HomeMy WebLinkAbout2024-07-10 Planning & Transportation Commission Verbatim Minutes_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Planning & Transportation Commission 1
Verbatim Minutes: July 10, 2024 2
Council Chambers & Virtual 3
6:00 PM 4
5
Call to Order / Roll Call 6
6:01 PM 7
Chair Chang: Okay. Hello. I’d like to call to order this regular meeting of the Planning and 8
Transportation Commission on Wednesday, July 10, 2024. Ms. Dao, could you do the roll call? 9
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ROLL CALL 11
Ms. Dao: Chair Chang? 12
13
Chair Chang: Present. 14
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Ms. Dao: Vice-Chair Reckdahl? 16
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Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Here. 18
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Ms. Dao: Commissioner Akin? 20
21
Commissioner Akin: Here. 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.
1
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: Present and pleased to announce my non-candidacy for City Council. 4
5
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Lu? 6
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Commissioner Lu: Present. 8
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Ms. Dao: Commissioner Summa? 10
11
Commissioner Summa: Here. 12
13
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: Here. 16
17
Ms. Dao: We have a quorum. 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.
Oral Communications 1
The public may speak to any item not on the agenda. Three (3) minutes per speaker.1,2 2
3
Chair Chang: All right. Our first order of business is public comment. Ms. Dao, are there any 4
comment cards? 5
6
Ms. Dao: I have no requests to speak. 7
8
Chair Chang: Okay, and I don’t see anything on line. All right. So on to Agenda Changes, 9
Additions and Deletions. 10
11
Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions 12
The Chair or Commission majority may modify the agenda order to improve meeting management. 13
14
Ms. Dao: There are no changes. 15
16
Chair Chang: Okay. Great. Ms. French, could you start us off with City Official Reports? 17
City Official Reports 18
1. Directors Report, Meeting Schedule and Assignments 19
20
Chief Planning Official Amy French: Affirmative. Here we go. Good evening. Amy French, Chief 21
Planning Official. The – on the screen, I’m showing a couple of notes from the Office of 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.
Transportation. This afternoon, I believe, we sent you the May collision report through email. 1
There is no payback meeting in July, so that will not be put on at – wherever it’s normally put 2
for a July meeting since there is no July meeting. That’s what I understand. Then also that staff 3
continues to coordinate with Caltrans on the El Camino Real bike lands project and staff is 4
currently waiting for Caltrans to issue final plans and a construction schedule. So that’s just a 5
update. For your upcoming meetings, you can see on the calendar, we do not have July 31. 6
[Recall 15:01] that we cancelled that meeting. The August 14 meeting has several interesting 7
projects that you’ve been waiting for. The Stream Quarter Ordinance Update. The Dark Skies. 8
That’d be a study session. The Dark Skies and Bird Safe Glass – Bird Safe Design Ordinance and 9
the Retail Study Recommendations, so just to flag that we’ve received some modifications to 10
the retail study and our director wanted to come back to the Planning and Transportation 11
Commission, so we’re targeting that date to bring those back for further discussion. Then 12
August 28, we have a PC Project, 660 University and Office of Transportation will be bringing 13
parking programs’ update. Finally, September 11 – hopefully that’s an auspicious day for this 14
particular item, the Housing Incentive Program. So you may have heard that we received a 15
letter from HCD regarding our Housing Element submittal. I’ll let Albert Yang speak to that if 16
you have questions on that. The Council is on break right now. As noted last time, we have 17
several items that are anticipated to go to Council in August on the screen here and then we 18
have some items that you’ll be seeing that we anticipate taking in September or October to 19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Council. So just again, this is an Item 1 Official Report, so we have just a brief presentation on 1
timing on the RRP, Rental – I’m losing the other R. The Rental Registry. 2
3
Female: Registry. 4
5
Amy French: Okay. Program. And so I have a couple of things just to share as far as the timeline. 6
You can see on the screen that there are some dates that are planned. There’s supposed to be a 7
Council Ad Hoc − Housing Ad Hoc Meeting in early August. There’s a – on August 22, there’s 8
supposed to be a community meeting and that basically just in a nutshell, the Planning and 9
Transportation Commission looked at this back in May, the Rental Registry Program, and it’s 10
since then been twice to the Housing Ad Hoc and three times to Council, this topic of Rental 11
Registry Program. And so these comments that Planning Commission made and those have 12
been taken into consideration, but what I’ll say is when we get to the questions portion of our 13
evening, Commissioner questions that come after Item 3, I’m happy to receive your questions 14
and we can get back to you all. We have started to receive some questions about that 15
information item and we’ll endeavor to get back with responses to questions. So just again, 16
looking forward to sharing the portal that’s started to be worked on. Those questions that are 17
going to be inputted into the portal are still in development, so they’re not ready to share just 18
yet with the Planning and Transportation Commission. So that kind of gives an overview and 19
then we’ll end there and move to the next item. Also, I’ll say that for questions of Office 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.
