to me they don’t 11
look that different. 12
13
Planner Cha: Yeah, I do see that. I think when we were going through the zoning district, we 14
had determined that those R1 areas would definitely stay as single family homes, whereas the 15
R2 area with the Sobrato development going in, there may be some possibility to transition; 16
that’s why we have differentiated, but definitely Planning Commission can liberate and see if 17
that would be appropriate as well. 18
19
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay, thank you. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Summa: Sorry, I may have missed you saying this because I was taking notes and things, 2
but is… on the chart for R1 and R2, is the street yard setback… does that encompass the front 3
yards also? 4
5
Planner Cha: It is basically front yard, anything that is facing the street. 6
7
Chair Summa: Okay, that’s what I thought. 8
9
Chair Summa: But, okay, so… and is it currently 12 ½ feet? 10
11
Planner Cha: That was a proposal from Staff initially for NVCAP. 12
13
Chair Summa: Okay, I see. So is Staff at all concerned about implications to the… that front 14
setback being so small with the lot split… the State lot split law, which… not that we could 15
require parking, but then that becomes… the front setback becomes the only parking under 16
that scenario, cause the State has said you can’t have more than four foot side and rear 17
setbacks. Have we considered that? Because…. 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.
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Planner Cha: There was some discussion, but at the same time you are thinking about maybe it 1
might discourage ADU’s to be located in the front area, as well…. so there was kind of 2
discussion back and forth, and so we just kind of went with the ARB’s recommendation. 3
4
Chair Summa: Okay, but it could potentially become problematic, Staff agrees. 5
6
Planner Cha: There’s a potential. 7
8
Chair Summa: [TIMESTAMP 50:34 unintelligible] that the lot split law seems to be being used 9
very much, it could create… .and there was something in our Staff report about an expectation 10
of use of on street parking also, and it could become very tricky in this area under certain 11
scenarios. I did want to ask about the clarification on… and then I’m going to go back to my 12
colleagues... on packet page 33, and this is mixed use development standards, and I understand 13
that we think that daylight plane and this is consistent with ARB opinion, doesn’t mean we have 14
to have those other setbacks… those other portions of sites that were protected by the 150‐15
foot rule on abutting... so at the bottom... so what I'm curious about is that on package page 16
31, which is multi‐family, maximum height… you’ve removed any protection for portions within 17
fifty‐feet across R3 and R4, and then later, on packet page 33 portions of 150‐feet of abutting 18
residential zoning district, which reflects our current code in general, under MXL and MXH, it 19
says not applicable, but forty‐five foot buffer is retained under MXM and… I was just wondering 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
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2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
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what the logic was there. Packet page thirty‐three, maximum height…. Do you… was the 1
question understandable? 2
3
Planner Cha: I’m sorry, could you repeat… 4
5
Chair Summa: So, on packet page thirty‐one, for multi‐family in R3 and R4, we have retained 6
the daylight plane, but we have no concept of this buffer area for a certain distance for more… 7
for a more dense site… more dense sites at… but lower density sites. So that was removed, and 8
daylight plane exists. Then on package page thirty‐three, towards the bottom under maximum 9
height for MXL, MXM, and MXH… MXL and MXH in response to 150‐foot but say not applicable, 10
but the middle one says forty‐five feet. So, you’ve retained… I don’t know… you know… yeah… 11
and I don’t know if that was a typo… I’m not apining of whether it’s a good idea or not, but we 12
sort of got rid of this buffer zone based on distance from abutting properties in leu of relying on 13
the daylight plane; but here you’ve retained it for that middle density. 14
15
Planner Cha: I think… the… if we actually went through, you would’ve had actually removed 16
that particular role for MX mixed‐use district to be consistent with the residential multi‐family 17
residential, because we do have a reference to daylight plane, the next row as well. So, I think 18
to be consistent, I think Staff would be okay to recommend removing that particular row as 19
well. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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, so it was probably just an artifact. 2
3
Planner Cha: Yes, yes. 4
5
Chair Summa: Okay, Commissioner Chang [Vice‐Chair Chang]. 6
7
Vice‐Chair Chang: Thank you, I’m going to go back to my questions. So, regarding the ARB’s 8
three foot threshold for basements, is that something the City Arborists reviewed at all? 9
10
Planner Cha: So, after the ARB meeting, Staff started coordinating with Urban Forestry 11
Department within the City, we haven’t had a conclusion yet, but we’re still trying to figure out 12
what it… what would be the appropriate depth… yeah. 13
14
Chair Summa: Alright, thanks. Okay, on packet page nineteen… the Staff report says… so, 15
second paragraph down, kind of in the middle of the page, last sentence, it talks about the 16
proposed ordinance updates ensure that housing opportunity sites can still benefit from the 17
few areas where the January 2024 rezoning was more permissive than the proposed NVCAP 18
regulations… could you just give us a little education on what those… like… more permissive in 19
what way, just kind of give us a little summary on what that is. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
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2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
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1
Planner Cha: So, because there was some rezoning of the housing element sites before, and 2
NVCAP came before the Planning Commission and City Council, we actually compared some of 3
the development standards between the NVCAP and the housing element sites and we… Staff 4
found that most… majority of the sites in NVCAP basically has more permissive development 5
standards, so… but some of a few areas… mostly where GM becomes R3 or NV R3, there are 6
some of the… maybe height might be that the rezoning… housing element rezoning had a 7
higher height allowance, than some other elements. 8
9
Chair Summa: Do you know just… do you have any idea of how much? 10
11
Planner Cha: I… don’t… (interrupted) 12
13
Mr. Yang, City Attorney: Okay, so you can find this on packet page thirty‐nine. There’s a table 14
there where there’s just two rows added at the very end… and for NV MXM the maximum 15
height is increased to fifty feet for housing opportunity sites. 16
17
Chair Summa: Which packet page again… what packet page? 18
19
Mr. Yang, City Attorney: Sorry, packet page thirty‐nine. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will 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.
1
Vice‐Chair Chang: There’s no table on thirty‐nine. 2
3
Mr. Yang, City Attorney: Hmm…. Think I’m looking at different [interrupted] 4
5
Vice‐Chair Chang: thirty‐eight Albert I think… thirty‐eight? 6
7
Planner Cha: I think there are some changes in ours in between… since published , but so thirty‐8
eight… so the last rows it says NV MXM NVR3… originally MXM district we had thirty‐five feet 9
proposed, so compared to the housing element sites were… it’s allowing…maximum of fifty 10
feet… the housing element site had a more permissive height allowance, so we have included in 11
there, that’s the same for NVR3 we had initially recommended at thirty‐five feet. So, the 12
housing element site had higher maximum height there as well; so, if we go the Staff 13
recommendation, it might be that everything in NVCAP is more permissive than housing 14
element site development standards. 15
16
Vice‐Chair Chang: Understood. Okay, because Staff’s recommendation for MXM is actually 17
fifty‐five, is that correct? 18
19
Planner Cha: Right, fifty‐five. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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… okay so then, the rezoning that we did affects both MXM and NVR3, 2
or only NVR3? 3
4
Planner Cha: Umm… I’m sorry. 5
6
Mr. Yang, City Attorney: It affects them both…the housing element rezoning affects both of 7
those districts… or it affects the sites that are in both of those districts, right…. because the 8
housing element rezoning only applies to opportunity sites on the inventory. 9
10
Vice‐Chair Chang: Got it….so this is [TIMESTAMP 59:09 Unintelligible] by Staff to just sort of 11
simplify this so we don’t have multiple things to refer too, in other words is…. I mean, is that 12
the reason? 13
14
Mr. Yang, City Attorney: Well, it’s basically because when we rezoned our opportunity sites, it 15
was in order to meet the projected development right, that we had in our housing element, so 16
we didn’t want the NVCAP rezoning to then, you know, be a reduction in any of those standards 17
that we had already sort of calculated out to be necessary for our housing elements. So, we 18
were comfortable with you know, being more permissive than the housing opportunity site 19
analysis had showed earlier, but we didn’t want to reduce the height. I guess we’re seeing now 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
that this is another… probably a remnant it’s not… wouldn’t be necessary if we go with the 1
Staff recommendation, as it was sort of changed after the ARB hearing, but prior to the ARB this 2
was a necessary piece. 3
4
Vice‐Chair Chang: Okay, thanks that makes a lot of sense, and then my… while I have Mr. Yang 5
on… for packet page forty… this is another affordability question. So, on packet page forty, 6
16.65.040A, number two; it talks about 15% of the dwelling units in the project at rates 7
affordable to lower income households, so that’s that lower income definition again…. and do 8
you… is that fifty to eighty percent of (crosstalk) … So, then earlier in our conversation when 9
you referred to lower income as well… in the state definition of 100% affordability, that’s also 10
fifty to eighty, or eighty percent AMI, correct? 11
12
Mr. Yang, City Attorney: Correct. 13
14
Vice‐Chair Chang: Okay, thank you…. and then my final question is on the street side setback, 15
so, can Staff give some background as to why the initial Staff recommendation was 12.5 as 16
opposed to 10, or what was the thinking of something more than… for something more than 17
10. 18
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.
Chief Planning Official Amy French: This may have had to do with the El Camino Real build two 1
line… it was a build two line concept that was a twelve foot effective sidewalk… so I’m guessing 2
that is where that was drawn from; because we don’t have twelve foot anywhere else in our 3
code, except the build two line. 4
5
Planner Cha: That might be correct. 6
7
Vice‐Chair Chang: Okay, so then I did see on packet page 31…about the….kind of like 8
the…top…towards the top of the page when it talks about minimum setbacks and street yard 9
setback. There’s a reference for page mill sufficient to create a twelve foot effective sidewalk 10
width, is that why it’s 12.5? Like, why… I’m just trying to understand… like what are the 11
implications of reducing from 12.5 to 10, and… I thought maybe understanding their original 12
logic would help, but frankly I’m just trying to get at implications so if Staff can explain the 13
implications that’ll… that’ll do it for me. 14
15
Ms. French: We’re speculating perhaps it was additional curb area if they were doing some 16
planting areas or such…. because it’s about… well… it’s more like four inches. 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.
Vice‐Chair Chang: And then…. because I’m also looking at…. like… so… why for Ash are we 1
saying five feet…. Ash and Acacia. Are we saying five feet versus…. what’s the…. what’s the logic 2
behind all of these different setbacks? 3
4
Ms. French: Certainly, a five foot… a five foot setback is needed for a side… you know? A 5
sidewalk is often five feet wide right, for two people passing, at a minimum, so that would be 6
you know, the bare minimum. 7
8
AVice‐Chair Chang: So, this is a setback from the street…. or setback from the property line? 9
And is the sidewalk generally part of the property, or parti or not. 10
11
Planner Cha: So, I… I can’t really… it’s not 100% certain… as I’m speculating here. This 12
particular NVCAP area is to sort of allow higher density to create the neighborhood… walkable 13
neighborhood, transit friendly neighborhood, so we wanted to probably maximize the 14
developability of these lots, so we have probably reduced from the existing setbacks that we’re 15
familiar with, to allow that additional density and flexibility for the designers. 16
17
Vice‐Chair Chang: Okay, but then…like….why five feet…why is it okay for some streets to be 18
five, and then other ones ten…and then what’s the implication…is there any….what’s the 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.
downside, if any, to reducing from 12.5 to 10; in terms of sidewalks, bike lanes, whatever… 1
whatever it is that we might be wanting to do. 2
3
Planner Cha: I don’t think there is a downside in terms of right away improvements… like the 4
bike lanes and sidewalk because usually those are located in right of way outside of the 5
property lines. In El Camino Real and Page Mill area, we do ask some… some of the front yard 6
to be dedicated to right of way to create a more comfortable sidewalks, that’s why we have 7
that… the sufficient setback for… to create effective sidewalk, but usually…it…it’s sufficient to 8
use the right of way area to provide those bike lanes and….facilities for sidewalks, so I don’t 9
think there’s a huge downside to reduce down to ten feet, other than maybe… like the lot split 10
or other single family home development implications, but I think generally high level there 11
shouldn’t be a downside… I don’t think. 12
13
Vice‐Chair Chang: If a car…like how deep is a parking space in a garage for example, so if we 14
were wanting to be able to allow for that possibility of a car to be parked….in a driveway or 15
something like that…. how deep would that need to be? 16
17
Ms. French: So, typically a garage we want to have a…like a… one car garage would have ten 18
foot clear space to meet code, on the inside because there’s walls there. Often on a street 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.
parking space is going to be ten…. marked at ten feet for a parallel parking space, ten feet wide; 1
it’s wider than you need it to be, but that’s for the door swings, etc. 2
3
Vice‐Chair Chang: Okay, so theoretically, (crosstalk) the depth 4
5
Ms. French: Oh, the depth? 6
7
Planner Frick: Yeah, depth is typically closer to twenty feet, roughly but… 8
9
Ms. French: Well…Yeah, minimum parking space is eighteen… 10
11
Planner Frick: Yeah yeah…like for the length…you know… it varies but yeah… 12
13
Ms. French: But in a garage space it would be twenty. 14
15
Planner Frick: But yeah….so I think that’s like why historically why you’ll see a lot of… you 16
know, single‐family lots developed with a twenty foot setback, is to allow like the full length of 17
a car to park within the driveway in front of the garage; but just to… I just wanted to kind of 18
jump in a little bit on some of the setback changes. So, the numbers… like the 12.5 feet, those 19
numbers came from like an earlier draft that was from the study session from about a year ago, 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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roughly, and so, you know…. we met with the Planning and office of Transportation Staff to 1
really go over… you know… like, scrutinize those setbacks, and look closely at whether there 2
were any implications of… you know… changing them, and so, ultimately…you know… to sort of 3
answer your question, we didn’t see any drawbacks necessarily of changing to what’s proposed 4
in the Staff recommended redline version; and in particular as it relates to parking because this 5
area has no minimum parking requirements due to the location to the the station, that’s 6
something that you know, we were factoring into some of that analysis for those discussions, if 7
that helps. 8
9
Vice‐Chair Chang: Yeah, that does help. Okay, then final question…. on Park Boulevard… that’s 10
where we have bike lines and stuff like that, and often on like larger streets, like Park or Page 11
Mill or El Camino, we’re concerned about setbacks because of bike lanes, or wanting to be able 12
to construct things in that area, is that a concern at all for any of the proposed setback changes 13
that are being made? 14
15
Planner Cha: No, if you see…. the street sections, it actually proposes the bike lanes and 16
sidewalks all outside of the property line, so all within the right of way… so there isn’t any 17
problems or issues. 18
19
Vice‐Chair Chang: Okay, thank you. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
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Planner Frick: And just… if I may, just following up as well; so, the changes to the street 1
sections was also you know…. a result of kind of how these changes were for the setbacks as 2
well, because we really want it to look holistically like you’re saying it… like how does it work 3
functionally as part of like the redevelopment vision for the NVCAP. 4
5
Chair Summa: And then, just one last question about setbacks, on packet page 30 under 6
minimum setbacks, there’s an additional note that said: setback lines imposed by special 7
setback map pursuant to Chapter 20.8 of this code may also apply; I think this duck tails on to 8
what Commissioner Chang [Vice‐Chair Chang] was saying, so would we… I’m assuming that’s a 9
special setbacks that we have on arterial streets. 10
11
Ms. French: That’s correct, the special setbacks are marked on the special setback map all over 12
town. 13
14
Chair Summa: So, are…is that consistent with the setbacks being proposed, also retain….of…for 15
the future use of what multimodal streets probably, the special setbacks with the new setbacks. 16
17
Planner Cha: I don’t believe so… are… the questions is whether the setback would impact the 18
improvements on the right of way, like bike lanes or sidewalks… 19
20
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Chair Summa: Not the public right of way, the setbacks imposed on privet property. 1
2
Planner Cha: Private property? 3
4
Chair Summa: Yeah, it seems…I’m just asking if it’s contradictory. 5
6
Ms. French: Yeah, I think what…we don’t have a…special setback map handy, I don’t think in 7
our slides. 8
9
Chair Summa: I do. I think I might. 10
11
Ms. French: If you give us a minute, we can pull that up. 12
13
Chair Summa: Yeah, I mean you can…maybe we should discuss that later because if….I mean 14
there’s a chance that…that cell is not accurate or in….ya know, in congress with the other 15
setback. 16
17
Ms. French: I think in our regular zoning code…when there’s a special setback there’s…that 18
becomes the default and people can come through and request a variance from special 19
setbacks, but the usual setbacks, for instance in an R1 zone is twenty feet, and then on a street 20
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that has a special setback, well, that’s twenty‐five feet and those can [unintelligible] situations, 1
right. 2
3
Chair Summa: And I don’t even know if Park has a special setback, I don’t recall off the top of 4
my head, so, okay. So, if I am seeing another question from Commissioner Reckdahl. 5
6
Commissioner Reckdahl: Couple questions. Talking about setbacks, some of the setbacks have 7
numbers from the property line, and some say sufficient to create a twelve foot, effective 8
sidewalk width, why do we have an effective sidewalk width, why wouldn’t you just figure out 9
how…where the property line is and have a number? 10
11
Ms. French: So, again, this dates back to the El Camino Real design guidelines that set that, it’s 12
the combination of eight plus four, I think eight was the setback and four was the planter strip 13
or something, to make a twelve foot. So, with the question is why don’t we just…map it on the 14
map, because each…I mean some…sometimes there’s a planter strip, sometimes there isn’t, ya 15
know… 16
17
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yes, but if…so, you talk about that eight plus four, where would the 18
property line be on that, at the curb? 19
20
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Planner Cha: So we have this sufficient setback to create the effective sidewalk because, some 1
of the right of way distance, or width is different as you go along the street; sometimes we have 2
to ask the property owners to dedicate… or by easement… have a little bit more than some of 3
the other property owners, maybe few blocks away, so you….we have initially said maybe zero 4
to ten foot the range, but ya know, we don’t know what it’s going to be so we just change it to 5
sufficient setback to make sure we have twelve foot, and that can be changed by property. 6
7
Planner Frick: So, if it’s helpful…so the…basically on an individual property basis, it could vary 8
where…you know a specific feature is located in relation to the property line, like a sidewalk, 9
and the intent of it is to make sure that as the plan develops and the corridors develop, that 10
that vision is coherent in terms of like…the features that will be developed as the build out 11
occurs. So, the effort…why it’s indicated differently, is because…ya know, Staff believes that it’s 12
important that those specific sidewalk widths are able to be accommodated through the 13
buildout, kind of along… 14
15
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay, and so when you define sidewalk width, is that from the 16
property line, or is that from the existing street? 17
18
Ms. French: Well, it would typically be from the curb. So there’s a diagram on packet page 72 19
that might help; showing the clear walkway and the tree bed, the clear walkway being eight, 20
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and the tree bed, and at the edge of the tree bed, it’s assuming it’s a planter strip there, that’s 1
the curb. So, you start measuring at the curb, and that goes back towards the property. 2
3
Planner Cha: So, also, El Camino Real Street section also reflects that as well. So, that shows 4
four and eight that Amy previously mentioned. 5
6
[crosstalk] 7
8
Planner Cha: So, the El Camino Real Street section also shows that how much you have to 9
actually push into the property to create that effective twelve foot sidewalk. 10
11
Ms. French: Measured from the curb. 12
13
Planner Cha: Measured the curb…. that’s packet page I think 7.1. 14
15
Commissioner Reckdahl: Item 7. And so….is this because El Camino isn’t parallel to the 16
property lines or the property lines zig and zag, why is…why did El Camino decide to have this 17
property…this sidewalk width, as opposed to everyone else just saying from the property line. 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
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Ms. French: Yeah, I believe it’s part of that exercise back in 2002, there was the sidewalk width 1
was sometimes eight feet, sometimes less; it varied up and down El Camino, so it’s a larger 2
conversation about exactly about El Camino, but that’s where this is derived from, that exercise 3
back in 2002. 4
5
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay, heritage. Okay, second question is on the daylight plane. When 6
I look at…on packet page 31, it refers me to a section in the code that shows a daylight plane, 7
and I’m used to the daylight plane being like ten feet at the property line, and then going up at 8
forty‐five degrees or thirty degrees; in this one it starts at twenty‐five, is that….so when I look at 9
the code that’s cited there on packet page 31, the daylight plane starts at the property line at 10
twenty‐five feet, and then goes up at forty‐five degrees from that, and that seems to be a 11
significant changes, is that the way it’s supposed to be, or is this a typo? 12
13
Ms. French: I believe that’s intentional, and I don’t know if you have additional questions about 14
the…the Architectural Review representative could answer questions about logic on some 15
things. 16
17
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay, that’s all I have for now, thanks. 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.