Transportation, we will have a member of Office of Transportation here for questions again 1
after we finish with Item 3 because he’s here for Item 3. So if you have some questions for 2
Transportation, you’ll have access. Thank you. 3
4
Commissioner Hechtman: Is Mr. Yang going to say something now? 5
6
Amy French: Yes, did you – is Mr. Yang attending because if you – I did mention that we have 7
that status update about the HCD. Okay. Albert, take it away. 8
9
Assistant City Attorney Albert Yang: Sure. So the city posted last Tuesday some updates, minor 10
revisions in response to informal conversations we had had with HCD staff about our adopted 11
Housing Element. And then HCD sent us a letter yesterday informing us that we were very close 12
to being certified but that there were still four minor changes that they wanted to see to our 13
programs. So staff is working on that and when those minor changes are ready, they will be 14
again posted for a 7-day period and then we’ll hope to hear back from HCD shortly after that. 15
16
Chair Chang: Great. That is great news. Does anybody have any questions? Okay. Commissioner 17
Templeton. 18
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. So just a clarification. If they’re minor, why are they 1
holding up our Housing Element? Because what we heard when we were submitting it was that 2
everything had been preapproved. 3
4
Albert Yang: Yes, so HCD had always given us the caveat that if they received public comments 5
that raised new issues they hadn’t considered that that might be something we need to 6
respond to. And so apparently, they felt that there were still some things after they read the 7
public comments that we needed to address. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: I guess I’m trying to figure out why we’re classifying them as minor if 10
it’s enough to hold up our Housing Element. 11
12
Albert Yang: Yeah, I mean it’s a good question. We believe they’re minor. It’s a – so one of the 13
things was that we address in the edits we made last Tuesday − was to further explain why we 14
didn’t believe that existing leases were an impediment to commercial use turning over to 15
residential redevelopment. So that’s not a change in anything that we’re planning to do or any 16
of the sites that we’ve selected. It’s just further explaining and justifying our methodology. 17
Right? So that’s − we don’t see that as a substantive change to our Housing Element but it was 18
something that HCD still felt was necessary for them to find that we were in compliance. I 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.
would say that because that was not a substantive change that our Housing Element was 1
compliant even without that change but this is what HCD is requiring. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: Thanks for explaining that. Okay. And the other comment I wanted 4
to make was to Ms. French about the schedule. I will be here at the next meeting. Thank you. 5
6
Amy French: I’m sorry. I couldn’t hear. Could you… 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: Is this mic working? 9
10
Amy French: Yeah. 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: I will be here at the next meeting. 13
14
Chair Chang: Okay. Commissioner Lu. 15
16
Commissioner Lu: Yes. Yeah, first of all, thank you for going through those extra conversations 17
and the extra feedback with HCD. I have a few questions. Just a simple one to start. What’s the 18
expected timeline to get the actual HCD approval after we submit the latest redlines? Would 19
that still expect to take 60 days for HCD to comment? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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
Albert Yang: No, they told us that they would prioritize us and to expect about 2 weeks. 2
3
Commissioner Lu: Okay, that’s great. I want a recap or understand the substantive changes 4
from the May to July redlines. Can you give you a recap of that? 5
6
Albert Yang: Yeah, so again, we don’t think that they are substantive. One of them, I think – 7
kind of the key one was the one I explained earlier, which was further explanation of why we 8
believe that existing commercial uses will turn over. In addition, there were some sites like the 9
city parking lots and the faith-based institutions where HCD asked us to add a backstop in, 10
which is basically if we weren’t seeing progress in those categories halfway through the 11
planning period that we would swap those sites out for alternative sites. So again, that’s not 12
changing what we think is a suitable site or how we’re planning to implement our element. It’s 13
just a back-up plan if things aren’t working out the way we expect, which again, we would have 14