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Chair Summa: Okay, and for clarification a special setback does exist on Park, I just checked the 1
zone map, but it starts at Lambert, and goes south and I’m sure that was for the intention for 2
bike lanes, so…okay, so I would like to go to the Public now please. 3
4
Chair Summa: Do we have any… 5
6
Administrative Associate Veronica Dao: Yes, I have….one speaker card from Yugen Lockhart. 7
8
Chair Summa: Thank you. I can’t see right now. 9
10
Chair Summa: Good evening. 11
12
Yugen Lockhart: Hello Council, Yuden Lockhart, do I need to spell it? No… okay, other ones… 13
Most of you know me, so anyways. I’m an Olive Avenue resident, I’ve been there my entire 14
forty‐six years of life, born in the house, so this is my neighborhood. I know all of the neighbors 15
on Olive at least, and even some on Pepper. I’ve watched this neighborhood evolve quite a 16
bit… so this is kind of my backstory, but I’m still living on the street, my brother lives next door, 17
my parents have an apartment on the site of our dwelling. Ya know, we’ve been observing…. 18
kind of chaos, and so… so I’m here…. I’ve actually changed my speech about four times while 19
sitting here this evening. And…. it… I’m just confused about even why we’re trying to approve 20
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the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
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at this juncture…you know we paused a lot of this NVCAP stuff for quite a while, and 1
approved…I had a list but….it’s a whole bunch of projects you know…the Acacia, the charities, 2
the fries thing was quite an adventure, but these are approved projects going on, even the Foot 3
Locker, which is 3225 El Camino, it’s been stalled for years, and they’re up to four‐stories right 4
now, is active; so really this….my point is, there’s not many construction projects left within this 5
neighborhood, ya know we got….I’m going to call it the Verizon store, that’s a pending….maybe 6
coming up, and everybody’s hot and heavy to build up the parking lot of Cloudera, as the big 7
brown square on the charts that we’re seeing; and bulldozing a bunch of beautiful Redwood 8
and Pine trees to make those high density housings that are twelve and a half feet of the 9
sidewalk…..so….and then I’m looking….this last bit of conversation talking about all the 10
residential getting allowed to move closer to the street, probably actually not a big thing for 11
me, but at the same time it feels like the residence is everybody’s been dancing around all of 12
us...this...this entity that just can’t be adjusted and we must stay in 850 square foot houses, tiny 13
for Palo Alto, but you….meanwhile, everybody else has already gotten special permission to 14
grow well beyond the stand….the previous standards, but now we’re setting up new standards 15
for the couple more big developments that are going to try and get into this neighborhood, but 16
it’s mostly just blocking all the individual houses from doing anything. Seems like the biggest 17
obstructed people of this whole NVCAP, and we’ve all been just demanding that transportation 18
is one of the people of this meeting is make sure the flow of this neighborhood seems like 19
square one for a development project. My pet peeve is….oh my gosh I’m losing….the Hanson 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.
Avenue, leading into, I’ll call it where the Foot Locker is there, it should actually veer way off to 1
the right to go to Lambert, make a ring road, and then make all the other smaller 2
projects….roads as veins instead of arteries. Olive Avenue is a major artery, everybody’s cutting 3
the corner, El Camino everybody in transportation says we can’t make a right turn on El 4
Camino, cause it’s State run, that seems kind of bologna to me, but whatever, and we’re talking 5
about setbacks, but most of those projects are already approved, so…you know why are we 6
worried about approved projects, when everybody’s going to ask for special dispensation 7
anyways, so those are a couple of my rants on this. You know, as far as residential dwellings on 8
Olive Avenue, if anybody goes through that street, it…every single instance is…was almost 9
special. We’ve got a little batch of houses, and then we’ve just got a couple of brand new 10
house with Junior ADU and rear ADU, they were going to do two more next to that, they 11
changed their mind on keeping the house, but throwing the ADU’s in the back. Meanwhile, we 12
talked about that at Olive and Ash, there’s a two‐story commercial building, and the zoning has 13
got them as a special dispensation, that should just be R1 with everybody else, let the building 14
stay, no body’s asking to bulldoze it, but at the same time, why is that one a special issuance, 15
we should just have a red ring, according to that drawing, and then everything zoned in 16
accordingly, this is just my opinion. Looks like I’m out of time, but….good luck, but I don’t 17
recommend approving it, I’d say stall and wait until you guys are done, so it….especially with he 18
Fries allocation to the city of Palo Alto, I would say stall it until you guys have decided what 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
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
want to do, that way you can get your own special dispensation too, that can be taller; because 1
there’s no residences around it, anyways, good luck. 2
3
Chair Summa: Thank you so much for your comments, it looks like we have one more caller on 4
Zoom. 5
6
Ms. Dao: Yes, I have one on….one raised hand on Zoom from Cedric. 7
8
Cedric dLB: Hello, thanks for having this meeting. Yeah…I think one of my concerns was….with 9
that…notion of having underground structures being able to go all the way up to the edge of 10
the property line, below a certain depth….I hope that you…..is sounds like you are discussing 11
that with the City Arborists and other knowledgeable people who would know what is a 12
sufficient depth. I did a quick search online, and I found a database of the maximum root 13
depths of different California plants, and ya know…given that….you know granted that’s the 14
maximum root depth, so I don’t know what the required minimum root depth would be, but 15
only twenty‐seven percent of the plants had a three‐foot or less maximum root depth, so some 16
of the trees, like the Oaks can go down really quite deep…surprisingly deep; tens, eighty‐feet, 17
you know, it’s a….it’s pretty impressive really, so I really think you need to be careful with that, 18
particularly, if you think ‘oh this is interesting, let’s do this everywhere across Palo Alto’, I think 19
that….that’s really quite dangerous direction to go. We do need to protect our natural spaces, 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 I did also note the….one of the Commissioners I think was talking about this strange 1
setback for the MXM on Page Mill, it’s listed as five‐feet, instead of ten feet or twelve feet, that 2
may be because of existing buildings, but it seems to me that if you want to achieve a ten or 3
twelve foot effective sidewalk width, then you just need a zone for that, and when those 4
existing buildings get rebuilt at some point in the future, you’ll get the ten feet instead of being 5
stuck with whatever the depth is right now. Yeah, so, I think that’s all I have for now at this 6
time. I think that the daylight plane envelope is an interesting way to….try to constrain the 7
building mass and….ya know, let it go as high as it can go within that envelope; I was a little 8
concerned by the notion that some types of projects might be able to completely get around 9
the daylight plane, so, I don’t know if you need some regulations to prevent that particular way 10
of ending up with a giant building right next to smaller ones if those regulations can be 11
somehow subverted…can you put some other regulation on top of that, that can’t be subverted 12
so easily . Great, thank you. 13
14
Chair Summa: Thank you so much, and that concludes our public hearing on this topic, and at 15
this time I would like to ask Chair Baltay if he would like to stay with us for some of the 16
conversation, or… yes, I’m seeing a nod okay, thank you very much. So, I will bring it back to 17
the Commission, and Commissioner Hechtman, thank you for lighting your light. 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
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2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you, so actually in this round I’ve got some questions, I 1
wanted to do those after public comment. I thought those comments were interesting, thank 2
you for sharing them with us. So, the first question is really procedural. So one of the Staff 3
recommendations tonight is that we recommend to the City Council that they certify the SEIR, 4
the Supplemental Environmental Impact Report; but what we have tonight, is just the one of 5
two parts of that, right, because the SEIR is comprised of the draft SEIR, which is what we have, 6
and the final SEIR which is, sort of a layer on top of that, that has any…usually minor changes 7
that might happen to the draft, plus it has the comments, we’ve got four comments, three 8
written, one oral; and the responses to those comments. And from the Staff report, I think 9
those comments came in recently because the window just closed. We don’t have those 10
response to comments, and so, I don’t think we can do exactly what Staff if asking tonight and 11
recommend that the Council certify something we haven’t seen. But what I do think can do, is 12
we can make that recommendation in a qualified way, something like subject to the City 13
Council determining that an adequate response has been provided to comments, in the final 14
SEIR. I think if we phrase that motion that way, then we get past the fact that we haven’t seen 15
that, and it doesn’t have to come back to us. So, I wanted to find out upfront if Staff and Mr. 16
Yang thought that that is a way we could move forward, past this tonight. 17
18
Mr. Yang, City Attorney: Yes, I think that would be acceptable; the other approach we could 19
take is…Staff probably should have phrased that first part of the recommendation as just 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
consider the SEIR, because that’s all that the Planning Commission is really required to do, is to 1
consider the document and it doesn’t have to be the final one. 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay, so maybe that’s actually preferable, because I remember this 4
from many prior projects, that that’s what we’re done, consider, and so I think if we do that we 5
don’t make a motion on the SEIR, instead, as a preface to our motion to the rest of it, that we 6
say, that we considered and can say the draft EIR, but not the final EIR, and then make our 7
motions. Okay, so that’s the procedural issue. The questions I have, really have to do with the 8
ordinance, and so let me just kind of walk through them. I’m going to start with Table 1, which 9
is the permitted and conditionally permitted uses. So, if I understood correctly from Ms. Cha 10
earlier, I think all of the P’s and dashes and CUP’s we see here, those were essentially 11
transported from the base zoning district; to which we’ve now added an N, because it’s in the 12
NV, right? 13
14
Planner Cha: That’s correct. 15
16
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay, alright. So, that’s the origin of it, and you know, as I look 17
through it there were a few sort of head scratchers, because I don’t know if the…I didn’t go 18
back to look at the base Table to see if we have a base Table with actually all eight of these 19
categories in one place, but when I look at all eight together, you know I had a few questions 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
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2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 want to ask, so…and so I’m going to start on packet page 25. Again, these are Table 1 1
questions. So, I see that ADU’s and JADU’s are a permitted use in every zoning category except 2
the public facilities, the PF; and so, I’m thinking about an ADU or JDU in any of the higher 3
density particularly NVR3 through the most dense, and I don’t see how that can actually 4
happen, so I’m just wondering if that’s there because there’s something in the state law that 5
says they have to be allowed in every residentially zoned district. 6
7
Planner Cha: That’s correct, so ADU’s are allowed in single and multi‐family districts. 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 10
11
Planner Cha: That’s why, yeah you see it all Ps there. 12
13
Commissioner Hechtman: Alright, thank you. In the educational, religious, and assembly uses I 14
was just kind of curious we have CUP’s allowed only in the R4…NR4 and NXL, and I’m wondering 15
so….actually, this is kind of a highlight, did Staff, I know you transported all these, but once you 16
had done that, did you…did you sort of look at these and ask does this still make sense, or 17
should be…they be spread more broadly, or was the thought that just this is how it applies 18
throughout the rest of the city, we shouldn’t mess with it. 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.
Planner Cha: Generally, the latter, but we can definitely consider if you think that there should 1
be some of the zoning district that we can…that we should allow with conditional uses, but 2
generally we’re following the city‐wide directions. 3
4
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay, and honestly while…I may quibble with some of these things 5
and think this could fit here, this could fit there, I think that consistency throughout the city 6
code is worth more. So, I’m not going to ask about any of those; the only other comment I’ll 7
make in Table 1 is that I notice you have community centers twice, it appears on packet page 26 8
right under the public quasi‐public uses, and then again on 28, at the bottom of agricultural and 9
open space uses, so I do think that one can be consolidated. 10
11
Planner Cha: Yes, that’s correct, we’ll fix that. 12
13
Commissioner Hechtman: I think I had a couple more questions. Packet page 37, there’s this 14
section of the new ordinance 18.29.100 non‐conforming uses and non‐compliant facilities. So, 15
the text is at the top of page 37, but in the Staff reports that we get, and maybe it’s even…I 16
think it’s online too, is you’ve got the Item 2 box blocking a few words. So, my first question is, 17
what are the words under the box in the first line, after chapter. You may have a box blocking 18
yours too. 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.
Ms. French: We do, we’ll have to go online and see what it says on the online version. 1
2
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay, so let’s come back to that. So, I wanted to ask though, I went 3
and looked 18.70, and….in fact I…did you find it? 4
5
Planner Cha: Yeah, so it says any uses or facilities rendered non‐conforming or non‐complying 6
by this chapter shall be subject to chapter 18.70. 7
8
Commissioner Hechtman: Shall be subject to… 9
10
Planner Cha: Yeah. 11
12
Commissioner Hechtman: That’s what is hidden. Okay. 13
14
Planner Cha: That’s the existing one… 15
16
17
18
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah, everything else we can see. Okay, so I did go look at 18.70 19
and itactually kind of surprised me, but the vision there is 18.70.07B, in any district, a non‐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
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conforming non‐residential use of the site shall be….I’m skipping some of the language….shall 1
be terminated in accord with the following provisions and schedules, when occupying or using 2
facilities designed and built for residential use non‐conforming shall be within ten years from 3
the date such use became non‐conforming, whichever is later. So, really my question here is 4
there’s a lot of office in the NVCAP area, and what is the practical effect of including this 5
provision…. what’s the practical effect of 18.70.070 on that office space? 6
7
Mr. Yang, City Attorney: Yeah, so to...ya know….to the extent it becomes non‐conforming, 8
then it will…need to terminate….I believe within…within ten or fifteen years, unless there is a 9
site specific amortization study that’s completed, that would set a different period. And so, 10
practically what we would expect is for…..ya know these sites to prepare an amortization study, 11
and petition the City to have a site specific schedule established for them, and…yeah, that’s 12
what I would expect. 13
14
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay, that’s helpful. So, that amortization study could buy them 15
another five years, or could buy them whatever the amortization study shows, right? 16
17
Mr. Yang, City Attorney: Right. 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.
Commissioner Hechtman: Newer in, longer out, basically…typically. Okay, so in this preferred 1
plan that we’re looking at, it indicates that there’s, I think we’re reducing office in the NV area 2
by, I think it’s 278,000 square feet, right? And so, that particular square footage reference 3
there, those are on certain parcels…well, I should ask, are those on certain parcels, and that’s 4
what they add up to, so that we know which 278,000 square feet are going to need to 5
terminate in ten years without an amortization schedule, or does that provision to the NVCAP 6
mean all 744,000 square feet of office in the NVCAP is terminating in ten years, except if they 7
get an amortization schedule, they may go longer, which if that’s the case…to me that is 8
inconsistent with the contemplation of the NVCAP that we’re reducing from 744,000 by 9
whatever is…278,000 less than that. So, I’m trying to understand how this is going to work, 10
with the office that’s in the NVCAP. 11
12
Planner Cha: So, just to answer, the specific question about 278, I don’t believe that the study 13
identifies specific sites, it is just the square footage that we have…kind of identified or 14
determined to accommodate that additional housing units. So, it can be…the existing offices in 15
the ROLM area, it can be some of the existing offices in CS districts, but we don’t have any 16
specific site locations identified. 17
18
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. Right, that’s helpful, and then the final question and I’ll end 19
here, this is on packet page 39…and this is one where I just need a little bit of understanding. 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
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2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Toward the bottom of the page it’s section 1665030, subpart A2, for projects on sites five acres 1
or more and all townhome projects in the NV districts, twenty percent are…need to be made 2
affordable, right. So, I think the townhome projects will those….is that just going to be the NV2, 3
or can it be NV3? 4
5
Planner Cha: It can be in multi‐family depending on the density they’re proposing. So, for the 6
NVR3 site, which is the Sobrato site, there were some entitlement improved, that had seventy‐7
nine units approved on that particular site, and those are town home projects as well. 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay, so the concern I had, I think was when I looked at our new 10
map and this NV2 that runs, that I want to say it’s along the Olive spine right, there’s a former 11
R1’s now.. 12
13
Planner Cha: Now R2, yeah NVR2. 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah, the R2, and it looked like there were twenty individual lots 16
there. 17
18
Planner Cha: Mmhmm. 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 Hechtman: And so, my question is, if I bought one of those and built a new 1
townhome, how do I comply with the twenty percent made available, is that an in lieu fee at 2
that level? 3
4
Planner Cha: I think that Albert will definitely help. 5
6
Mr. Yang, City Attorney: So, if it’s just built…at ya know, such a small scale that you’re at a 7
fraction of a unit, that would be paid as [unintelligible] 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 10
11
Mr. Yang, City Attorney: But there’s also a unit threshold at which the inclusionary ordinance 12
just doesn’t apply. So, it would really depend on the specific project. 13
14
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay, but if it’s below the threshold it’s an in lieu, and it’s not that if 15
I’m only building two, I’m going to have to round up no matter what, and I have to make one of 16
those affordable. Okay, alright, those are my questions, thanks, I do have some comments in 17
the next round. 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.
Chair Summa: Thank you, Commissioner Chang [Vice‐Chair Chang]. Umm…no. I’m not seeing 1
any lights, so…so we can go on to comments. Would any one…okay, Commissioner Chang 2
[Vice‐Chair Chang]. 3
4
Vice‐Chair Chang: Okay, so I… I don’t know process‐wise Chair, if there’s a way…if we want to 5
just kind of quickly talk about our areas that we might want to discuss further, because, that 6
way we can maybe…you can focus…focus our discussion. 7
8
Chair Summa: Well, Staff did prepare a slide with potential discussion areas, maybe they could 9
bring that up, would you like that? 10
11
Chair Summa: Thank you for that, okay…so there may be others, but this is what… 12
13
Vice‐Chair Chang: And so, do we want to take these one by one right now, and should I limit 14
my comments to the first, or… 15
16
17
18
Chair Summa: I think we can go through comments, we don’t have to go through them one by 19
one, I don’t think. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Vice‐Chair Chang: Okay, so first of all, I….it sounds like there’s just been so many revisions of 2
this, and I think Staff did pretty good job at trying to rationalize everything and refer to existing 3
code, so I really appreciate that; because it just makes things easier, and easier to change. We 4
know, with looking at our retail code that it’s going to be really difficult to change, so thank you 5
for all the work that you put into this. I have not so many concerns about lot coverage, I think 6
my concerns are more around the setbacks and the maximum height as they relate to…..the 7
NVMXM in particular, and then…the sidewalk width concern that I have, I think ducktail with 8
setbacks. So, my concern is that we’re suggesting fifty‐five instead of forty‐five for….NVMXM 9
and I’m concerned, despite daylight plane, because of density bonus provisions, also we….on 10
the PTC saw, an example of our project…for what was Palo Alto Commons, right behind single 11
family homes, and we saw what it looks like when there’s a very big project that doesn’t violate 12
any daylight plane…..constraints, and it’s pretty massive, and I….my understanding of the 13
NVCAP process, is that….residents were concerned about hulking buildings right next to them, 14
and even if it is only quote/unquote a forty‐five foot building, it’s going to be massive. There’s 15
an impact of massing even when daylight plane isn’t an issue, and in this case, if the daylight 16
plane begins not at ten feet, as Commissioner Reckdahl mentioned, but actually at twenty‐five 17
feet, then it’s even more of a concern. So, I would be in favor of with respect to NVMXM going 18
back to the original plan…that was kind….that the preferred option that City Council 19
had…chosen, and going back to forty‐five. Because, if you look at…if you want to pull up 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.
map, you can see….my area of concern is specifically for the NVMXM…I think it’s…that’s at 1
Oregon and El Camino, between Pepper and Olive, and then between Olive and Acacia, because 2
that’s going to be pretty awful for those folks, and I think that the intention when it was….when 3
heights were initially established was…..it with those properties in mind. So, and then, on the 4
setbacks, again, I think I…I don’t have any objection, per say, I’m just not quite…like there’s so 5
many different setbacks everywhere, that I kind of can’t tell where they are, and I’m just 6
concerned, but I think if…so I’d like to hear what my colleagues say about that, I don’t have any 7
objection to ten versus twelve and a half, because it doesn’t seem like we’re….changing….much 8
there. But, we can’t fit a car in the front anyway, so…that’s not an issue. On the basement 9
issue, I do think that as Mr. Baltay said, it’s probably best to address that, in a city‐wide way; so 10
I would punt on that one, that’s my opinion. Then, I have a few smaller ones, such as on page 11
35, we talk about hotels, and where hotels are allowed, which are basically only in the MXM 12
and MXH areas, and I can’t understand, why, if we’re allowing hotels, that we would have 13
hotels have the least FAR. So, if you look at the bottom of packet page 35, where it talks about 14
C hotel regulations, and it’s C2. It says hotel where they are permitted may develop to a 15
maximum FAR of 2.0 to one, and I’m kind of thinking why, why are we going to limit hotels to 16
2.0 to one, when the whole rationale behind having them at all, is to help generate revenue, so 17
why would we want…like…you know, we’re driving along El Camino Real, or driving along this 18
area, and all of a sudden all the buildings around the hotel are taller than the hotel, we just let 19
the hotel be the same height. So, I think we should relax the hotel FAR to 3.0, and furthermore, 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 hotels are the only thing that are required to be parked, so they’re not going to actually 1
have any negative impact if they’re larger. [NO MICROPHONE] No, hotels are allowed to be 2
required to be parked under the State law, yes, under the…so that’s the one of the exceptions 3
to the half mile radius. So, those are my comments. 4
5
Chair Summa: I’m not seeing any lights, does anybody want to go…Commissioner Reckdahl? 6
7
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay, I’ll echo some of those, I agree with the hotel is a 3.0, that 8
seems more consistent. Also, the below grade…I support in spirit of the below grade, but I 9
think we need more investigation, talk to the Urban Forester, look at street trees, also look 10
at….if you wanted to put a bike lane over the top of that, is that going to interfere with the 11
construction of the bike lane. Three feet seems a little skimpy, over on San Antonio with seven 12
feet, that made more comfortable, that it really would impede us, but I think that’s a separate 13
issue. The daylight plane…I…that…it’s….if you’re the one building it, it’s a…it’s a burden if 14
you’re the one living next to it, it’s a savior, and I really feel uncomfortable starting at twenty‐15
five feet at the property line, and that…and then going up from there; that’s really going to 16
have the impact of all those…all those properties along Olive. So, I would say that we should 17
even though the density bonus may waive it, I would start at ten feet and go up at forty‐five, I 18
think that’s a better protection for those. For the lots when you abut a low‐density lot, and 19
then also along Park, the bike lane, that’s such an important bike lane, I think we need a 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
twenty‐foot special setback again along Park, I think that’s only prudent. Over at Bargan Mart, 1
we skimped on the setback there, and that’s really complicated the rail crossings, and so, if we 2
had a little more setback there, we’d have other options that would make for a better rail 3
crossing, and I wish we had. 4
5
Chair Summa: Commissioner Templeton? 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: Hi, thank you. My…my general comment here is, that we’ve been 8
working on this project for a very long time, it’s been iterated numerous times, and we had that 9
listed, thank you, and that’s helpful to understand how we got where we are. It’s sort of in one 10
way relieving that we are talking about some minor changes at this point, but I also want to 11
keep in perspective that it’s important to move forward and stop keeping these properties tied 12
up in process. So…regarding the height…. can we go back to the height graph again...the one 13
with the lower numbers, the chart, the plan that Vice‐Chair Chang was looking at. 14
15
Vice‐Chair Chang: It’s the preferred plan heights. 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: That one. I’m…I’m trying to really understand what…. 18
Commissioner Chang said. 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.
Vice‐Chair Chang: So, I think Staff’s proposal is that it should be forty….fifty‐five where there’s 1
forty‐five, and I’m concerned about it with respect to the few MXM zones that are in the first 2
three blocks from Oregon. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: I understand that you’re concerned, but I don’t know why. 5
6
Vice‐Chair Chang: Oh, fifty‐five feet instead of forty‐five? 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. 9
10
Vice‐Chair Chang: Because it’s going to be even taller, and higher over….forty‐five is fine, it’s 11
the fifty‐five that I’m not excited about because, it’d be even taller, and even higher hulking 12
over these homes. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: Oh, I…I actually disagree, I think that… make it taller…like this is the 15
area, if we’re going to go and we’re going to develop it, let’s develop it. So, I…I think that the 16
height argument that the ARB made is pretty… sound, and I’m not too worried about that, 17
because as they mentioned, as the Chair mentioned, like it’s still subject to requirements 18
about…the daylight plane and stepping back, and things like that; I felt like that’s a pretty 19
rational explanation. So, I’m not as concerned about that as Vice‐Chair Chang but thank you 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.
explaining. I also heard the public comment about being able to allow the residents of the 1
single family properties there to think differently about how to build on their site; that’s a really 2
rational counter argument, so if I were going to change anything, that’s what I would do to 3
allow them to enjoy their home, a little bit…have a little bit more space or tolerance for building 4
out, so that’s kind of where I would think about that. The daylight plane….yeah, I…I think 5
that….the proposal that…that Staff has given, and the proposal that Commissioner Reckdahl has 6
given are both fine to me, but I’m…my concern here it, haven’t we hashed this out?...like 7
haven’t we in the previous umpteen meetings talked about this?...like how did we arrive at this, 8
and why are we second guessing it again at this point. Staff do we know?...how we arrived at 9
the numbers that we’re using, and why. 10
11
Planner Cha: The numbers, the setback [interrupted] 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. 14
15
16
17
Planner Cha: Where the daylight…well that was already, or is just merely referencing in NVCAP 18
chapter to the existing objective design standards chapter, or section, that includes the daylight 19
plane regulations, so… [interrupted] 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: So, all I’m asking is was there any changes involved. 2
3
Planner Cha: No changes involved in that. 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: Okay, so is there any…so was it reviewed at all? 6
7
Planner Cha: It was actually reviewed with ARB, so we were discussing it at…at the hearing, and 8
we did talk about the twenty‐five feet, but we were…I believe ARB and Staff were comfortable 9
enough to move forward, just refer the existing section. 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: So, thank you. For that reason, and no other, I would say I’m 12
comfortable with it to; I’d be happy to move forward, and then I took some notes here, and I 13
can’t read my own hand writing, the last thing we talked about, I guess it’ll come up again if it’s 14
important. [off‐microphone: dishwasher soap] Dishwasher soap, yeah, that’s what it is, you 15
silly. Okay, so in other words, generally I feel comfortable moving this forward, and with the 16
Staff recommendation with all of the caveats that Mr. Hechtman brought up, I do think that the 17
setbacks are…it’s interesting that perspective we’re taking on this, we’ve heard some ideas on 18
being consistent, and I think, I like that, I like consistency, I think it’s a very attractive option. I 19
think those sidewalks are really popular, and will be… continue to be popular, well used, and 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.
I like the idea of having a bigger sidewalk. Ya know, I still keep thinking about how many people 1
I see every day biking on those sidewalks, because we don’t have bike lanes, separate project, 2
but just bringing that up, like it’s…it’s important for us to have the space for all the different 3
modes, and certainly the sidewalks on El Camino are too small, so if that’s something we can 4
fix, at least partially through this, then that’s fine with me, otherwise…I say we can move on, 5
oh, the other thing was the…the basements. Yeah, I mean we need our trees…and…it’s very 6
attractive to maximize the space, but for the same reason we can’t maximize…ya know, the 7
entire lot coverage, we can’t maximize it underground either, so if…if I needed to weigh in on 8
that, that’s how I’d weigh on…on that. Than…Thank you. 9
10
Chair Summa: Thank you. Commissioner Aiken. 11
12
Commissioner Akin: Thank you, Chair. Generally, I’m quite supportive, so, I had very few 13
comments to make during the earlier phases, I did want to follow up on a few things though. 14
Observation on the SEIR, thank you Commissioner Hechtman for driving the clarification of that 15
process, we need a statement of overriding considerations of course, but…what struck me, was 16
that we needed it for two reasons: the historic structures, I think everyone is aware of, but also 17
the air quality impact, because both the VMT per capita and trip count per capita are going up; 18
so this is a sign we should be looking at this kind of development a little more carefully, this is 19
not yielding the kind of sustainability improvements that we had hoped to get. So, there’s a 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
warning…there’s a red flag there that…it would do us well to pay some attention to. I was 1
comfortable with the suggestion for using daylight plane as the massing control device, until it 2
was clarified that the plane measurements…start at twenty‐five feet, which took me aback. 3
Nevertheless, as I look at the height maps here, I wonder how much practical difference there is 4
between a maximum height of forty‐five feet and fifty‐five feet, because even….starting at 5
twenty‐five feet I suspect the daylight plane constraint is the more severe over most of these 6
lots; this is not something you can do on the spur of the moment, but an interesting thing to do, 7
would be to figure out what the maximum heights are for these MXM areas in particular, using 8
the daylight plane as the constraint, because I suspect most of them are well below the forty‐9
five feet, but it’s hard to tell just from eyeballing the diagram. I am also concerned about 10
the…trees and the effects of below grade structures going all the way out to the property line… 11
it’s a creative idea, but our canopy coverage requirements are already below target, and I 12
suspect given the emphasis on increased density and lot coverage throughout the city, that our 13
canopy with likely decrease, rather than be maintained or increased; so that…that makes me 14
wonder if…three feet of soil is enough, if we’re not going to be able to plant the types of trees 15
that were native to this area, are we going to permanently change our tree canopy in a negative 16
way. This is particularly an issue in southern end of the city, but as you see here, it’s going to be 17
a problem elsewhere as well. Alright, I think that’s good for the moment, thank you. 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.
Chair Summa: Okay. Thank you everyone and staff, this has been a really long process and it’s 1
kind of hard to keep all the iterations together, we even had some confusion today, but I think 2
we got it all straightened out. I’m really happy to hear we have over a year… that we have that 3
extension because my bottom line is we’re so close but not quite there and I share a lot of the 4
concerns that you’ve already heard stated and in thinking about what Commissioner Templeton 5
said and she was reacting to a member of the public, I’m not sure why we have R‐2 and 3 at 30 6
feet, next to their thirty‐five foot neighbors, at all. And if that would give more flexibility to 7
those neighbors, while also giving the neighbors that didn’t want those… that residential feel to 8
go way, and so… I think kind of… that’s a good idea. I’m very concerned, in no particular order, I 9
also think we need more information… we don’t certify as the Titles that … but I think we need 10
the draft SEIR to be more complete. Including the statement of overriding considerations 11
before we can make a recommendation on it. And my concerns dove tail with a lot that you’ve 12
already heard. So, I think, I just looked up the special setback which ends northbound at 13
Lambert, and we really need to think about improving… this was always an issue on the NVCAP, 14
I was on the NVCAP working group, always an issue to improve the bike lanes situation within 15
the NVCAP. So, I think we need to think about that more with regard to development 16
standards. I think that we need to know more about the daylight plane, and I had not heard 17
about the twenty‐five foot change, the basement issue has to be vetted fully with our urban 18
forestry department, and the setbacks are confusing so it might be good just to clarify them. 19
And the forty‐five foot height that Commissioner Chang [Vice‐Chair Chang] mentioned in MXM, 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.
I think is appropriate. And you know, it’s sad that we can’t… that we feel that we can’t risk 1
going higher in some of these places because of the impacts of State Laws that we have no 2
control over, but I would say that is a pretty important place to have it, to try to control it a 3
little because it’s the shallowness of the lots along El Camino in this area and the proximity to 4
the low density residential. I think… I think that covers it for me. I also think, and I’m not sure 5
what to do about this and maybe it hopefully won’t become a big issue, but the lack of space in 6
the front setback for pull in parking is problematic also, but maybe it’s not there right now, but 7
it's really problematic to create more of that once again, under the State Laws that we can’t 8
control so, as to whether hotels should be 3.0, I guess I think it’s okay for hotel to be consistent 9
with its neighbors as long as it’s neighbors are all at that height and FAR. And as long as we 10
figure out the daylight plane issues. So, that is where I am right now, and I would be very happy 11
to see this come back with a little nuanced work that we could get it through rather quickly, 12
especially given the fact that we have more time. And I think there were enough little kind of 13
areas in here that needed kind of fix up work that it would give staff a little more time to make 14
sure there aren’t those kind of you know, artifacts from other versions and stuff, but I’m going 15
to go now to Commissioner Hechtman. 16
17
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. So, after my last round of questions I was sitting here 18
sort of freaking out about the thought of terminating 750,000 square feet of office until I 19
looked at the table and realized that in the XL/XM and XH categories, office of all 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.
categories is a permitted use, so, that frame of mind doesn’t even apply in those three 1
categories, which is primarily where the office is. I was wondering if… and perhaps this is in the 2
FEIR or the DEIR, and I’m sorry I didn’t look for it, if in the other four categories… I don’t think 3
there’s any office in the R‐1, and what is going to become the NR2, I think is on one of the other 4
slides, currently R‐1, is going to R‐2, so there’s probably no office there, but was there any kind 5
of analysis done of essentially, what is the square footage of office that is facing that 6
termination. So, it would be probably in the NR‐3 and NR‐4. 7
8
Planner Cha: I don’t have that information right now. 9
10
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. Alright, if I had been on my game I would have thought about 11
it earlier, sent a question in to tee you up, but that’s fine. Again, my belief is really, if there is 12
office, most of it… well, it could be in the 3 or 4. It is a concern of mine, but it’s not a concern of 13
mine strong enough to sit on this six year old project. So, some other minor issues. I think it’s a 14
really interesting idea to come forth from the ARB about allowing the below surface garages to 15
sink sufficiently to allow a really good planting medium above them. I’m glad that’s going to the 16
forestry department, and I think that’s really where it should reside. You know, a couple of 17
competing issues here… 1) is the cost to go down farther, right? And that is a restraint. It is an 18
impediment. The benefit we’re getting is a more robust urban forest but I think we have to 19
balance those so I think it should be part of the urban forestry departments consideration is it 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.
okay if certain native plants can thrive in three feet of soil and those are the ones we put there. 1
And the ones that need four, five, six, or more, we don’t put those there. I mean that’s a good... 2
we’re balancing these things. The height issues in the two places where the ARB and staff have 3
differing opinions, I have no issue at all with the ARB’s logic. I think it’s right, but I’m recognizing 4
that staff… ARB, like PTC, is a little bit insulated from the City Council. Staff is not. Staff have to 5
take this plan and convince the City Council to adopt it. And my feeling is staff thinks it’s maybe 6
a little more palatable to the City Council with these two deviations from the ARB 7
recommendations so I’m going to trust staff on that, so I’m supportive of those two places and 8
again, they adopted it seems like everything else the ARB had suggested which is really an 9
impressive list of suggestions. As for the list of the setbacks and those things, those four items 10
that we were invited to talk about, I’m really not going to comment on any of those.This has 11
been six years in the making, and we’ve learned tonight from staff that at the sort of street 12
level exercise they went through to try to visualize how these things would actually lay out, 13
how the setbacks and building heights would work together and they’ve had hours and hours 14
and have spent hours and hours doing it and I’m going to trust that staff, with years of feedback 15
from the working group, PTC, and the ARB, and City Council, has got it in a good place and so I 16
don’t have any comments on that. I was really interested in the comments of our first public 17
speaker tonight you know… one of the foundational premises of the working group when it 18
started this process, as I understood it, was to protect the R‐1. And what I heard tonight from I 19
think a resident of the R‐1, is you’ve actually put me in a box. Because everybody around me is 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.
upzoned, developing, and I’m stuck. And I think that’s a really interesting perspective and I wish 1
we had heard it earlier in the process. My thinking overall is this needs to get adopted. Once it’s 2
adopted, if there are problems with it, it can be amended. But for now I think we just need to 3
get this forward and off of our plates, which really brings me to my biggest issue which to me is 4
my 800 pound gorilla that nobody has raised yet, and that is economic feasibility. So, if we look 5
at packet pages 48 and 49, one of the objectives established by the Council when this process 6
started was, we need a determination of the economic and fiscal feasibility of the plan. And in 7
this case the plan is the preferred plan that we’re sending to the City Council. So, that was one 8
of the objectives they set, which dovetails with Palo Alto’s Municipal code Section 19.10, which 9
we have on packet page 10, which requires determination of the economic feasibility of the 10
plan. And then we look at packet page 50 which are the comments that came out of prior PTC 11
and ARB meetings, PTC 6, Economic analysis to show shortfall. Response: No economic analysis 12
was done due to budget constraints. So, as I’m understanding it, we have not satisfied an 13
objective of ours and we have not met the code requirement. And the reason this is of 14
particular concern to me is that back in 2021 we had an economic analysis done as part of the 15
PTCs work and that predated many of our current Commissioners, but at the time, the 16
composition of the Commission really wasn’t interested in what was called I think Alternative A, 17
the low density version, which actually is now the preferred plan that is going to Council. We 18
thought that density was too low. And so, we wanted an economic analysis but to save money, 19
we said just do it of alternatives B and C. Or actually they are 1, 2, 3, right? Just do two and 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.
three. Right? Two was kind of the medium density and three was very high density. So, two was 1
closer to the density of one, but about double. So, the price tag that came back for two was 2
$130 Million. That was the subsidy that would be necessary to bring it to fruition. Three was 3
$37 Million, and we came up with actually a 3.2 that penciled out, that was cost neutral, right? 4
But we never did A, and at the time I did like a cocktail napkin calculation that A could cost over 5
$200 Million in subsidies, but that was two years ago, and a lot has changed about this plan that 6
we have now. The primary changes are, number one, the anticipated density of A back then 7
was 860 units; well first of all, most of this cost is providing the BMR’s. That’s really the subsidy 8
driver. And it’s relationship to office which can provide funding. So, back then the maximum 9
buildout was 8… it was a range of 500 to 860, now we’re at 530. So, by lowering the ceiling, I 10
think that will bring down the cost. Another big change is back then we were looking at… there 11
was no parking relief contemplated, we had testimony from the Economic specialist that each 12
parking stall cost about $100,000 dollars and that was a huge cost and so now we’ve eliminated 13
parking, and so I think that is a good thing. The biggest think I think is in the plan two years ago 14
we were reducing office space from 750,000 to 8,000 square feet. So, 740,000 square feet of 15
office going away. Now, we are only losing 278,000, so there’s more office to support this 16
density and the below market housing. So, I’m optimistic that … whatever the number is, it’s 17
not going to be beyond our budget, or funds that we can budget for. And so the reason I asked 18
my very first question tonight was, when are we going to lose these grant funds, is I was 19
concerned that there might be a timing issue that we need to adopt this plan. It turns out we 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.
don’t, but honestly I think we need to get this done. So, what I’d like to see in the motion that’s 1
eventually made is that we recommend not only adoption, but that as the Council’s first action 2
before enacting any of the …. Before taking further steps beyond what’s currently on their plate 3
with the NVCAP, that they complete that economic study as required by our ordinance and 4
their objectives, so that as they move forward everybody knows the cost of the endeavor that 5
we’ve approved. So those are my comments. 6
7
Chair Summa: So… I am very impressed you remembered all those numbers. But I bet you had 8
to look them up. But, and I think we all want to get this done, it’s just that, I mean I’m surprised 9
you don’t want the economic study to be done… that you don’t want that to be done before 10
Council sees it, but, I don’t know, given your interest in it… but I think we all want to get it done 11
really quickly, but we have time… we can get some of these details ironed out and I think it 12
would be more successful a plan, is kind of my perspective. But I am impressed you 13
remembered all those numbers. But the preferred plan that we see here is not option 1. It’s 14
what the… it’s what Council preferred, is what I think. So…. The preferred plan that we’ve got to 15
now is all the work that Council did after our recommendations on the three levels of density, is 16
really what it was… and some associated economic analysis. So, anyway. I see that 17
Commissioner Templeton has her light on. 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.
Ms. French: Also, we’d like to have a note about the economic study, which Council did not 1
fund when we expanded the scope. So, part of that is… was not for us to do because it wasn’t 2
authorized to do, funded to do, back when. So, that’s just a note. Also, I wanted to have a note 3
about hotels if you get there again but… about that. 4
5
Chair Summa: Tell us about hotels now. 6
7
Ms. French: Okay, City wide the maximum hotel FAR is 2.0, so we’re talking downtown, all 8
commercial zones, it’s a citywide limit… 9
10
Chair Summa: Standard. 11
12
Ms. French: Yeah, so, you start tweaking it in one area you have to kind of look…. 13
14
Chair Summa: Thank makes sense. 15
16
Ms. French: And that could be something that our economic retail studies are starting to look 17
at with the retail committees, and such. Maybe in isolation it’s going out there a little bit. 18
19
Chair Summa: Okay thank you for that. Commissioner Templeton. 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
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you Chair. Ms. French, I think the intention of the comment 2
about the economic analysis is not that you didn’t do it, but that Council doesn’t have it and 3
they are about to make a very expensive decision. So, we should… I think it was really 4
intelligent and helpful comment from Commissioner Hechtman that maybe we should consider 5
getting that on Council’s agenda as soon as possible so they can make an informed decision, 6
because you know how we can be here in Palo Alto sometimes. We can look back and go .. why 7
wasn’t that done? So, I think we can possibly try to resolve those obstacles that you mentioned. 8
The other thing I wanted to ask was we’ve had a discussion up here about timing and I have 9
gone back to my original question which is what are the constraints… like if we were to change 10
the timing, come back and ask for responses to our commentary tonight, does that effect 11
anything as far as you’re concerned? 12
13
Planner Cha: I don’t think there is. Timing wise it’s not a concern at this moment just because 14
we got extension just before the PTC hearing. But it’s just that as many of the commissioners 15
have mentioned, it has been seven years and counting. And, we have heard from a couple of 16
developers who are interested in developing their lot with the new development standards and 17
higher density and they’re waiting for the NVCAP adoption to happen. So, there are some of 18
those developers waiting for the NVCAP to be done so there is some concern with that. If it gets 19
a little bit delayed, they would have to wait longer and it might not actually pencil out for their 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
financial feasibility or whatever do wait until the NVCAP is done so it might not … it might may 1
be an issue with those potential projects in the future. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. This body is generally not concerned with time pressure 4
from applicants in that way, so I’m not sure that’s the most compelling thing to say here, so 5
what I’m trying to get at is… are we going to be able to reschedule or can you guys come back 6
before you go to Council? What’s the actual timing situation here. 7
8
Planner Mr. Frick: So that’s actually I good question, I think I want to provide a little bit more 9
context on like the impact of delaying this. So, as Ms. French mentioned, we had at one point 10
requested additional funding to complete this and that wasn’t approved by City Council, based 11
on our understanding, and so right now we don’t have a consultant that’s working on this 12
project and so another sort of concern in addition to what Ms. Cha outlined is that in terms of 13
like the staff resources to continue to work on this, it does impact our ability to follow through 14
on additional items that are within the Work Plan for the PTC as well as the Council. And some 15
of those other projects as well. So, just wanted to mention that as part of the context of the 16
equation of the delay. To the ability that we can answer questions or any concerns at this 17
meeting, like we’re happy to kind of continue if there are remaining concerns to discuss those. 18
Obviously, we could, based on the grant timelines, bring this back if that’s the desire of the PTC. 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.