to do anyway. Let’s see. I can’t recall off the top of my head what the other ones were. One of 15
them was agreeing to take a look at all of our impact fees rather than what we called out was 16
the park impact fee in the Housing Element because that’s sort of what we heard the most 17
about from the community. But we’ve agreed to evaluate all of our impact fees in terms of 18
economic feasibility. And that’s all that’s coming to mind right now. 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 Lu: Okay. Thank you. Those were the changes that I tracked as well. Those three 1
programs changes and also just the extra explanations for processing timelines and site 2
viability. One thing that bothers me somewhat is that for the three program changes in the July 3
redlines, they were flagged in previous HCD comment letters and also flagged at the Council 4
PTC joint meeting. Right? I think at that time, it was difficult to really address those comments 5
because we were assured that behind the scenes there were conversations that HCD’s concerns 6
were generally taken care of but in previous [comment 25:52] letters, they did ask us a couple 7
of times, for example, to commit to reducing impact fees comprehensively and not limited to 8
parks. I’m curious if there’s any like sense of where that miscommunication may have come 9
from and if there’s any other risk of other points that might not land in the latest redlines. 10
11
Albert Yang: I think we’re also kind of surprised and disappointed that these issues, which we 12
thought we had explained in our conversations to the HCD, popped back up in their later 13
comments. So I’m not sure I can point out why there was that inconsistency or 14
miscommunication. 15
16
Commissioner Lu: Okay. Thank you. And I had one last question. When will the HCD formal 17
letter be shared and when will we have a sense of what the extra four changes they were 18
requesting are? 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.
Albert Yang: Oh, if that’s not already up on the Housing Element website, it will be shortly. 1
There’s no reason that’s not available. 2
3
Commissioner Lu: Okay, thank you. 4
5
Action Items 6
Public Comment is Permitted. Three (3) minutes per speaker. 7
8
2. PUBLIC HEARING / QUASI-JUDICIAL. Buena Vista Mobile Home Park 9
Redevelopment/3980 El Camino Real (24PLN-00129): Recommendation on 10
Applicant’s Request for Approval of a Vesting Tentative Map to Allow for a 11
Subdivision of a Single 4.5-acre Parcel into Two Parcels. The Subdivision Map Would 12
Facilitate Redevelopment of Buena Vista Mobile Home Park with a 61-Unit 13
Apartment Building on a 1.69-Acre Parcel and a 44-Unit Mobile Home Rehabilitation 14
on a 2.81-acre parcel. Environmental Assessment: Exempt from the Provisions of the 15
California Environmental Quality Act in Accordance with CEQA Guidelines Section 16
15332 (In-fill Development). Zoning District: RM-20 (Multi-Family Residential). For 17
More Information Contact the Project Planner Claire Raybould at 18
Claire.Raybould@cityofpaloalto.org 19
20
Chair Chang: Okay. With that, we’re going to move on to our first action item, which is Public 21
Hearing / QUASI-JUDICIAL. Buena Vista Mobile Home Park Redevelopment at 3980 El Camino 22
Real and it’s a recommendation on the Applicant’s Request for Approval of a Vesting Tentative 23
Map. I’d like to take disclosures. Let’s start and just go down the line, starting maybe with 24
Commissioner Lu. 25
26
Commissioner Lu: I [visited 27:43] the Buena Vista site before. I have nothing else to disclose. 27
28
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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 Summa: I have nothing to disclose. 1
2
Commissioner Akin: Nothing to disclose for me either. 3
4
Chair Chang: No disclosures for me. 5
6
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: No disclosures for me. 7
8
Commissioner Hechtman: The only disclosure I have is that my firm represented the owners of 9
this park back when they sold to the housing authority and I don’t think that that’s an issue 10
here. I haven’t visited the site recently. 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: No disclosures. 13
14
Chair Chang: Thank you. Let’s start with the staff presentation then. 15
16
Principal Planner Claire Raybould: Good evening, Commissioners. Claire Raybould, Principal 17
Planner. Project before you today is a Vesting Tentative Map for Buena Vista Redevelopment 18
and – hold on one second. So the map is for a 2-lot subdivision of an existing 4.5-acre parcel to 19