Ms. French: It would definitely be an allocation of resources concern. As far as other projects 1
we would have to add it back into the PTC Work Plan, which we already approved, you already 2
approved, but … because we were envisioning being through it before July. So. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: Okay, all of that is very helpful. Context, I’m a little concerned that 5
your comments were a little vague and you’re… the thing is, and this is the first thing I said 6
tonight… is we’re going to have a lot of comments. Three of us were involved with this 7
commission and we’re very much care about this project. It’s a huge project, it’s actually a 8
major project and if we haven’t prepared properly and haven’t thought through these scenarios 9
that are brought up tonight, I don’t know how you expect us to approve it tonight. We can’t … a 10
lot of good points were brought up and you’re not ready to answer them because you need 11
more work on it and if you recommended that we take this project off the work plan because 12
it’s done, we’ll something has changed. There was a pending application to get an extension. 13
Right? So we have to think about … that’s not a compelling argument either. We have to do a 14
good job and we have to finish this, and this is…. The decisions we’re making about this project 15
are going to last for fifty years. These are major investments in our community, especially in the 16
south Palo Alto area. So, I wanted to approve it all tonight, I get it, I have the same hope that 17
you do, but we’re not ready. We have questions. Right? And, they have to be answered in order 18
for us to move forward. That’s our responsibility as Commissioners, is to look after the 19
decisions that are being made on behalf of the City, right? To ask the tough questions and make 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.
sure that we’re thinking it thoroughly through. So, As much as I want to move forward quickly 1
as well, the best way to handle that will be to get our questions answered quickly, come back 2
and keep it on the schedule with Council. And if that’s not possible, then you need to think 3
about your priorities. Thank you. 4
5
Chair Summa: Okay, sorry. Commissioner Hechtman. 6
7
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah, I’m wondering if there’s a middle ground here. Somebody 8
just… first I wanted to just clarify, when I talked about the absence of an economic analysis on 9
this plan, that was in no way intended to be a criticism to staff, that was a Council decision, 10
right? The Council made that decision and now they have a plan coming toward them without a 11
component that’s required by the ordinance and that’s on them. And so I’m just daylighting 12
that so that we can figure out how to make them aware of it. I’m … I guess my inclination is I 13
want to.. I’d like to move this… because we have these open issues, right? We have these, what 14
I’ll call design or parameter issues that we’ve raised, we have this feasibility… economic 15
feasibility issue. I’m wondering if we should make a recommendation to basically take the 16
Council’s temperature. And to say… we think that there are these open issues that really need 17
more study by the Planning Commission. But we’re presenting it to you, to decide whether you 18
want to send it back to us, and that’s how we alert them to these details that we feel are 19
missing from various commissioners, and the absence of the economic study. And if the Council 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.
wants to allocate the resources, right, to staff, to do more work on this plan, which in one 1
scenario is done, then they can send it back to us. But if they … but if a majority of them thing 2
enough is enough, let’s approve it… then they’ll have that ability also. So, that’s kind of the 3
middle ground that I’m thinking of…. Is… and you can even keep the June 18th date under this 4
scenario and they could still approve it or send it back. And maybe that’s a conversation… the 5
money for the study is maybe a conversation that can happen with the city manager, between 6
now and June 18th. But anyway, that’s me trying to thread the needle. 7
8
Chair Summa: Thank you for that. So, I’m not hearing a majority here that wants to move it 9
forward with the way it is, so, there is outstanding issues of development standards that I 10
believe we would like fixed. So, the way I see it, the way I thread the needle is we either 11
recommend it with those conditions, or we can’t recommend it at this point. And I don’t think 12
that’s holding the project up, and I think … I’m personally not comfortable telling the Council, 13
hey… reconsider you’re decision to not do more financial analysis. That was their decision. So, 14
that makes me feel a little uncomfortable. So, I’m wondering… so that’s kind of the way I see 15
it… I see that Commissioner Reckdahl has a light. 16
17
Commissioner Reckdahl: I don’t think we’re that far away, I think we could do it tonight, but it 18
would need some work, but in some ways what I’m worried about is we’ll give comments back 19
to staff and they’ll come back and we’ll do this all again, same some second verse, third verse, 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.
fourth verse… you know, a month or two from now and are we better off if we can come to 1
consensus on the open issues, say here we approve this but we think there’s work to do XYZ 2
and let Council digest that. 3
4
Chair Summa: That sounds… I’m hap… That’s a good idea, Commissioner Chang [Vice‐Chair 5
Chang] and then Commissioner Templeton. 6
7
Vice‐Chair Chang: Well, I was going to try to move us along because I think there is some 8
consensus that we need to… that some things need to change, but I’m not sure that it fully 9
needs to come back to us unless Council decides… like… if we were to say Staff go away and 10
work on an economic feasibility study, that doesn’t do anything for us because there’s no 11
funding for that. So, we may as well make a motion with the changes to the development 12
standards that we want and then we can add something in the motion that says that we think it 13
might be a good idea to do an economic feasibility study and then let Council decide. So, I was 14
going to try and make a motion, but I don’t know if we are… oh, yeah… sorry. 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: So, I’d be happy to explore that as well, but right now, just thinking 17
about Commissioner Reckdahl’s comments, like how are we… we asked a bunch of questions 18
that they didn’t have answers. How do we work through that? 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Vice‐Chair Chang: Which questions do you think we have… just… I’m just confused. 1
2
Commissioner Templeton: Everything that you brought up. Literally. Every single thing. So, like 3
I don’t think we got answers to those questions, we didn’t get answers to how deep that the 4
parking lot needs to be, and those kinds of things. 5
6
Ms. French: How deep does a parking space need to be? 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: No. (crosstalk) 9
10
Chair Summa: Where you start measuring the ceiling height between…. 11
12
Commissioner Hechtman: If we lower the underground parking to accommodate a planting 13
medium … 14
15
Chair Summa: Above 16
17
Commissioner Hechtman: How deep does that planting medium need to be, I think that’s …. 18
19
Commissioner Templeton: To accommodate Trees (crosstalk) 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah, we just don’t have an answer. 2
3
Planner Mr. Frick: So just to clarify the staff recommendation regarding that topic that was 4
brought up by the ARB, we’re recommending that we do need additional study about that 5
policy, not just for the NVCAP area but as it applies City wide, so, that’s what staff’s 6
recommendation is regarding that, is that it’s premature to have a specific standard for that, for 7
the NVCAP area solely, without looking at it wholistically, how that’s applied citywide because 8
there has been you know, different interpretations over the years as our… (interrupted) 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. And we’ll get to those individual topics, I just want to 11
make sure I understand Commissioner Reckdahl’s vision about what we’ll do if we continue 12
with this and also ask the Chair if we’re going to knock some other Agenda item off. Thank you. 13
14
Chair Summa: I didn’t hear the last part, what’s that? 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: Will we be exchanging another agenda item off of this to take the 17
additional hours it will take to do this? 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Summa: I think to have a full discussion in real time right now would take longer than 1
what… we would have to jettison an item. And I think it makes more sense for staff to hear our 2
concerns and come back to us, and I don’t think that’s holding this project up, a lot has really 3
not made the NVCAP… the NVCAP kind of bumped along instead of rolled and I don’t think that 4
this is a significant… and I don’t think that there’s that many issues, but for the six of us to go 5
through those issues tonight, would take hours. So, that…. 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: So, I would love to hear from Commissioner Reckdahl because that 8
was exactly my concern. Thank you, Chair. 9
10
Commissioner Reckdahl: I mean some of this things for example do we want twenty foot 11
setbacks, special setback along Park. That would be easy for us to come to a consensus … yes or 12
no. Do we want to change the daylight plane? I would think that would be fairly straightforward 13
to say yes or no. So, I … maybe I’m optimistic but to me it doesn’t seem like it’s going to be that 14
difficult to identify where… you know take a straw poll of what we want on each of the items. 15
And maybe we’re more divided that I thought we are. But… 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: Okay, we’ll let’s give it a shot. 18
19
MOTION 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
Vice‐Chair Chang: I was going to attempt, and then if we don’t like the motion, then great. I 2
think I have a list, and maybe I need some help with some amendments… So I was going to 3
move the staff recommendation but change the language to say Consider the SEIR, instead of 4
certify, and then to strike the statement overriding considerations part unless by law we are 5
required to look at that. I don’t think so, so just to strike that part since we haven’t seen it. And 6
then… So, I would say move the staff recommendation, change certify to consider, strike 7
everything that talks about the statement of overriding considerations, and the rest of number 8
one, so we’re also not adopting, we’re considering everything. And then, with these 9
modifications. So I would suggest that we extend the special setback that the City has along 10
Park that currently stops at Lambert, extending it all the way to Page Mill, so extending it 11
through out… through the length of the NVCAP, changing the height back to the preferred … 12
what’s it called, preferred plan for specifically NVMXM to 45 feet, and I believe the last one is to 13
change the daylight plane to start at ten feet rather than twenty five feet. I think that’s 14
everything. Oh and then the final note would be that we would also suggest… that we ask City 15
Council to consider completing an economic feasibility study. 16
17
SECOND 18
Commissioner Reckdahl: Second. 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 going to take a minute to read my notes. Because it’s… Oh so staff was not… 1
staff doesn’t think we need to add the basement tree planting above it because you’re not 2
planning on putting it in. 3
4
Planner Mr. Frick: So, just to clarify, the staff recommendation is to not… address that 5
differently than anywhere else in the code but if it’s the recommendation of the PTC, we’re… 6
you know, we can take that to the Council to consider something different about that aspect of 7
what the ARB recommended. 8
9
FRIENDLY AMENDMENT #1 10
Chair Summa: Okay, thank you for that. Did the maker want to include allowing R‐1 and R‐2 to 11
go to 35 feet along Pepper and Olive? 12
13
Vice‐Chair Chang: Sure, I just don’t know if that creates any… you know, we had a discussion… 14
can we discuss… So, before I accept that amendment, I think there was some consensus up 15
here about the value of having things be the same throughout the city, as much as possible, so I 16
just didn’t know if doing something like that, which I’m in favor of by the way, because of what 17
we heard for public comment, but if doing something like that would create administrative 18
difficulties… 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: Isn’t the standard 35 feet in R‐1? 1
2
Planner Cha: I believe it’s 30 feet. 3
4
Ms. French: It’s 35… it goes up if it’s a tall pitch. 5
6
Chair Summa: And R‐2, RND, isn’t it also 35? Or is it the same, I mean I don’t believe it’s a 7
change, I don’t think it’s a change, really. 8
9
Ms. French: Yeah, there’s flood zone considerations, etc.… that bump it up. 10
11
Vice‐Chair Chang: Okay, then what I would say, since we’re changing it for R‐2, NV R‐2 anyway, 12
then it seems to me it makes sense to change it for NV R‐1 as well so I would add that 13
amendment to the motion. Do I have a second? 14
15
SECOND 16
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yes. 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: I thought we were going to discuss the daylight plan setback before 19
the motion was made, something… 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 think we can always discuss a motion after the motion is made, right? 2
3
Chair Summa: Yes, we can still discuss it. And I was also going to ask about adding … I don’t 4
think we can say what they should be right now, but that staff should review the street 5
setbacks. There was a lot of concern on the body about those. 6
7
Vice‐Chair Chang: Yes, there’s concern but I think staff also told us that they did review is 8
pretty carefully. So, maybe to address that would we want to just … I mean I think what would 9
be helpful before this went to Council, regardless… may there would be a diagram that shows 10
those setbacks because it is… in table form only right now, so it’s hard to understand what the 11
setback is everywhere, through this little area, but I think as long as it’s more understandable, 12
staff has said that they’ve done the work and they thought about it with all the cross sections. 13
14
FRIENDLY AMENDMENT # 2 15
Chair Summa: Maybe it would be to provide it in a … flat information for the council report in 16
the manner you just suggested, in addition to the table. 17
18
Vice‐Chair Chang: I’m all for that. So, adding to the motion another point about providing 19
additional information to Council on the street setbacks in a graphic or map form. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: Oh, yeah, I accept that. 2
3
Planner Cha: Just the clarify, the addition, the diagram request, that’s similar to like height map 4
where… okay, so on a map form… 5
6
Vice‐Chair Chang: Yes. 7
8
Chair Summa: Commissioner Hechtman. 9
10
Commissioner Hechtman: So, kind of digging down into what I count now are six point in the… 11
six modifications… from staff? 12
13
Vice‐Chair Chang: Yes. 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. So, second is change the height on the NVMXM back to 45 16
feet, Can staff pull up that Height diagram that showed the whole NVCAP? 17
18
Planner Mr. Frick: The preferred plan slide? 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah, I want to see what it’s next to right? And what those heights 1
are. 2
3
Planner Cha: I might need a couple of minutes. 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. While you’re doing that, let me ask a question on number 6
three, changing the daylight plane to start at ten feet rather than 25 feet… is this is a… do we 7
have a citywide daylight plane figure? 8
9
Planner Cha: The objective standards apply to city wide, and so it is a city wide standard. 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: And is that citywide standard 10 feet or 25 feet? 12
13
Planner Cha: I believe (interrupted) 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: or some different number? 16
17
Planner Cha: Yeah, residential is different. 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.
Ms. French: The daylight plane is different for single family zones R‐1, than it is for you know, 1
multi‐family, that kind of thing, so it varies, depending on the zone. 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay so for single family city wide what is it? Is it 10? ARB says it’s 4
10. 5
6
Ms. French: Ten feet up, 45 degree over from the property line. 7
8
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. So… and then R‐2 is something maybe more than ten? 9
10
Commissioner Reckdahl: I think R‐2 is the same as R‐1. 11
12
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay, alright. And so, so what staff was … the proposal that came to 13
us, it was proposing in some situations a different daylight plane than otherwise applicable 14
throughout the city, to meet some of the goals… you know, to meet some of the goals of the 15
NVCAP growth. Is that right? So R‐1 would be 25, where as R‐2 would be ten. 16
Planner Cha: We will follow whatever the Citywide requires… We will check the requirements, 17
sorry, but whatever the city wide requirements apply, we’ll consistently (interrupted) 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay … because I… that might have been a misconception on the 1
Planning Commission that … because I’ve heard an effort to change here, I would think on this 2
issue we would just apply the city wide standard, whatever it is… unless you have a reason 3
(interrupted) 4
5
Vice‐Chair Chang: Well, the concern was in the table. It specifically referred to daylight plane 6
referring to particular section of code. 7
8
Commissioner Reckdahl: The way the daylight plane works in the code is that if you’re R‐1 has a 9
daylight plane, then the R‐1 daylight plan applies. But if you’re in a zone that doesn’t have a 10
daylight plane, then you refer back to this… 18.24.050, and that tells you the daylight plane for 11
all the misfits that don’t have their own daylight plane. 12
13
Vice‐Chair Chang: And because this is a new zone, it’s not… it’s NV R‐1, not R‐1, it would then… 14
a 25 foot would apply. That’s why. 15
16
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay, but is the intent of your motion to have the new NV zoning 17
track the base zoning exactly? 18
19
Vice‐Chair Chang: 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 Hechtman: Okay, alright. And so, then my question of staff is does staff have a 2
different intent? That the NV daylight plane not track the base zoning daylight planes exactly? 3
4
Planner Mr. Frick: Yeah, so the intent for staff was to have it track the objective standards, as it 5
relates to the daylight plane. So the city wide standards, and so the… the rational for that was 6
that if some study changes how that’s applied city wide, then that would also apply to this area. 7
8
Commissioner Hechtman: Right. Okay, alright, then I think that was the intent of the maker of 9
the motion. That that be true. That it track… whatever happens in R‐1, happens in NV R‐1, R‐2, 10
and V. 11
12
Vice‐Chair Chang: So, yes, that is my intent, however, as written right now, in the ordinance, it 13
wouldn’t. 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: Right… right. And so what… I guess my … I’m quibbling on semantics, 16
right, then rather than quantify it… let’s you know, state the quantitative intent. 17
18
FRIENDLY AMENDMENT # 3 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Vice‐Chair Chang: So, I think what Commissioner Hechtman is suggesting is that I change the 1
motion so that point about changing the daylight plane to start at ten feet, should instead read 2
the daylight plane in NV R‐1 and every other zone, should conform to it’s equivalent zone in 3
municipal code. 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: yeah. 6
7
Vice‐Chair Chang: In the existing code. 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah, okay. So, another quibble… oh… let’s go back to (interrupted) 10
11
Vice‐Chair Chang: We need Commissioner Reckdahl to (interrupted) 12
13
SECOND 14
15
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yes. I accept. 16
17
Commissioner Hechtman: Alright then, so I just wanted to take a look, because we had two of 18
the elements dealing with height, and so the NVMXM that is included in the motion to come 19
back to 45, are those the two on El Camino on either side of Portage? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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
Planner Cha: It’ll be for entire MXM, so anywhere that says 45 here, will … so… this is a staff 2
recommendation…. So with the 55, here will become 45. 3
4
Commissioner Hechtman: Oh I see. All the 45, and the 65 stay 65. 5
6
Planner Cha: Right. 7
8
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay, and meanwhile, the 30’s, directly behind the 55’s, are going 9
up to 35, another aspect of the motion. 10
11
Planner Cha: According to the motion, yes. 12
13
Friendly Amendment #4 14
Commissioner Hechtman: According to the motion, yes. Okay. So, alright. So, I would just tell 15
the… well let me state my position. I don’t have any objections with the R‐1’s going from … the 16
R‐1 and R‐2 going from 30 to 35, but I wouldn’t support bringing the 55’s down to 45, and so I’d 17
hope that we could pull that out of the motion and do it separately. So, that I can… Number 2, 18
change height on NVMXM to 45, I ask that we vote on that separately because I’m trying to 19
build the rest of it that I can support. And then in terms of ask Council to consider economic 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
feasibility, I think I would just word that a little differently that part of our recommendation is 1
to confirm Council’s awareness of the economic feasibility study requirement of our municipal 2
code. 3
4
Vice‐Chair Chang: Accepted on the economic feasibility study. 5
6
Commissioner Reckdahl: Accept. 7
8
Vice‐Chair Chang: Okay, then regarding the request to vote separately on the second point 9
about changing the height for NVMXM, I’m fine with doing that because I think if we provide 10
more granularity for Council on where we have agreement and disagreement, that’s a good 11
thing. 12
13
Planner Cha: Just to clarify, sorry, but this 65 above Ash street will be also… supposed to be 55 14
because those are MXM districts as well. That was missed when we were making the diagram, 15
sorry. So, the 65 here next to green park area should (Crosstalk – interrupted) 16
17
Vice‐Chair Chang: Should read 55 18
19
Planner Cha: According to the staff recommendation. (crosstalk) 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Hechtman: And so if we see those as the deeper blue 55 feet, this aspect of the 2
motion is really changing all of the 55, including those two, to 45. 3
4
Planner Cha: That’s correct. 5
6
Commissioner Hechtman: So, yeah, with that I would be … if we can pull out item 2, ‘d be 7
happy to support the motion, although I think we need to start it … is our motion is not what 8
we considered but I think the way you do this with the EIR stuff is … having considered the draft 9
SEIR, we recommend everything you said. 10
11
Chair Summa: If you change the wording like that, I would like you to make a separate vote I’m 12
requesting because I find it very difficult to vote on something where we haven’t got the 13
information yet. 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: Actually, you’re raising a good point, I kind of short cut the… you’re 16
talking about the comment I just made about the SEIR, right? 17
18
Chair Summa: Yes. I think it might be appropriate then to have that then be a separate vote 19
also. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
FRIENDLY AMENDMENT # 5 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: Then again, it’s not… the preface to… it’s not actually a separate 4
motion, it’s the preface, because we’re not really moving anything about the SEIR, we’re just 5
saying we saw it. Right? And So, but to clarify, most of the statement in Item 1 of the staff 6
recommendation, we don’t repeat. So, the motion would start having considered the draft 7
supplemental environmental impact report, the PTC recommends to Council that, and then we 8
jump to number two. So, we don’t talk about statement of overriding considerations because 9
we didn’t see them, we don’t talk about the findings because we didn’t see them; or the 10
mitigation measures. 11
12
Chair Summa: I see. 13
14
Commissioner Hechtman: Right? 15
16
Vice‐Chair Chang: Ok, I accept that change, as well. 17
18
Commissioner Reckdahl: Accept. 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: And we’re going to remove… I think for the height discussion, we’re going to 1
remove that from consideration of this motion, and then we’ll vote on a separate motion about 2
height, or we’ll have a discussion about height and then vote. 3
4
Vice‐Chair Chang: Commissioner Reckdahl, are you okay with removing the second point about 5
height from the motion and voting on it separately? 6
7
Commissioner Reckdahl: We can either make it one motion and split the motion or we can 8
have two motions. I think in someways it’s cleaner to just split the motion and vote separately, 9
but I’m flexible. 10
11
Vice‐Chair Chang: I don’t understand the difference between the two options. 12
13
Commissioner Reckdahl: we’re getting late at night here. Let’s break it into two separate 14
motions. 15
16
Vice‐Chair Chang: Okay. We’re going to break it into two separate motions. Great. 17
18
Chair Summa: Commissioner Akin did you have your light on? 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Akin: I did, but my issue has just been resolved by making it the second motion. 1
2
Chair Summa: Okay. Commissioner Templeton. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: I’ll do it when we go to the next motion. 5
6
Chair Summa: Are we ready to vote on everything except item 2, which is going to come as a 7
separate motion? Okay. Can you please call the vote Ms. Dao? 8
9
VOTE 10
11
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Akin 12
13
Commissioner Akin: Yes. 14
15
Ms. Dao: Vice Chair Chang 16
17
Vice Chair Chang: Yes 18
19
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Hechtman 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes 2
3
Ms. Dao: Chair Summa 4
5
Chair Summa: Yes 6
7
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Reckdahl 8
9
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yes 10
11
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Templeton 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: Yes 14
15
Ms. Dao: Motion carries 6‐0. 16
17
MOTION PASSED 6 (Akin, Chang, Summa, Hechtman, Reckdahl, Templeton) 6‐0‐1 (Lu Absent) 18
Commission Action: Moved by Chang, seconded by Reckdahl. Pass 6‐0‐1 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: Alright, now on to motion number 2. 1
2
Vice‐Chair Chang: I think we need to have a little bit more discussion about this because I am … 3
as I look at the staff diagram, I’m a little bit more concerned about it. So, I’m just going to… 4
since I have my mic on, I’m going to keep talking. So, my concern about the NVMXM height is 5
specific to … it looks four parcels. And yet I think that it’s a real concern there. So, if I could, I 6
would have different heights for NVMXM on the right side near Lambert and Ash, and … versus 7
those three parcels that are from Oregon… or maybe four parcels from Oregon to Acasia. 8
9
Planner Cha: Just to clarify, you’re recommending that anything left of Acasia to the… Acasia to 10
be the dividing line … for the height? 11
12
Vice‐Chair Chang: Yes, that’s what I would like, but I don’t know what kind of administrative 13
headache this would create. I mean I don’t know why we wouldn’t just take some of these …. 14
You know if we believe the daylight plane solves the problem, part… and we’re not… I think that 15
there’s also a massing problem but only as it relates to R‐1, or NV R‐1 housing, so it makes me 16
wonder why we wouldn’t just take all the other NVMSMs and make them NVMXHs. But that…. 17
So I’m not making a motion right now, I’m just discussing. 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.
Chair Summa: Maybe it would be helpful to put up the zone map. The proposed zone map. 1
Thank you. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: Can you also recap what your reasons are for wanting to change 4
those? I still… don’t get it. 5
6
Vice‐Chair Chang: So, my reason is if you’re living in R‐1 and you’ve got a three story building 7
behind you that is really massive and you know, you go into your yard and you feel like you’re 8
just completely dwarfed. And so, that is my concern and if it’s the difference between say a 45 9
foot building and then another ten feet is quite substantial when you’re standing at the base of 10
the building, which these R‐1 lots would be. So…. But those NFMXMs that abut the park, I have 11
no concern whatsoever about those being the 55 or maybe even 65 feet. So, I think that’s 12
where I stand on this. And I didn’t know if other commissioners had thoughts. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: Well, I would say that people live on Lambert, on the other side of 15
that one you just said you have no problem with. 16
17
Vice‐Chair Chang: Yeah but there’s a street there between, you’re backyard isn’t right up on it. 18
A street is like an additional 25 feet. 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 Templeton: Chair let me know when it’s my turn. 1
2
Chair Summa: I’m sorry what? 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: Let me know when I can speak. 5
6
Chair Summa: Oh, you can speak now, I thought you were speaking. 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: No. Vice‐Chair Chang and I were just going back and forth until you 9
called on somebody. So. Thank you. From my perspective, we really, we’re going to create 10
some interesting aesthetics by having such differential along El Camino. And that’s another 11
annoying possibility. It may not be as annoying as having a giant building in your backyard, but 12
we do have the daylight plane consideration to think about how it’s going to step back, so that’s 13
one concern for me. And then I’m thinking like that part that’s NVR‐4, that’s business but it’s 14
going to residential in the future, is that what we’re saying for that space? You know, I trust the 15
Architectural Review Board enough to design it in such a way that it won’t be hideous and have 16
an objective position to the neighboring houses but you know, maybe that’s what you’re 17
saying. How do we ensure that? But my concern is like, let’s make the most of it… this is a huge 18
project, a huge space, a huge opportunity and I think I’m not as concerned about the parts 19
along Oregon and El Camino and if we can make other gestures like we have done tonight, to 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 neighbors living in R‐1 and R‐2, it might be acceptable trade‐off. Right? So, we have to think 1
about the possibilities and not just the worst possibilities, but maybe reasons why it could work 2
as well. And, for me, that’s making me feel comfortable going to 55. You know, 45 is not awful, 3
50 I think is kind of our standard around here, and 45 is five down and 55 is five up. And it’s 4
not… on building it’s not really that dramatic and if that’s what the experts who reviewed this 5
are recommending then I’m not sure I want to shorten these buildings and reduce the amount 6
of homes we can get there. Thank you. 7
8
Chair Summa: Thank you. Commissioner Akin. 9
10
Commissioner Akin: Thank you Chair. Now that we have daylight plane starting at ten feet to 11
match conditions elsewhere in the city, I think it quite likely that the ARBs wisdom applies here 12
and that is going to be the constraint on height and massing for the MXMs from Oregon to 13
Acacia. So, I suspect the height limit is a lot less critical than it was, before making that change. 14
Secondly the MXMs over along Lambert, do I understand correctly that we hope to put some of 15
our BMR development in this area? 16
17
Planner Cha: Related to the Sobrato development it will be within the NVPF. 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.
Commissioner Akin: Oh, it will be in the PF. Okay. The main thing that I was going at was that 1
we may well want additional height for that project, and if that’s the case, we may well accept 2
additional height in these MXM areas that are nearby. Perhaps they should be MXHs. And that 3
would be a relatively simple change. 4
5
Commissioner Templeton objection to the MXM…. To the extra height directly across R‐1’s on 6
Lambert is well taken, but I am willing to buy into Vice‐Chair Chang’s argument that the extra 7
width of the street makes a difference. So, My inclination is to rely on the daylight plane as the 8
ARB suggests between Acacia and Oregon, and go to MFH along Lambert. Thank you. 9
10
Chair Summa: Commissioner Reckdahl. 11
12
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah. If it wasn’t for the density bonus law I would totally agree with 13
Commissioner Akin. But if someone can waive the daylight plane and then use the base height 14
to… and then add on to that… well 33 it’s affordable… so, those two things combined means 15
that the people over on Olive and Pepper could really be surrounded by tall buildings and we’d 16
have had nothing to do with that. Couldn’t do anything about that. So, by keeping that MXM by 17
Olive and Pepper lower, I think were giving the best to protect those people… still 45 is not a 18
bad height … ten years ago we’d consider that a huge building and now it’s still significant. But 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.
then over on Lambert and Portage, I would accept moving those up… moving those MXMs to 1
MXHs. 2
3
Chair Summa: You’re supporting keeping MXM at 45 feet? 4
5
Commissioner Reckdahl: yeah, keeping … what I’m concerned about is the MXMs that are over 6
by Pepper and Olive, and I’m afraid that this daylight plane will not protect us because it will get 7
waived, potentially get waived by the density bonus law. But I’m less concerned about that 8
over on Lambert and Portage. So I would be open to upzoning those but keeping the ones over 9
by Olive and Pepper low. 10
11
Chair Summa: Okay, I will just interject really quickly that also the daylight plane… there’s no 12
provision to protect the new park away from… in terms of daylight plane. So, I just wanted to 13
add that and then I’m going to go in order to…. Chang, and Hechtman. 14
15
Vice‐Chair Chang: Well, I was ready to make a motion so I think I don’t need to speak right 16
now. 17
18
Chair Summa: Okay, Commissioner Hechtman. 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 Hechtman: Yeah, I was trying to figure out if there was a motion on the floor. 1
But I think there are two concepts on the floor right now, if I’m understanding correctly, 2
Commissioner Chang’s [Vice‐Chair Chang] I think modified concept is to reduce the height of 3
the NVMXM … or keep the height at 45 feet but only from Acacia north. Right? And then there’s 4
a separate concept which Commissioner Akin has brought up about taking the NVMXM along 5
Lambert and changing that to MXH, if I understood that right. Right? So, it’s got two concepts, 6
maybe two motions coming our way, but definitely should be two different motions. I guess let 7
me comment on them separately. So, the … in terms of the height of the NVMXM north of 8
Acacia, I guess my thoughts are… I wouldn’t support that motion, we’ve already…. the NV R‐2 9
that we’re showing on the right side of this diagram according to the left side of this diagram is 10
currently R‐1, so we’re already… and maybe it was part of the… if that’s correct, maybe it’s part 11
of the housing plan zoning element …. Housing element rezoning that we’ve already sort of 12
provided economic benefit to those parcels. Tonight, we’re recommending that the NV R‐1’s, 13
which currently have a generally a thirty foot height go to thirty‐five. So, we’re providing an 14
economic benefit to them as well. Now, part of that group is surrounded by that NVMXM, most 15
of which are along two of our major streets, El Camino and Oregon. That’s the place to put 16
density. And so, I think we need to keep that at 55, trust the daylight plane to do it’s work, 17
recognize the benefit we’ve given to the R‐1s in the middle of this neighborhood, and basically 18
hold the 55 there. On the Lambert stuff, I guess I’m hesitant to change the zoning of that on the 19
fly. I don’t know if the draft SEIR was done in a way that would accommodate that additional 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.
density. You know, when I look on packet page 14 at the table of designations, the H version is 1
at 3.0 to 1 FAR compared to 2.0, so it’s at fifty percent increase and the upper range for the 2
MXM at 70 units is close to the lowest range at the H. Because that’s a 61 to 100. So, while it 3
may be a good idea in the long run, I wouldn’t support it tonight, for those reasons. I think we 4
would really have to study it and confirm it was in the SEIR. Because if it’s not, then we’ve got 5
an impact that hasn’t been analyzed. 6
7
Chair Summa: I would agree with that and I would say that you don’t have to worry about 8
reducing impacts, if you think there are going to be changes in the EIR but you do have to worry 9
about adding impacts. So, I would agree with that. Commissioner Templeton. 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: I’m not sure if I can remember what I pressed my light for, hold on 12
a sec, give me just a second. No, I don’t think I’m going to get it. Thanks. 13
14
Chair Summa: So, I would suggest that we have the original second motion pertain to MXM… 15
did you have an epiphany? 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: I did. My question was for Mr. Yang, and I just wanted to confirm 18
that we fully understand the legal implications of discussing adjusting our heights to circumvent 19
the … what is the law, you think… the density bonus. Thank you. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Mr. Yang, City Attorney: So I don’t see this as circumventing the density bonus, but you know, 2
heights… this whole area is regulating it’s density through FAR and so what we’ve done is we’ve 3
determined that these FARs combined with these heights and setbacks can accommodate these 4
reasonable densities that we’re projecting, but it’s all going to come down to what type of 5
project gets proposed and if someone is eligible for a density bonus, they’ll be able to increase 6
their FAR by some percentage and then they can waive any of these other development 7
standards to accommodate that additional FAR. But it shouldn’t be a significant waiver because 8
we’ve already sort of modeled out how this FAR can fit in the other standards. 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: Thanks, I’m just concerned because like, we know what heights will 11
be acceptable and we’re constraining ourselves based on the density bonus, I just wanted to 12
make sure I understand to what extent we’re allowed to do that and not … so it sounds like 13
we’re fine so let’s move on, thanks. 14
15
Chair Summa: Okay, I was going to suggest that the maker and the seconder might decide if 16
they want to incorporate the Lamber MXM to MXH. 17
18
MOTION #2 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.
Vice‐Chair Chang: No, I think what I’ll do is just make the original motion which is to change the 1
MXM height back to the 45 feet in the originally proposed plan because I am concerned about 2
what Commissioner Hechtman said so I don’t want to change the… I mean we can do that later. 3
But I think that leave the… across the whole area, yes. 4
5
SECOND 6
7
Commissioner Reckdahl: Second. 8
9
Chair Summa: Okay. Are there comments? Commissioner Templeton your light is on but that’s 10
probably my fault. If no one else has anything to say then we can go ahead and take the vote. 11
12
VOTE 13
14
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Templeton 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: No 17
18
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Reckdahl 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.
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yes. 1
2
Ms. Dao: Chair Summa 3
4
Chair Summa: Yes 5
6
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Hechtman 7
8
Commissioner Hechtman: No. 9
10
Ms. Dao: Vice‐Chair Chang 11
12
Vice‐Chair Chang: Yes. 13
14
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Akin 15
16
Commissioner Akin: Yes. 17
18
Ms. Dao: Motion carries 4‐2‐1. 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.
MOTION PASSED 4 (Akin, Chang, Summa, Reckdahl,) ‐2 (No: Templeton, Hechtman, Lu Absent) 1
Commission Action: Moved by Chang, seconded by Reckdahl. Pass 6‐0‐1 2
3
Chair Summa: Thank you very much everyone. 4
5
Commissioner Reckdahl: Do we want to consider Lamber and have that be contingent on staff 6
finding out whether that would violate the EIR? 7
8
Chair Summa: I don’t but if you do you should recommend it. 9
10
Commissioner Akin: Since I made the proposal, I will officially say that I find Commissioner 11
Hechtman’s argument compelling and I don’t want to risk compromising this EIR. 12
13
Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. Fair enough. 14
15
Chair Summa: Okay. I believe that concludes … so the original motion covered part III, Adopt 16
draft ordinance I believe… 17
18
Ms. French: Yes. 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.
Chair Summa: So, I think that concludes this item. Good evening Chair Baltay, thank you for 1
joining us and I’m going to recommend a break, how about 8 minutes? Yes? OH, I’m sorry, it’s 2
the last meeting that I’m probably going to Chair and so I wanted to be consistent. Would you 3
please like to speak to your No’s? 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: I would, thank you so much Chair. I just want to say that it’s really 6
important that we get the housing where we can get it and I’m concerned this will reduce the 7
number of units and that’s why I didn’t want to support it. Thank you. 8
9
Chair Summa: Commissioner Hechtman would you like to speak to your no? 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: No further comments, thanks. 12
13
Chair Summa: Okay, does 8 minutes sound good? Okay, see you back here in 8 minutes, which 14
is 9:12. 15
16
PTC took an eight minute break, and all returned to session with all members present (Lu 17
absent). 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.
3. Review and Provide Comments on the Final Draft Retail Study Report Supporting 1
Palo Alto’s Effort to Modernize Regulations and Ensure Vibrant Commercial Areas 2
Citywide. 3
4
Chair Summa: Welcome back everyone to the Planning and Transportation Commission 5
meeting. We, having completed our first item we…we’re moving on to our section…second 6
section item of the evening, which is review and provide comments on the final draft retail 7
study report, and we’ll start off… presentations. 8
9
Ms. French: Yes, good evening, Amy French. We have our consultants here, in the Zoom room. 10
Tonight, we’re receiving the report, and providing comments, and we’re hoping to forward this 11
to the City Council; we have a June tenth date as our target. Just a brief overview, we have a 12
consultant report, there are multiple exhibits… or sorry appendices that go with that report; 13
there’s an executive summary, the consultants can kind of go through the executive summary; 14
they have some helpful slides when we get to a point of making comments, and I’ll stop my 15
share and let them put theirs on. 16
17
Mr. Dan Wery: Okay, let me make sure I get the right one here. Good evening, 18
everybody…let’s see…this should be the right one… Okay, everyone seeing the home slide? 19
20
Commissioner Hechtman: Not yet. 21
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.
Mr. Dan Wery: Not yet, okay. Sometimes there’s a delay, but hopefully it shows up here. Says 1
I’m sharing it. So, anything yet? 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: No, we’re looking at a hypnotic spinning wheel. 4
5
Chair Summa: Yeah, it looks like it’s trying to load. There it is. 6
7
Mr. Dan Wery: There we go, okay, great. Good tell me if you get more spinning wheels I’ll…I’ll 8
postpone and wait a little bit. But good evening, thanks so much. I’m Planner Frick from 9
Micheal Baker International, Surabhi Barbhaya is with me as usual. I’ve got a hopefully fairly 10
brief presentation; it’s got about twenty slides; it’s really going to be in two parts. The first part 11
is really kind of a summary of the report, which you’ve had for a bout a week, we’ve actually 12
got some comments back, we appreciate that. The…the vast majority of the report is what 13
we’ve been talking and presenting about so far as we’re talking about the zoning 14
recommendations and strategies. The second part of the presentation, and really the focus, is 15
going to be on the…the parking, that’s…that’s new to the full PTC, but we have had a chance to 16
discuss that with the ad hoc, and so that’s new material, we’re kind of intending to focus on 17
that more; but we’ve got extra slides, so if we need to go back to anything, we can cover that. 18
So, slide advance, we’ll see if it works, hopefully it’s advancing. So, this is just a…the… the kind 19
of starting goal, what we’re trying to do with this particular project, which is to recommend 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
zoning strategies to help retain, strengthen, facilitate retail in the commercial…key commercial 1
areas of Palo Alto, and again, the key word there is strategies, we’re not actually working on 2
amendments, yet. The idea is to get to the…ya know, sufficient guidance and recommendation 3
to the City Council, that can then direct Staff to make changes, and we think we got really good 4
recommendations on the zon…zoning strategies to date as we go through, we’ll cover a little bit 5
more on the parking. So, again overall agenda is to summarize the report, we can answer any 6
questions on that… focus on the AB2097 implications and recommendations, that was really 7
our charge, so we’ve got that whole appendix C, which gets into greater detail, and then 8
ultimately is… hopefully we can get your recommendations to City Council. So, first off is just a 9
kind of overview and summary of the report itself, just the contents, we… we had a draft report 10
earlier, we included an executive summary. Just kind of wrap it all up, introduction study area 11
outreach, we’ve talked about all these before, but then… the kind of trends… the changing 12
nature of retail…there’s a section on market profile, that comes from Ezri, and that just kind of 13
helps us understand the broader market, and market areas, we’ve got a few of those slides as 14
well if we need to get into that. Obviously, we spent a lot of time on the vacancy trends and 15
findings, and in past meetings, particularly in March and April. We’ve got a little section on best 16
practices, and those where kind of based on general research and trends and what our peers 17
were doing, and then the last two sections are the impli….implications regarding AB2097, and 18
then the zoning analysis and recommendations, and again, these…there’s four appendices that 19
I believe were in your packets. Really quick, this is just a quick reminder of the commercial 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.
zones and the four areas that we were charged with studying, and really focusing on the 1
downtown area, Calav, Midtown, and El Camino Real. The map also shows areas that have also 2
been discussed, and include, you know, other commercial areas, the Charleston Court 3
Middlefield Road, and San Antonio areas. Real quick, the study has a whole section on 4
outreach, and also summary of the related studies, namely the Comprehensive Economic 5
Development Strategy, prepared by Street Sense. The…in terms of the outreach and 6
engagement, we’ve gone over that, but there were six stakeholder interviews, including 7
landowners, businesses, Chamber of Commerce; that was then expanded to include interviews 8
of…of peer cities including, Santa Monica, the city of Los Altos, and Redwood City, and then to 9
date we’ve had a lot of work sessions with yourselves, counting tonight would be sixth with the 10
PTC…full PTC, and then we had four intervening ad hoc sessions, which were really really 11
helpful. The one thing that I would just summarize about the…the engagement, is…is it was 12
remarkably consistent form the various…stakeholders that we spoke with and interviewed, 13
and…and the other thing that’s kind of encouraging is… is that I was looking at a summary 14
of…of the key recommendations from the stakeholders, and I think every one of those is part of 15
the recommendations that… that we’ve covered in the prior meetings in terms of zoning 16
strategies, so that’s…that’s next. And again, it’s consistent with those key guiding principles 17
and strategies from the Comprehensive Economici Development study prepared…or strategy 18
prepared by Street Sense. Moving along, just kind of real high view… we’ve talked about 19
national and local trends and findings, that’s where we really got into the vacancies, and the 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
reasons why, and problems, and contributing factors, but real quick, overall E‐commerce 1
continues to…. consume a larger percentage or reflect the larger percentage of total retail 2
sales. Experienced ribbon uses are still growing, and that’s good; so, there’s things you can’t do 3
online, not everything can be done online, so those uses and retailers are…are still doing well, 4
but that has caused a shift in terms of occupancy of brick and mortar. Remote work and office 5
users has really changed the overall office demand, and that’s led to vacancies of office 6
buildings, as well as, reduced occupancy within those buildings; so the ones that are occupied, 7
aren’t necessarily occupied fully, as they used to be, pre‐COVID, because people are doing 8
hybrid schedules, and working from home. That’s you know… that reduced… office… 9
occupancy, and workers has reduced the overall demand for retail, and that’s created an 10
imbalance; we’ve got an excess of office space, and we got an excess of retail space, and that 11
was pointed out in the…the Street Sense study; specifically locally, and by contrast in some 12
cases, number one…the… the data that we were able to analyze shows that…we looked at 13
different study areas, five‐ten minute, fifteen minute, we generally look at like a ten minute 14
market analysis, and it shows that…ya know, the demand for retail exceeds… the supply and 15
that means that some of these uses, ya know, despite vacancies locally, people are shopping 16
outside of Palo Alto, really what that means. Certain uses, and we pointed out earlier… there’s 17
big box, not really in Palo Alto, but you’ve got competition for you main street retail, and that 18
comes from the big box just outside of Pal Alto boundaries; you’ve also got competition from 19
Stanford Mall…and so that’s part of the whole dynamic that we’re trying to deal with. Unlike 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.
national trends, Palo Alto retail rates…vacancy rates have continued to rise; nationally they’ve 1
been recovering, but they’ve been continuing to going to up in Palo Alto. Retail vacancies… one 2
of the things we have talked about was landlords are willing to wait… for that long‐term tenant, 3
there’s a lot of cost and a lot of commitment associated with…with retail in particular, they 4
tend to have longer leases, they have greater tenant improvement cost, and…and for those 5
reasons, probably more so than other uses like offices… tenants are…or property owners are 6
willing to wait longer to get that right tenant in there. And then similar to national trends, the 7
office vacancy rates in Palo Alto have continued to increase to…to really record levels. That’s 8
probably enough information there. We talked about in…in the report it contains primary 9
zoning strategies, we kind of broke these down into these seven, so kin…kind of 10
comprehensively we…we’ve kind of identified that the code is mature, it’s complex, it’s time for 11
a comprehensive cleanup, that’s a big effort, and maybe that’s probably in terms of priority it 12
needs to be done, but there’s other things you can do in… in the near term to focus on retail. 13
The second general recommendation again is kind of an overall, or general recommendation 14
that’s the create streamline and predictable approval processes, you’re…you actually have 15
pretty streamlined processes already, a lot of these can be approved… a lot of projects can be 16
approved at the Staff level, that’s really great, that’s what we really recommend; so our 17
detailed recommendations there’s some sub points in the report to each of these, is to expand 18
that where possible, do more ministerial approvals where possible. In general, we think that 19
you’ve got some…your general processes are fairly streamlined. The main comments here, and 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 are ones that we’ve talked about are limit, the retail preservation ordinance, we’ve talked 1
about a couple of ways to do that, it’s geographically, I think is where we’ve come down on 2
that, as of the last meeting, and also, we can fix some of the particulars that are in the retail 3
preservation ordinance. So, where it would remain applicable in your core areas, there’s some 4
other refinements we can do there. The fourth main recommendation in the report is, to allow 5
non‐retail uses on ground floor, with limitations, and we’ve talked about allowing uses without 6
a CUP, expanding the definition of retail to include…kind of a performance standard to include 7
uses that we didn’t necessarily anticipate, so we don’t need to list out each specific use, so it’s a 8
little bit more inclusive; and we’ve talked about personal service uses as well, and how there’s a 9
few adjustments we can make to those. Another recommendation was about the office 10
limitations, and our recommendation is that… that the circumstances that led to those 11
regulations really no longer exist, and the vacancy is… is so great that we really don’t see any 12
need for these restrictions in the foreseeable future, so we think those can be repealed; if 13
they’re not repealed in their entirety, we’ve got recommendations to do it in a phased 14
approach, there’s things that we can absolutely do now that kind of correspond with the retail 15
regulations; for example don’t restrict office uses on upper floors, because currently they’re 16
limited, and there’s plenty of vacancies, we don’t need to worry about that, but those office 17
uses contain employees that are your… some of your primary shoppers and supporters of your 18
retail areas. So, those are some important uses that complement your retail. Let’s see, number 19
six was relax the formula retail restrictions, and so we had some very specific recommendations 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.
on that; and then ease the parking regulations. And I’ll just say with the parking regulation, we 1
had some general recommendations in there and then we’ve done a whole separate kind of 2
appendix C, which was really talking about the implications of assembly Bill 2097, really 3
affecting everything within a half mile of the CALTRAIN Stations; so that was really kind of 4
where we wanted to focus tonight, because those are things that we’ve discussed with ad hoc 5
committee, but haven’t been ablet to discuss yet with the full PTC. So, without further ado, 6
we’ll move on to that. So, we got a few slides on this, and in general just a quick summary of 7
what AB2097 is, it effectively eliminates minimum parking requirements within a half mile of 8
rail, or in this case two, technically three CALTRAIN Stations that affect Palo Alto. It was 9
effective last year on January the 1st, again, there’s no minimum parking requirements for 10
residential and commercial uses; there are some exceptions and exemptions. So, hotels, motel, 11
transient lodging uses are still subject to minimum parking requirements. The…there is the 12
ability of a city to require minimum parking requirements, bu... but the onus is kind of on the 13
city to kind of justify that, and you basically have to demonstrate that there’d be a substantially 14
negative impact by not having a parking standard. So, there is some ability to do that, but in 15
general what the State law has done is kind of codify some of the best practices that are 16
basically shown to support transit uses and support a good healthy mix of uses in and around 17
those areas, within a half mile of transit. So, that’s kind of what it is, these…this map just kind 18
of shows the…primarily the two areas that are really affect; downtown, the commercial district 19
is entirely withing… or almost entirely withing… I’ll show you another map in a second… within 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 half mile radius, and when I say the downtown area, the area that’s on the map in the black 1
outline is the commercial district that we’ve really been focusing on. So, the Town and Country 2
area in downtown is almost entirely in there; sixteen parcels there that fall just outside of that 3
half mile radius, and then 100% of the Cal Avenue commercial district, and good portion of El 4
Camino Real, on either side of Cal Avenue, also falls within that half mile radius. The….kind of 5
going back to our engagement stakeholder….engagement and outreach and peer review cities 6
we had a variety of input there, and I won’t go through all of this because we’ve… well if you 7
want we can go through it, but basically from the business community and the property owners 8
in Palo Alto, we heard again, very remarkably consistent concerns. The excessive in leu parking 9
fees, and we’ll talk about whether that’s still relevant, it’s really not relevant anymore because 10
of AB2097. They want to allow parking transfers between uses, they’ve had difficulty… make… 11
making changes of use because they’ve had to add parking, they don’t have space on site, to 12
provide onsite parking; City Staff… or City… a City Staff, I think that’s employee parking, often 13
occupy valuable off street parking space, customers have a hard time… so basically, it’s 14
competition for those best parking spaces; they wanted to have more flexibility with the 15
parking regulations. Generally, there is no complaint, the feeling was there was ample parking 16
on California Avenue, and in support for California Avenue. On street parking time limits were a 17
hinderance for employees… the two‐hour parking limits without a permit, and then, I guess 18
there’s been some concern… about… you know, getting those permits in some cases. Some of 19
these comments…are maybe getting out of date, we’ve noted that in our…our ad hoc 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.
committee, and meeting with the…the City’s traffic experts and parking experts. There’s also 1
input from peer cities, Santa Monica had unbundled their parking, and that’s actually a… a new 2
law that will take effect next January f… for residential uses. Parking needs to be leased, or 3
rented, or sold separately from … residential units, so that will require amendment to the code. 4
Different … methods of management parking and… and dealing with associated uses; Santa 5
Monica uses transportation impact fees, and transportation demand management to… also, 6
kind of manage their…their total parking demand and traffic demand. One of the things we did 7
not here, but they eliminated their minimum parking requirements, and they’ve established 8
maximum parking requirements. Los Altos has customer parking permits, or Yellow brook 9
passes; give them to customers so that they can park longer thant the otherwise time limits 10
within the various parking areas, so if it’s a two hour, and they want to park for four to six 11
hours, they can get a pass from various employees or businesses to provide those… a… permits. 12
Pasadena has a park and walk program basically that’s just managing the fees to encourage 13
people to park in the garages and walk the little extra distance, rather than … trying to consume 14
the closest spaces to the businesses, particularly with employees. They’ve also established 15
parking maximums, and in…in the…in the transit‐oriented development areas. A mouthful, 16
okay… parking findings… parking availability in Palo Alto downtown this…I should qualify…this 17
data… in terms of the occupancy of the parking spaces is from 2019, this is pre‐COVID. 18
Downtown was at seventy‐six percent during the peak hours…or hours… the noon hours, 19
generally we’re looking for an eighty‐five to ninety percent occupancy, we want to have a little 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.
bit of… of availability so people aren’t constantly circling around to find that one remaining 1
space, and so , at seventy‐six percent, suggests that there’ s even some compacity there to 2
consume before you even reach kind of optimum levels. In comparison, CalAv and in 2019, was 3
at an optimum level, about eighty‐eight percent peak occupancy that’s during weekday noon 4
hours. What both of those…there’s also weekends where we looked at as well; nowhere near 5
capacity in any of the parking areas on the weekends, what that suggests is…ah those peaks 6
were being driven by the office tenants and employees. Decreased parking demand due to 7
reduced office utilization, we know that that’s what’s happening now, and when we were 8
talking with the City’s parking experts and managers, it’s very clear that the demand is way off, 9
and as a result, they’ve made adjustments to parking rates, and permit fees. Second major 10
finding is, with respect to the parking assessment districts, AB2097, essentially invalidates those 11
withing the half mile radius, so downtown, and University Avenue… is based on a flat rate of 12
one space for every 250 square feet, or four per thousand, and that trigger is no longer 13
applicable; so, you no longer have that parking assessment district, or the in‐leu fee 14
requirement. As a result of AB2097, curb space management, just using that on street parking, 15
for example is likely to get a… ya know, over time increased competition for those spaces since 16
new spaces won’t be created through the normal regulatory mechanisms within that half mile 17
radius. Residential parking permit program, the RPPP, may be impacted by AB2097, just as… 18
there’s again, more competition for the on street spaces, assuming we…are… reaching a peak 19
compacity and occupancy, we’re not there anymore, but ultimately in the future as that’s start 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 fill up hopefully over time there could be competition for those RPPP spaces, however, the 1
other thing to note, we’ve got a discussion on it later, and… and in the report, there’s a new law 2
that’s drafted that will directly affect the RPPP within the half mile radius; I’ll get into that a 3
little bit later. Retail locations outside of the half mile radius from the CALTRAIN Stations… are 4
still subject to the parking regulations, so nothing new there, however, we did have a 5
recommendation coming out of the ad hoc committee that we make some changes to those 6
areas to the parking standards outside of…of that half mile radius; and then, we had talked 7
already about the kind of pure City management strategies, there are a number of those that, 8
ya know, offer some good milestones, and maybe some examples to consider and follow. 9
Number seven was the AB2097… because it eliminates those parking standards, that’s usually a 10
tool that can be used to incentivize, or kind of regulate certain types of uses, you really 11
have…you don’t have that tool any longer within that… that half mile radius. So, those are 12
some of the big findings, and then we’ve got recommendations; so, this is really kind of where 13
we wanted to be tonight and focus on. We’ve got, I think, eleven total recommendations, so 14
we got, I think, four slides here; we’ll go through them. But the first one was what I mentioned 15
earlier in the… downtown University Avenue, you can see on this map, there’s sixteen parcels, 16
in kind of a purple crosshatch, just on the north side, or northeast edge of that half mile radius. 17
So, those properties have the same zoning as the rest of the commercial district downtown, 18
but… and if we apply the law strictly of AB2097, those properties, would still be subject to the 19
minimum parking requirements, and the in‐leu fee of the parking assessment district, while 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.
rest of the area in that…that blue radius overlay, would not. So, our recommendation there is, 1
for just equitable reasons, should probably extended the provisions of AB2097, to include those 2
sixteen parcels, it just makes sense. There’s no… it splits a… a block, so why would one half of 3
the block be subject to these regulations, and the others wouldn’t. The second 4
recommendation is kind of similar; allow retail flexibility, without requiring additional parking. 5
So, this was really for the areas outside of AB2097, but it’s a similar concept is... let’s... let’s 6
allow some flexibility in that ground use floor area. So, what would happen in AB2097, is those 7
uses can change, you can intensify uses, you can change uses, parking uses are no longer a… a 8
factor in those changes of uses, and they used to be a limiting factor. Number two 9
recommendation is kind of a similar idea. Let’s exempt the parking…from the parking 10
regulations… any conversion of existing floor area, to retail or retail like uses, those are uses 11
that you want to encourage, and so if it’s an existing floor are, let that change, let the market 12
take care of itself, but exempt them from those minimum parking requirements. So, we… I 13
think we had a good discussion with ad hoc committee, and I think the feeling was… is 14
that…that’s worth trying, and it would be an incentive to help those areas make transitions, let 15
the natural market kind of adapt over time. So, on this slide, we’ve got four more 16
recommendations; those first two are probably the most significant ones, frankly. Number 17
three were general recommendations, parking management optimization; just in general, and 18
I’m sure the City’s doing this now, the…just trying to manage your tool, because you can no 19
longer regulate within the, particularly within AB2097, you need to switch to a management 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
program. So, we’re not creating more spaces, we’re going to manage the spaces that you have, 1
and again, you’re …. you’re shooting for that occupancy, eighty‐five/nighty‐ percent. You might 2
even be able to go higher where you’ve got technology that can really improve access and 3
efficiency to finding the available spaces, and the City does have some of that in existing and in 4
the future, some of that technology I should say. It just needs to be regular part of the… the 5
management that needs to be monitoring, and so that needs to be some sort of annual 6
assessment of your supply and your occupancy, maybe it’s not annual, but periodically manage 7
and check that; and again, the technology should really help that over time where... where 8
you’ve got the ability to make those counts throughout the days, and you can really understand 9
your management. You’re two primary management tools are time and money, you can 10
control…the…time limits, how long people can stay in a parking space, so that encourages 11
turnover, it affects occupancy, and you can also control the cost of those; so, those are your 12
two primary tools, you can do other things as well, obviously with promotions and information; 13
we’ve got some recommendations on those as well. Recommendation number four was 14
developing ordinance to unbundle parking, as I mentioned AB1317, was passed in October of 15
last year, it’s effective in January in 2025, and it requires, the unbundling of parking from 16
residential units, and so you’re just going to need to recognize that, and modify the code, 17
should be a fairly discreet code changes, and not take too much effort. Number five, is create 18
an employee parking plan and program, you really already kind of have some of this, and one of 19
the things we just learned, for example, is there are, you know, the City sells permits for 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.
permit only spaces, in the various lots and garages; those fees have come down dramatically 1
since COVID, from twenty‐five dollars a day to, I think, eight dollars a day, to reflect the 2
availability and the supply, and limited demand that’s already managing that… that costs as... as 3
a way to encourage those uses, but there’s other things that can be done, ya know, like I 4
mentioned the yellow passes in the city of Los Altos, so maybe some other programmatic things 5
to incentivize employees to parking in the garages as opposed to the more desirable customer 6
spaces, you know, on the street, where the… the closest parking lots etc. Again, pricing 7
options, educate business owners and property owners about the impact of employees, and 8
parking; it’s you know…I’ve seen it for literally decades, some of the worst violators are the 9
business owners themselves. They take those prime parking spots, and they whip their car out 10
in front, and then they complain it’s not enough parking for their customers, so, anyway; things 11
we can do there. Number six is pursue… pursue shared use agreements, the City does allow, 12
and provides incentives for shared parking, and that should continue to be promoted; one 13
examples is, perhaps increasing the reduction in the parking requirements, these are really 14
applicable, again, outside of the half mile of the CALTRAN Stations… but there’s a I believe it’s a 15
twenty percent reduction in the total combined parking demand if you’re sharing parking 16
between uses, you know, you can go higher. Many cases, twenty‐five is a common standards, 17
and often you can go higher, and applicants are often allowed to demonstrate that they can get 18
a greater reduction, or efficiency by shared parking between compatible uses, ya know, 19
daytime heavy uses, versus nighttime heavier uses. Then again, the City can go enter into 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
parking agreements with land owners to use private parking, we’ve seen that a lot where 1
you’ve got a lot of restaurant activity, particularly in the evenings, and on street parking and 2
spaces make it tight in some spaces, and we’ve seen where private properties have made 3
their… their office spaces, or their vacant spaces available to.. for those uses, then they’ll do like 4
valet parking, or something like that to provide additional parking compacity. [TIMESTAMP 5
3:56:51] 6
4:01:57 7
8
Chair Summa: Thank you, Mr. Wery. I think before we go to questions, I think the ad hoc was 9
going to… I don’t know if it’s a report, but make comments. 10
11
Vice‐Chair Chang: So we just wanted to make a quick comment that this report that has just 12
been presented, is the work product of Micheal Baker International and Incorporates some of 13
our perspective, some of the perspectives of Commissioner Akin and Commissioner Reckdahl 14
and myself, but not everything, and there are come things in the report that we may disagree 15
with, for example like eliminating office cap for example, we didn’t discuss that, so, I just 16
wanted to set the context for you know, what this is and what it isn’t. That’s it. Thank you. 17
18
Chair Summa: Okay. Thank you. I see Commissioner Akin’s light is on and Commissioner 19
Hechtman’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.
1
Commissioner Akin: Thank you Chair. I had a number of clarifying questions that I sent to Ms. 2
French several days ago and Mr. Wery, I wondered if you had seen those. 3
4
Consultant Dan Wery: Yes and… 5
6
Commissioner Akin: and if you’ve covered them all already, there’s no reason to take 7
everyone’s time to go over them tonight. 8
9
Mr. Wery: Yes. I believe we have Allen [Commissioner Akin]; I appreciate those comments. They 10
are always very thoughtful and just to pick up where Chair had mentioned as well, there are 11
some things that generally … our recommendations are inclusive of everything the ad hoc came 12
up with, there are probably a couple of things, like you mentioned the office, and we can go 13
over that in more detail if you’d like, but we also want to note that there are some changes and 14
corrections and clarifications that we’ve seen even since we’ve submitted that you know, that 15
we’d like to polish up and you pointed out a few Allen. One was just there was some numbers 16
in there, in the demographic summary and there was two different… dramatically different sets 17
of numbers between the populations and I’ll just clarify that we’ve… and I’ve got a little table to 18
kind of show that if you want, but there’s …. When we ran the data we looked at five, ten and 19
fifteen minute kind of market sheds and one of the tables it was showing a five minute kind of 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.
market shed population around twenty five and thirty thousand but then if you’re looking at Cal 1
Ave or you know, Midway, and then one showed a population of 130 or so thousand … that was 2
a 10 minutes market shed so there was just some apples and oranges in there. So we’ll correct 3
that for sure. 4
5
Commissioner Akin: Yeah, it was a little confusing to see the Cal Ave population be seven times 6
the downtown (interrupted) 7
8
Mr. Wery: Yeah and so we’ll clarify that and what we intend to do and I’ve make a table 9
already…. Surabhi has made a table, we made a table to kind of show the three areas that we 10
specifically had numbers for and shows the 2021 and 2026 five, ten and fifteen minute 11
populations and there’s a map that goes with that. So, we can clarify that and I appreciate you 12
pointing that out. One of the questions was about what does retail leakage mean. 13
14
Commissioner Akin: That we resolved. Although other people may be of… may find it of 15
interest. Given the time, I didn’t mean to make you go through all of these, I just wanted to 16
make sure they had been covered. 17
18
Mr. Wery: So there are some clean up that we can do to make those more explicit and clear… 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: Yeah, and to correct the small number of random errors. 1
2
Consultant Surabhi Barbhaya: We can [TIMESTAMP 4:06 Unintelligible] 3
4
Commissioner Akin: Sure. Perhaps I should explain what that is since the other commissioners 5
don’t have the context. I sent a number of questions about numbers in the report that didn’t 6
seem correct to me. What we just heard is from packet page 98 where the demographic 7
summaries were odd. I think what we’re talking about now starts around packet page 123 in 8
which I believe there’s a confusion between downtown vacancy rates and Cal Ave vacancy rates 9
and the open question is the third bullet item on that page where there’s a discussion of office 10
occupancy, so Ms. Barbhaya perhaps is that what you wanted to tackle next? 11
12
Consultant Surabhi Barbhaya: Yes, and if you can go on to slide 49, what we were discussing in 13
that particular one was actual occupancy of the office space that is different from the vacancy 14
rate it says. You’re right, the vacancy rate is around 25% nationally, which is very similar to 15
what Palo Alto vacancy rate is and that is based on the each particular use of the office space. 16
What the occupancy rate is the utilization of that space. For example, if there is space for 400 17
employees, only 10 or 15 or 20 employees are coming in, so the actual utilization has 18
decreased. So that is around 55% nationally and we don’t have that data exactly for Palo Alto. 19
What is happening because of that is it is affecting your retail sales, other thing it is impacting is 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
parking, so there is more parking availability. Palo Alto is trying to figure out what that 1
equilibrium is, as to how many parking spaces are needed for the actual occupancy of the 2
office. 3
4
Commissioner Akin: Okay, Thank you. That’s very helpful. As an engineer I always look at a 5
single number and ask … there should be a spread here, either a mean and a standard deviation 6
or some other range, because I’m sure it varies from day to day during the week. So, as a piece 7
of advice on that one. 8
9
Consultant Dan Wery: The vacancy rates were looking at occupancy, generally what’s leased 10
and what buildings have users in them and then just the occupancy and how efficiently that’s 11
being used and again hybrid work schedules are you know, reducing the occupancy for a lot of 12
spaces. And a lot of tenants over time are contracting that office space to use that space more 13
efficiently, where they’re hoteling or sharing office spaces. So, they will get a better occupancy 14
but they may be occupying less overall space of the… than they used to. 15
16
Commissioner Akin: Thank you, that’s a good explanation. I was just observing… I’ll bet you 17
that the occupancy rate on Monday is vastly lower than the occupancy rate on Tuesday. And 18
that affects how much parking you needed, among other things, as well as retail opportunity. 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.
Of the questions I sent you, I think that covers the essential ones. So, we should probably move 1
on to other things. Thank you. 2
3
Chair Summa: Thank you. Commissioner Hechtman. 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: Thanks. So my question is actually on the market study, Attachment 6
B, I couldn’t figure out the numbers either. You mentioned that you had done the little table, 7
that maybe you can share that with us, or even just tell us that we don’t even have to pay 8
attention to it because the numbers are off. 9
10
Consultant Dan Wery: Yeah, let’s see if I’ve got that … Surabhi do you know if we’ve got that 11
slide? I think we do. One slide up? Okay. Let’s see if that works. So, we’re on 49, so let’s look at 12
48. Sorry, it’s taking me a little bit longer. Yeah. There we go. So, this map is what I was talking 13
about. So, we can incorporate this in, but again, we looked at downtown and Cal Avenue and 14
midtown. It’s hard to see on this map, I tried to make it fairly large, but I’ll just start with the 15
numbers. So, the numbers as I mentioned in the report, had one area where we reported based 16
on the ten minute drive times, so we were getting the larger numbers and you can see there 17
was a big difference between the five minute and ten minute, you know it was just dramatically 18
more people. And I look at map…. It’s hard to read, this map was given to us, so we couldn’t 19
change the colors, but the five minute radius is in the red, you can see the little pin there in 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
white, and then the ten minute radius is in that bright green, it kind of blends in and that navy 1
blue, you see that’s the fifteen minute radius. So, it gives you an idea. It doesn’t respect 2
municipal boundaries, it’s just kind of looking at where people are spending their money, so it’s 3
kind of bit data that some of these providers have been able to crunch and show where people 4
are spending their money. 5
6
Commissioner Hechtman: Can you go back to the table please? Okay, so, really, if I’m 7
understanding the information now, what we’re talking about it sort of … when you’re looking 8
at the population for example, of downtown, what we’re talking about is how many people are 9
coming from five minutes, ten minutes, and fifteen minutes away. One is an historic figure and 10
the other is a projection. 11
12
Consultant Surabhi Barbhaya: Yes. 13
14
Commissioner Hechtman: Alright. So, I guess what’s kind of fascinating to me is, without 15
looking at these numbers, I would have guessed that University Avenue is going to have 16
overwhelmingly higher numbers. Particularly over midtown. But we’re actually seeing that 17
midtown is the most popular destination at every… actually, in every metric shown here. So, let 18
me just ask the question, is that an anomaly … like when you started this job would you have 19
predicted 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
Consultant Surabhi Barbhaya: No, so this is not number of people coming into that area, this is 2
number of people living in that five minute drive distance. People living in that area, not coming 3
to that area. 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: Ahh… so this is the potential population of shoppers within a drive 6
time. Okay, thanks for clarifying. 7
8
Consultant Dan Wery: Yeah, we don’t have data on how many people are coming and going 9
unfortunately. 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: Got it. 12
13
Consultant Dan Wery: I think the Street Sense report might have had some of that data 14
actually. 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: Quick follow up to that question, Did we look at the number of 17
people employed within five, ten and fifteen minutes of these areas? Because I think lunch time 18
is a big draw for some of these kinds of stores. 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.
Consultant Dan Wery: Yeah, you’re in… In the data Surabhi, I believe there were some numbers 1
about employees and they had a slight breakdown per industry, right? 2
3
Consultant Surabhi Barbhaya: So, I think the number of employees we have are not for the 4
area and the drive time itself, but they are for the particular for the downtown area. So…it’s not 5
for the entire area. 6
7
Consultant Dan Wery: Yeah, so we had… that’s the Co‐Star data that’s in the report, I believe, 8
right Surabhi? 9
10
Consultant Surabhi Barbhaya: Yes. 11
12
Consultant Dan Wery: I think appendix B has data in there and it will say Downtown and we 13
kind of had a map that selected the commercial area, and it says there’s total sales of 2 million 14
or 2 billion dollars, whatever it is. And it had 2000 employees, and even broke down some of 15
the main employers and how many were in restaurants and retail, and how many were office. 16
So that… it’s in the report. I can pull that up if you want to look at that. 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: That’s okay. 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
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Consultant Dan Wery: Any other questions? 1
2
Chair Summa: Any questions? I have one question about the same report, are the 26 projected 3
populations based on a common multiplier for all three just based on a general idea of how 4
much the city is going to grow? Or are they specific to each of the three areas? 5
6
Consultant Dan Wery: I would say it’s going to be more generalized, it’s not that specific 7
because it’s such a small area, there wouldn’t be that much variation because they are all so 8
close together. I think that’s why some of those numbers are pretty darn close. If you look at 9
ten minute drive times, 137 versus 141 between the three areas, one area is going to be a little 10
closer to a slightly denser area, so they are getting a little bit more population, but the growth 11
is probably if you just divide those out and you looked at the net growth, my guess is that 12
you’re going to see the same percentage between 2021 and 2026. That would be my 13
expectation, and you could check those numbers. Yeah, they’re probably projecting and at the 14
time there was very little growth. (crosstalk) 15
16
Consultant Surabhi Barbhaya: And we’re not sure what algorithm has been used to get the 17
projection, but it might be certain differences, like trying to understand like base on some of 18
the retail, like some of the trends , they might do different projections for each, so the 19
projection line might be different for each of the areas so University might be different than 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
downtown [TIMESTAMP 4:17 Unintelligible] California Avenue might be a little different. But 1
they have a few criteria I’m guessing, for the algorithm. 2
3
Consultant Dan Wery: actually the percentages are a little bit different between them, so, one 4
was … 5
6
Consultant Surabhi Barbhaya: They area was so close by that you’re not seeing a huge 7
difference in those presentations. 8
9
Chair Summa: Okay, thank you for that. I mean, I was just curious, we’re not doing a population 10
study, so I think we’re okay there. So, thank you. 11
12
PUBLIC COMMENTS 13
Chair Summa: I’m not seeing any lights from my colleagues and our staff recommendation this 14
evening does not… oh, public comments, thank you so much. Ms. Dao have we… I haven’t seen 15
any public comments, but… do we have any? 16
17
Ms. Dao: We have not received any speaker cards, there’s one person on zoom. 18
19
Chair Summa: But I don’t think the person on zoom has their hand up. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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
Ms. Dao: So then no, I have no requests to speak. 2
3
Chair Summa: Okay. Alright, then I will close the public hearing and we’ll bring it back to the 4
Commission and I wanted to mention that we do not need to make a motion here, we just need 5
to make some recommendations to the Council on this final report and also to remind 6
everybody that it’s going to come back to us with specific changes. So, I see that Commissioner 7
Akin’s light is on followed by Commissioner Hechtman. 8
9
Commissioner Akin: Thank you Chair. I’ve got a ton of stuff here; I’m not going to go through all 10
of it but I did want to make a couple comments to start about parking since that’s the new 11
contribution for discussion tonight. The first is that average parking occupancy can give you a 12
very misleading picture of what’s going on and that’s partly because it varies from day to day, 13
as I alluded to earlier. But also, because the distribution across the parking spaces in the city is 14
not uniform either. So, you can often find spaces in the Webster garage when all the on street 15
parking and surface lots near the actual retail is overused, is oversubscribed. So, you need to be 16
careful about drawing conclusions about a single simple occupancy figure about whether we 17
have adequate parking or not. That leads me to the next observation which is any parking 18
analysis is valid only if we are committed to replacing the publicly accessible spaces that we 19
lose to the Housing Element opportunity sites, with new publicly accessible places. This is not 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.
trivial exercise, I count more than 350 in downtown alone, so that’s 8% of all the parking that’s 1
available downtown is on surface lots that are Housing Element opportunity sites. So, I would 2
like to say optimistically that we’re going to be building a lot of BMR housing on those surface 3
parking lots and that means we’re going to be losing those places. So, the city is going to have 4
to commit to replacing those otherwise the analysis of whether we have adequate parking or 5
not is going to be incorrect. Let’s see. I thought in the ad hoc discussion we had agreed to 6
mention this in the report, but I didn’t see it. If it isn’t included, it could be, and packet page 7
172 is probably the right place for that to happen. And I want that message to get to Council 8
because they need to understand there’s a financial commitment here as well. Alright, that’s all 9
I want to say on parking. So, I’ll defer the rest of this round to whoever is next. 10
11
Chair Summa: Thank you. I have I believe Commissioner Hechtman next and then 12
Commissioner Templeton. 13
14
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you Chair. On the opportunity sites on City parking lots, my 15
memory and it could be faulty, is that one of the parameters of that is that no parking would be 16
lost. So, that is something … so in other words you build on top of it… and so… 17
18
Commissioner Akin: It has to be public. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Hechtman: My understanding is that if there are 20 public parking spaces there 1
today, once they build the units, there’s going to be 20 parking spaces, but that should be 2
verified because if my memory is faulty, then you’re right, that’s a whole new analysis, because 3
we’re hoping to have affordable housing on those sites. So, my comments are really sort of 4
more overall and more just focused on the seven primary strategies. So, you know, here’s really 5
the key points that I drew from the draft retail study. First, the RPO is hurting us now, even 6
though, even if it was right for it’s time. It’s hurting us now and it needs to be trimmed so that it 7
can stop hurting our ability to have vibrant retail and you know, maybe that means to focus it 8
on what we’re going to consider our core retail areas and relax it outside of those core areas. 9
Second, our office limit, and incidentally our RPO analysis, is on packet page 178, sorry, 176. 10
178 talks about our office limit and similarly it is hurting our retail business even if it was right 11
for the time. And so, whether that gets repealed or just relaxed, I think that’s something that 12
could be explored in the future, but something should be done with it and to the extent that if 13
it’s repealed or sufficiently relaxed, one thing to recognize is that it could have two beneficial 14
effects, not on retail, but on housing which provides customers for retail and one is that office 15
can drive the construction of additional below market housing and second the availability of the 16
possibility of more office construction throughout California maybe will loosen the sort of 17
strangle hold that the people who currently own office, but are afraid to touch it so they don’t 18
lose it, maybe those people in a more relaxed atmosphere will say I can now tear this office 19
down and rebuild it with some housing, you know, without fear of losing it, so it could help us 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
in that way. So, that’s the second point. The third point from packet page 179 is, I do think we 1
need a study reviewing the parking requirements for eating and drinking services to really 2
conform our parking standards to current best municipal practices, it’s … from what I’m reading 3
in there, we’re out of step. We have this outdated concept that you know, restaurants are this 4
independent parking source when what the data now shows is it’s really a shared ecosystem of 5
parking with other surrounding uses. So, we should do that and otherwise ease our parking 6
restrictions using some of the eleven or so points that were so well described tonight. And then 7
the other three points that I didn’t mention, the primary strategies of one, zoning clean up, 8
two, streamlining process, four, allow non retail uses in ground floor with limitations and six, 9
relax the formula retail restrictions, I’m supportive of all those concepts as they are built into 10
this study and can inform and take the shape of some version of the twenty recommended 11
ideas that are shaped around those seven strategies. 12
13
Chair Summa: Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Templeton. 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: Thanks. When I hit the button I intended to share those same 16
thoughts that Commissioner Hechtman had about the city parking, so that’s been addressed. 17
Whoever is driving the slides, can you put up the one that has just the list, so the subpoints. 18
19
Mr. Wery: Of the parking or the zoning? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: See how it says five and then it says six? I’d like to see all of the 2
points on one slide. 3
4
Commissioner Hechtman: It’s the one through seven strategies. 5
6
Mr. Wery: You want the zoning strategies eight? 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah, I couldn’t find it … there we go. Yeah. I mean you’ve 9
incorporated a lot of our feedback, and I don’t feel the need to make changes on this so I’m just 10
trying to look through what we need to do to get to a motion and be able to have our 11
discussion on what things need to change. But, that’s fine with me. So, do you have a similar 12
one for the parking? It’s okay if you don’t, it’s just a question. 13
14
Mr. Wery: Yeah it was on four slides (interrupted) 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: No, it wasn’t it’s on 7… no we’re fine. I want you guys to know as 17
fellow commissioners, this is fine with me. Okay thanks. 18
19
Chair Summa: Commissioner Chang [Vice‐Chair 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.
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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, where to start. I suggest that we as a process point, take this in two 2
pieces. One that we just say that we’ve received this report, I think there’s some errors… 3
there’s still some data issues with some of it, we, as the PTC haven’t really discussed in depth 4
exactly what we think of some of these, for example, for number two, create streamline and 5
predictable approval processes is actually sounds like there’s not necessarily that much to be 6
done that. There might be on the margin, that’s what Mr. Wery said, that we’re actually doing 7
pretty will there already. And then for example comprehensive zone and clean up, that’s like a 8
two year project for staff. So, my suggestion would be to say yup… got this and then separately 9
tell Council that there are actually I believe two things that we have consensus on that could 10
make an immediate difference because I don’t want those things that could make an 11
immediate difference to get caught up in the two year comprehensive zoning cleanup, and 12
never happen. But before I talk about those two things that are kind of quick hits, I just wanted 13
to say that the conversation about the retail preservation ordinance, I think as far as we got 14
was the conversation that we had at our last PTC meeting. So, there were some potential ideas, 15
where… it’s not clear to me actually that RPO as a whole is a problem per say because the data 16
that NBI showed us, actually showed us that that retail vacancies are pretty low outside of 17
downtown and Cal Ave and yet, downtown and Cal Ave are where we want to make it like 18
where we want our shopping districts to be. So, given that we were talking about potentially 19
relaxing the RPO elsewhere, that’s not where the vacancies are. So, we have to be careful, if we 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
relax our RPO in our core shopping areas on exactly how we do that so not to destroy what we 1
want to be a very walkable area, and so that’s just sort of the nuance that I want to put on that. 2
It likely does need to be relaxed some but kind of like at the edges, I wouldn’t say that its 3
creating a problem per say. Because especially when I started looking at the benchmarks. Santa 4
Monica and Los Altos and Redwood City do many of the same things that we do. So that’s the 5
first thing. Regarding offices, I think the argument from Michael Baker is that because there are 6
so many vacancies right now for office, that we shouldn’t need to worry that people will build 7
more office so therefor we can remove the construction limitations, if I understood correctly. 8
So, that is something that is like a whole different ball of wax given the history that the city has 9
with office, so I’m not sure that repealing office conversion and construction limitations would 10
necessarily help retail directly because we have so many vacancies in our downtown area 11
already according to the data that they gave us. Now, separately we may want to allow more 12
flexibility, going back and forth between office and retail uses, but that’s not necessarily 13
appealing our office cap. At least that would be my thought. And then finally in terms of what I 14
think the quick hits are and I would like to kind of do… I would suggest this is a process 15
suggestion for us, you know one motion to say we’ve received this report and a second motion 16
to Council that we think that we could actually execute on relaxing formula retail, limiting it 17
only to restaurants that have more than 50 outlets and then for parking restrictions to ease 18
the… to allow flexibility such that if there’s a change of retail use that we don’t require 19
additional parking throughout the city and I think that is something that the ad hoc had agreed 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
as well as the consultants as like a quick hit that could definitely do and is also a completely 1
moot point anyway now in our core retail areas of downtown and Cal Ave, so it’s really 2
affecting Midtown and El Camino and San Antonio and to the extent that somebody wants to 3
change use and keep that as a retail space that’s anything in that space is better than a vacancy 4
so that was kind of our logic. So, that would be my suggestion and because these zoning 5
strategies are exactly that… broad strategies, it would be very helpful probably to Council to 6
give a concrete recommendation on things that we could actually do, and that we have 7
consensus on. 8
9
Chair Summa: So, can I just get a clarification, the second one is you’d like to remove 10
requirements that when a different retail use or retail like use is going in, they require more 11
parking. 12
13
Vice‐Chair Chang: Correct. 14
15
Chair Summa: Okay, I think the thing about that, I’m coughing, sorry… except for in the Cal Ave 16
business district it done on square footage across the city, so it was only an issue in the Cal Ave. 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.
Vice‐Chair Chang: Well, we have a difference in our code between an intensive use and 1
extensive retail use and it is determined by square footage, there’s no square footage change … 2
we sort of saying, let’s not make that distinction. 3
4
Chair Summa: So, if you think there’s… if you want to base it on the difference between 5
extensive and intensive retail I would make that clear because all the other retail on allowable 6
ground floor retail and retail like uses are based… the parking is based on square footage, 7
except historically at Cal Ave which is now wiped out by state law. So, I’m not sure… I think if 8
you want it in there, you should make it explicit that that’s what it applies to. And I’m not sure 9
how significant a change …. 10
11
Vice‐Chair Chang: That’s a great point. So, to clarify, the Chair was saying that that instance 12
that we’ve heard over and over again about the ice cream or the yogurt store that couldn’t take 13
over a vacant space on Cal Ave, that example specifically applies only to Cal Ave because that 14
same restriction wouldn’t have existed elsewhere in the City. But, what still does exist in the 15
City is I think a one for every 350 square feet versus one for every 250 square feet for what’s 16
called an extensive retail use versus an intensive retail use. Extensive is like appliances, big 17
square footage. 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.
Consultant Dan Wery: And it could include you know, restaurants are generally a form of retail 1
and those are going to … those have the highest parking requirements and that’s one that even 2
if you don’t exempt it the way that we were talking… 3
4
Vice‐Chair Chang: I think what the Chair was saying is that right now, if something were to 5
change from almost any use to … aside from an extensive use… so right now our code would 6
say that if you’re changing from an appliance store to a restaurant, you would need to increase 7
your parking. But, if you’re changing from any intensive use to a restaurant, there’s no 8
difference in parking requirement in the City. I think that’s what the Chair is saying. 9
10
Consultant Dan Wery: I think there is a big difference. You’re restaurant food and beverage 11
requirements are for instance there’s one with a drive through, it’s 30 spaces per thousand feet 12
of gross floor area. The… if it’s not drive through it starts at 5 spaces per thousand gross floor 13
area plus 16.7 spaces per thousand for kind of public serving space. Not back of kitchen or back 14
of house. So, that’s a big, combined, more calculation there. But those are high numbers. 15
16
Chair Summa: Thank you, I think (crosstalk) 17
18
Ms. French: That is not just Cal Ave. We have parking…. Only downtown has a blended rate of 19
1:250. Cal Ave had a unique situation because it used to have a parking assessment district 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.
reflected the city wide ratios that are also in play in midtown, on El Camino, San Antonio. All 1
these other places that have retail follow the general city wide parking ratios, so really it’s only 2
downtown that has the blended rate whether you go from one use to another. 3
4
Vice‐Chair Chang: Thank you for that clarification. Okay, so then it would still be helpful 5
potentially to relax the parking restriction and just say if you’re changing use and retail space 6
that you don’t have to change your parking. 7
8
Ms. French: Yeah I guess it depends on what you’re changing to and what you call retail and 9
retail‐like, So, and we have those definitions so, if that’s what you’re saying. 10
11
Chair Summa: Thank you for that. Are you finished? Okay. Commissioner Reckdahl. 12
13
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah, I have mixed feelings about this report because we’ve put a lot 14
of work into this and this really doesn’t speak to the way were thinking about things but they 15
wrote the report and so… some of the stuff we don’t agree with the others. There’s one 16
disagreement that I really want to highlight because I think it’s important. One of the 17
fundamental goals was to make this… make the retail more predictable and less uncertainty. 18
We thought that would attract more retail. If you have to jump through hoops, you’re less likely 19
to jump through those hoops to get to retail. One of the things that if you look at on packet 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
page 177, that they are recommending goes exactly opposite of that…. Proposing that if there’s 1
a vacancies, we will change the zoning as a function of vacancies… [TIMESTAMP 4:40 2
Unintelligible] off of 177. And so that is now more confusing… like what’s allowed depends on 3
the vacancy rate and if the vacancy rate changes then what’s allowed with those changes and I 4
don’t see that being advantageous in attracting retail, but you also could have unintended 5
consequences because now landlords know that they can get a more lucrative tenant by 6
keeping a vacancy for a year so now you have this really strange incentive to not lease your 7
property, so I just think the recommendations in Section 4 are not good, and was not what we 8
had recommended. Thank you. 9
10
Chair Summa: Commissioner Akin. 11
12
Commissioner Akin: Yeah, I’d like to touch on a couple of other things. The ad hoc had 13
developed a list of suggestions that border on zoning and go beyond it, and I wondered since 14
those are not captured in this report, are they captured some other way. How do we 15
communicate those to Council? So, yeah, no not this one, the beyond zoning. And I want to give 16
you a few things to think about to clarify why this is important. The Harvard Business School 17
study that the consultants brought to our attention suggests that vacancy taxes, if carefully 18
chosen, could be an effective way of reducing vacancy and this is mentioned in passing on 19
packet page 167, but not treated adequately, I think. What we had discussed in the ad hoc is 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
described here, that Council should request staff to perform a study to consider general 1
vacancy taxes, and that should include office as well as retail, and just for a quick sanity check, I 2
looked at a few statistics to see how promising this idea might be and it’s interesting to see that 3
higher asking lease rates are strongly correlated with higher vacancy rates. Strongly. That 4
suggests that bringing those vacancy rates down… I’m sorry, bringing those asking rates down 5
might be among the very best things that we could do. Far better than some of the other minor 6
considerations that we’re talking about today. So that really does deserve a study and that’s 7
something that Council should direct staff to do. I think all of us on the ad hoc have some 8
disappointments about the report. One of mine is that I wish it had drawn more cause and 9
effect connections between zoning and retail vacancies. We’ve got a bunch of best practices 10
that seem to make sense, but we don’t have a strong connection between those policies and 11
success. The areas we studied in Santa Monica have much higher retail vacancy rates than we 12
do so it’s not clear to me that the zoning moves that they’ve made are good models for us 13
because we don’t understand the causal connections between what we do differently from 14
what they do and how that causes a change in the vacancy rate. Yeah, there’s a bunch of other 15
things but I don’t think I’ll get into those in great detail. One other statistical observation is that 16
the other thing that is very strongly correlated with higher vacancy rates is higher total square 17
footage of retail in the area. Now that’s an interesting problem. Perhaps that indicates that we 18
just have a surplus retail space, but perhaps it indicates that it’s just poorly distributed or that 19
it's poorly advertised that you have a collection of opportunities that are not being exploited. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
But there are a lot of possibilities there that have to be understood and those are independent 1
of zoning issues, many of them are independent of zoning issues. So, those are things that I had 2
hoped we might look into as part of the study but if we don’t, if we can’t, at least lets not lose 3
them from consideration. Thanks. 4
5
Chair Summa: Thank you. Okay, I’m not seeing any other lights so I’ll make a few quick 6
comments and I associate myself with a lot of comments already made. While I’m speaking you 7
could maybe put up the seven strategies slide again. So, what I was looking for based on the 8
very first page of this report are 20 tight recommendations that would be made, that would be 9
easy for us to implement and not seeing the slide… oh there it is. So, I’ll go through these really 10
quickly and thank you very much Commissioner Akin for your comments because… and I want 11
to ask something of the ad hoc later, I think one and two are outside of the scope of what we 12
were doing here and in fact analogy I made would be really great if I actually took a plunge and 13
cleaned out my closet, but I’m forced everyday to wash the dishes and feed the cat instead. So, 14
I don’t get to the big job and I don’t see that as being a part of what we were tasked to do. You 15
sort of complimented our processes being…. A lot of them being streamlined and predictable 16
anyway, so I’m not sure what I see there. Limit the retail preservation ordinance, the interesting 17
thing is that this suggestion seems to eliminate midtown and El Camino when they have lower 18
vacancy rates and keep the cores which of course we do want to do, who has higher vacancy 19
rates and I will add that that also eliminates walkable shopping for a huge number… and huge 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
amount of residents and other workers in our city, so I’m not interested in that as a strategy at 1
this time. If we need to change the RPO, we need to take a very detailed look at it and how we 2
would do it, not just reduce it to downtown and Cal Ave. I’m not… I’ve never understood 3
possibly how limiting non retail uses … and when I say retail it’s anything allowed in ground 4
floor, with RPO, I’ve never understood how that might help us other than converting some of 5
those spaces to office, which if we have the residential growth, which we are tasked to have 6
and working to have, we will really regret that because we will create more un‐walkability in 7
our neighborhoods. Repealing the office conversion … is similarly not of interest to me, and 8
construction limitations whatever those might be because we already have too much office in 9
this city and I think that… and we have so much vacancy now that I feel like we have a 10
responsibility to eliminate property owners … big property owners and mom and pops … their 11
investments and they’re sitting on vacant space. Relaxing the formula retail restrictions, which I 12
think Commissioner Chang [Vice‐Chair Chang] brought up is a really good idea. Easing the 13
parking regulations in the specific way that Commissioner Chang [Vice‐Chair Chang] brought up 14
could work also, but I’m not looking at some of these other ideas in here as being relevant to 15
trying to revive and make more attractive, our retail areas. So, I’m thinking what we need is a 16
motion to say we received this report and…. The reason we … I don’t think we want to say we 17
recommend the report or something like that because there’s a lot in here I think we need to 18
work on still, hopefully as a city and as a commission. And I wonder… and acknowledge the two 19
quick fixes, and … in there. And then I’m wondering if the ad hoc would like to submit to the 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
city a report of their own and I’m not asking you to do more money… I’m sorry, do more work 1
…. You didn’t get any money (laughter)… more work. I’m not trying to assign you work, I’m just 2
trying to suggest you might like something to be conveyed to the Council about that. So, those 3
are my thoughts right now. 4
5
Vice‐Chair Chang: Can I ask staff a question? If the ad hoc wanted to write a letter or 6
something, to Council, does it need to be approved… it needs to be approved by the rest of the 7
PTC, or no? 8
9
Ms. French: I would think a letter could be prepared from the ad hoc, in your words, as an ad 10
hoc… limit it. I mean, there would be a time sensitive and we have minutes, I mean we don’t 11
have minutes from tonight but we have the video. 12
13
Vice‐Chair Chang: What’s our deadline then? You said it would be time sensitive. 14
15
Ms. French: June 10th, we’ll see. June 10th is when the Council is supposed to hear it. 16
17
Vice‐Chair Chang: So, two weeks before June 10th. 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.
Ms. French: That’s when it goes out, yes. I can have a place holder concept for an attached 1
letter, that I don’t say what it says because I don’t have it yet. 2
3
Chair Summa: I think that if we authorize the ad hoc to represent the ad hoc’s thoughts, that’s 4
fine. Okay, so I guess what I’m doing… oh. Commissioner Hechtman? 5
6
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah, two things, when I look at the recommendation in our staff 7
report I don’t know that we really need a motion. In the staff report to the Council, it will be 8
clear that we received the report and provided comments. Right? In terms of the letter from 9
the ad hoc, I really like that idea… in part because even though I’ve been here for two or three 10
and I missed one but read all the minutes from it, that’s a small fraction of the hours that the ad 11
hoc has spent and so… I’ve been looking to the ad hoc for guidance because I feel like the three 12
of you really took the time, made the time to get your arms around this. And so, I like the idea 13
of a letter from the ad hoc committee rather than … from the PTC through the ad hoc 14
committee. I’d like it to be yours but I guess the question I would have for you is in that letter, 15
will you only bring to the Council’s attention sort of areas where the three of you had 16
consensus or you know… that’s something you should think about, right? Because maybe there 17
are times where two of you felt one way and one thought another and do you want to include 18
those things. I think it’s fine that you do, you know, explain that way, but I think it’s something 19
that you have to think through. But, I like the idea. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: Well, yes I agree and in the absence of a motion tonight, which I think 2
Commissioner Chang [Vice‐Chair Chang] mentioned, and I can go either way, we don’t have to 3
have a motion if we don’t want to, it would be like that, it would be like the comments, it 4
doesn’t have to be consensus from the ad hoc, it can include all their ideas. Depending on how 5
they’d like to do it. Commissioner Templeton. 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. It’s a quarter to 11, so I say if we’re done with this and 8
we don’t need a motion, let’s move on to the next agenda item. 9
10
Chair Summa: I’m happy to do that if everyone agrees. Okay. So, thank you very much to our 11
consultants, and we’ll see you next time I guess. Thank you so much. Okay. 12
13
4. Election of Chair and Vice Chair 14
15
Chair Summa: So, moving on, we now have the very exciting topic of the election of our 16
officers, starting with the Chair, and I don’t think… I think we all know what this is about so I will 17
say that I will ask for…. What a nice idea. Commissioner Chang [Vice‐Chair Chang] would like to 18
welcome you back and acknowledge your reappointment so thank you… congratulations. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you, thank you. I appreciate the support of the Council to 1
send me back here to do the work that I really enjoy and I’m really happy to be here tonight not 2
giving you my parting remarks. 3
4
Chair Summa: We’re happy to have you back too. So, that being said, why don’t we go ahead 5
and start the process which I will take nominations for Chair from the floor. 6
7
MOTION/NOMINATION 8
9
Commissioner Reckdahl: I will nominate Commissioner Chang [Vice‐Chair Chang]. She’s … 10
Working on the ad hoc I realized that you know, we’re very lucky she’s on the commission, I 11
think she adds a lot, a lot of insight, and a lot of drive, and I think that will be a very good 12
mixture for being Chair. 13
14
Chair Summa: Okay, so I have a second? 15
16
Chair Summa: Oh, I don’t need a second? Okay. So would the nominee like to accept. 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.
Vice‐Chair Chang: Sure, I’ll accept and I’m honored, I’d be honored if you all decided that I’d be 1
Chair, it’s been a really great group to work with and this has been interesting work and I hope 2
impactful work that we’ve done and would like to help our Commission continue that. 3
4
Chair Summa: Okay, in my notes it does say I need a second. So… I think our City Attorney’s 5
office prepared this for his prep. So I will need a second for his nomination. 6
7
SECOND 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: I’ll second. 10
11
Chair Summa: Excellent. And I’m not going to make you accept it again, but I did go out of 12
order. Okay. So, I would like the commissioners who moved and seconded if they would like to 13
speak. 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: Do we do that before we see if there are other nominations? Do we 16
do all the nominations first, or? 17
18
Chair Summa: My little cheat sheet that I have does not say that, but we do Chair, obviously 19
before we do Vice Chair. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Hechtman: No I mean other nominations for Chair. 2
3
Chair Summa: I will call for other nominations, but it does not actually clarify that but I was 4
trying to go by what was here, but I will call for other nominations. Would anyone involved, 5
either the nominee or the maker or seconder like to speak? No. 6
7
Commissioner Hechtman: I’ll speak. Sorry, so I think you called for nominations, and it seems 8
like there were no other nominations. Right? If I’m looking… no one else is nominating anyone 9
else for Chair. So, then I’d just like to speak very briefly to my second… I sang Vice‐Chair Chang’s 10
praises last year when she was being nominated for Vice‐Chair and I think she’s done a terrific 11
job both as a Commissioner and Vice‐Chair this year and one of the things I thought that was 12
particularly interesting and makes her more qualified to be the Chair than the was a year ago is 13
sort of the… it’s been apparent sitting here next to the two of you, the close working 14
relationship the two of you have as Chair and Vice Chair. And so, I think you are primed to be a 15
terrific leader for us for the next year. 16
17
Chair Summa: Excellent. Any other comments and I can take comments from other 18
Commissioners it says also, if anyone would like to speak about this nomination. Okay, and I 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
would like to just confirm there are no other nominations for chair that anyone would like to 1
make. No? Okay, so I think we should just take the vote. 2
3
Mr. Yang, City Attorney: I’m sorry, we should check for public comment on this. 4
5
Chair Summa: Oh, I’m sorry. Do we have anyone wishing to comment on this? 6
7
PUBLIC COMMENTS 8
9
Chair Summa: Perhaps one of Bryna’s parents. 10
11
Ms. Dao: I have no requests to speak. 12
13
Chair Summa: Okay, seeing no requests to speak I think we can now call the vote. 14
15
VOTE 16
17
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Akin 18
19
Commissioner Akin: 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
Ms. Dao: Vice Chair Chang 2
3
Vice Chair Chang: Yes 4
5
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Hechtman 6
7
Commissioner Hechtman: Absolutely 8
9
Ms. Dao: Chair Summa 10
11
Chair Summa: Yes 12
13
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Reckdahl 14
15
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yes 16
17
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Templeton 18
19
Commissioner Templeton: 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
Ms. Dao: Motion carries 6‐0. 2
3
MOTION PASSED 6 (Akin, Chang, Hechtman, Summa, Reckdahl, Templeton) ‐0 ‐1 (Lu Absent) 4
Commission Action: Moved by Reckdahl, seconded by Hechtman. Pass 6‐0‐1 5
6
Chair Summa: So, that’s an official congratulations and I think now, since I’m no longer chair, 7
you have to conduct. 8
9
Chair Chang: Alright, trial by fire. Okay, so, next we need to elect our Vice Chair for the next 10
year, so I’d like to take any nominations for Vice Chair. 11
12
MOTION/NOMINATIONS 13
14
Commissioner Akin: I would like to nominate Commissioner Reckdahl. I have been impressed 15
with how well connected he is in the community and how that’s contributed to his success 16
here. He has ample experience, I believe he’s ready for the role and I particularly like how he 17
works cordially with a huge variety of people, that’s a wonderful characteristic for a member of 18
this Commission and especially for an officer. And I think it’s time you move up to Vice Chair. 19
Thank you. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Summa: Commissioner Hechtman your light’s…. oops sorry! 2
3
Chair Chang: Commissioner Hechtman Your light is on! 4
5
SECOND 6
7
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you, I will second the nomination, and if the nomination is 8
accepted, I’ll speak to my second. 9
10
Chair Chang: Is the nomination accepted? 11
12
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yes. 13
14
Chair Chang: Am I supposed to ask for additional nominations at this point? Did we decided 15
that? Are there any additional nominations for Vice Chair? Seeing none… Commissioner 16
Hechtman did you want to speak to your second? 17
18
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes thank you. So, Commissioner Reckdahl finished third in our 19
Synagogue March Madness bracket game this year. First two prizes were Giants tickets, 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.
third prize was to be nominated to be Vice Chair of the PTC. I didn’t realize that Allen had read 1
the minutes of the Synagogue March Madness meeting, but …. So, he beat me to the punch 2
tonight. Seriously, Keith has been a PTC member for two years but he had been a Palo Alto 3
public servant for a lot longer than that. Years and years on the Parks Commission. Couple 4
months ago I watched the City Council nomination and vote for the new mayor and vice mayor 5
and a lot of the discussion about our Vice Mayor Lauing, former PTC member, was about his … 6
he put in the years, even though he hadn’t been on the City Council for long, he had been with 7
us for five plus years and before that, years on the Parks Commission. I think of Commissioner 8
Reckdahl having really that same level of experience and as Commissioner Akin said, it’s his 9
time. And so, and I think he’ll be a great Vice‐Chair next year and I would expect maybe 10
elevated the year after that. So, I’m enthusiastic in my second. 11
12
Chair Chang: Sorry, would anyone else like to speak about the nomination? Commissioner 13
Templeton. 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: I hope that what Commissioner Hechtman mentions becomes 16
something that you guys can accomplish as leaders of this body, to make a predictable 17
succession path so it’s not always who gets to talk to who or… Brown Act, we can’t talk to each 18
other, it would be really nice to have a predictable path and figure that out and maybe 19
accomplish in your … under your leadership. Thanks. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Chang: Any body else? Let’s check for any public comments. Are there any public 2
comments? 3
4
PUBLIC COMMENTS 5
6
Ms. Dao: No, I have no public comments. 7
8
Chair Chang: Okay and I don’t see any online either. Alright, I think we’re ready for the vote Ms. 9
Dao. 10
11
VOTE 12
13
Ms. Dao: Chair Chang 14
15
Chair Chang: Yes 16
17
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Akin 18
19
Commissioner Akin: 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
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Hechtman 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes 4
5
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Summa 6
7
Commissioner Summa: Yes 8
9
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Reckdahl 10
11
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yes 12
13
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Templeton 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: Yes 16
17
Ms. Dao: Motion carries 6‐0. 18
19
MOTION PASSED 6 (Akin, Chang, Hechtman, Summa, Reckdahl, Templeton) ‐0 ‐1 (Lu Absent) 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commission Action: Moved by Akin, seconded by Hechtman. Pass 6‐0‐1 1
2
Chair Chang: Alright, Congratulations to our new Vice Chair. 3
4
5
APPROVAL OF MINUTES 6
Public Comment is Permitted. Three (3) minutes per speaker. 7
8
4. Approval of Planning & Transportation Commission Draft Summary and Verbatim 9
Minutes of December 13, 2023 10
11
Chair Chang: Alright, I think we’re on to our final order of business which is approval of Planning 12
and Transportation Commission draft Summary and Verbatim minutes of December 13, 2023. 13
14
MOTION 15
16
Commissioner Summa: I’ll move approval. 17
18
Commissioner Hechtman: As revised. 19
20
Commissioner Summa: I’ll move approval as revised. 21
22
SECOND 23
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Hechtman: Second. 2
3
Chair Chang: Any comments? Alright, I think we’re ready for the Vote Ms. Dao. 4
5
VOTE 6
7
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Templeton. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: Yes 10
11
Ms. Dao: Vice Chair Reckdahl 12
13
Vice Chair Reckdahl: Yes 14
15
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Summa? 16
17
Commissioner Summa: Yes 18
19
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Hechtman 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 2
3
Ms. Dao: Chair Chang? 4
5
Chair Chang: Yes. 6
7
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Akin? 8
9
Commissioner Akin: Yes. 10
11
Ms. Dao: Motion carries 6‐0‐1. 12
13
MOTION PASSED 6 (Akin, Chang, Summa, Hechtman, Reckdahl, Templeton) 6‐0‐1 (Lu Absent) 14
Commission Action: Motion by Summa, seconded by Hechtman. Pass 6‐0‐1 15
16
Commissioner Questions, Comments or Announcements 17
Chair Chang: Any Commissioner questions, comments, or announcements? 18
19
Commissioner Summa: Just one. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non‐speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Chang: Okay. 2
3
Commissioner Summa: I’m not going to take any time, I just want to thank you for a great year 4
and a half as it turns out, of being your Chair, and to reiterate all the nice things I said about you 5
in our last meeting or last year, because this has been 7 and a half years on this precise 6
commission and this has been a super winner of a group of people to work with. So, thank you. 7
8
Chair Chang: Yeah I just wanted to thank our outgoing Chair Summa for her tremendous work 9
this past year and a half and also dealing with some pretty sticky meetings, I think. So… 10
handling it with such grace, so yeah, thank you so much Doria. 11
12
Commissioner Summa: Congratulations to both of you. 13
14
Chair Chang: Alright, we’re adjourned. 15
Adjournment 16
7:51 pm 17
18