create a 1.69-acre parcel and a 2.81-acre parcel. And I just wanted to explain. Actually, I believe 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 staff report also notes a tentative map is necessary for funding purposes to facilitate 1
development in a manner that’s consistent with the goals of the existing and proposed 2
regulatory agreements for the site. The resulting parcels are code compliant, so really what 3
we’re looking for in the Vesting Tentative Map is just that it meets our minimum lot size 4
requirements for each resulting lot and minimum width and depth requirements, which this by 5
far exceeds. And the resulting lots as I noted are 1.69 acres, which will be redeveloped with the 6
apartment building, and a 2.81 acre site that would be rehabilitated as a mobile home park 7
through the state HCD. Net lot size. I just wanted to note that the net lot size that are listed, 8
each excludes the existing Valley Water easement along the frontage. Key considerations for 9
the Commission tonight are looking at the subdivision map findings for approval, which really 10
look mainly at consistency with the land use designation as well as the zoning of the site. The 11
subdivision map also includes various changes to easements. This includes removal of obsolete 12
easements or references to utility easements that are going to be removed as well as providing 13
new public and private easements. This includes a sidewalk across the entire frontage of the 14
property and new utility easements. There were some – there was a question related to an 15
existing highway easement. It’s referenced as a road or highway easement along the frontage. I 16
do want to clarify that that removal is not necessary as part of this map but it is an obsolete 17
easement, an easement that’s dedicated to the County of Santa Clara prior to when this area 18
was annexed in as part of Palo Alto, so it’s not part of the map to remove it. It would need to be 19
removed through separate instruments, so through a separate vacation process. It’s not 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.
necessary to remove but because it’s obsolete, we hope to be able to remove it through a 1
separate instrument prior to recording this map. And tonight, the staff recommends that the 2
Planning and Transportation Commission take the following action: Recommend approval of 3
the proposed Vesting Tentative Map to the City Council based on findings and subject to 4
conditions of approval. And with that, I’ll turn it back to you. The Housing Authority is here 5
tonight. They don’t have a formal presentation but I believe they might want to speak briefly. 6
7
Chair Chang: Okay. Great. Who would – is − Housing Authority? Please come on up and speak. 8
9
Kris Adhikari: Thank you very much. Hello, Commissioners and city partners. My name is Kris 10
Adhikari. I’m a project manager for the Santa Clara County Housing Authority and we are the 11
developer and owner for the Buena Vista Mobile Home Park. It seems like some of the 12
Commissioners are familiar with the park, so happy to hear that. And I am really excited to be 13
here today. Another public meeting is another important milestone to making progress. It’s 14
another opportunity for us to engage with the community and – so we appreciate that. I also 15
want to say thank you to city staff who have done tremendous work to help advance our 16
project. And Buena Vista is a really special community. When the park was at risk of conversion, 17
residents organized themselves and fought to save the park. As a result of that organizing, in 18
2017, the Housing Authority, the City of Palo Alto, and the county came together to purchase 19
the park and help prevent the displacement of the existing residents from the city they love 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.
call home. Since then the Housing Authority has been the park owner and we have worked to 1
stabilize the park and create a redevelopment plan to ensure the park is positioned to remain a 2
quality affordable housing community for decades to come. To help come up with a plan, we 3
did extensive community engagement and in partnership with residents, came up with the 4
following goals: a right to return to improved affordable housing, preserving ownership 5
opportunities for those who wish to remain owners, and to improve the amenities and utilities 6
of the park. Those are our guiding principles with the redevelopment. And we are pleased to 7
have come up with a plan that achieves these goals. The manner in which we are doing that is 8
to provide two projects that operate as one; a new, all-electric apartment building on one 9
parcel right next to a fully-redeveloped mobile home park on the other. Both sites are to be 10
under a 75-year affordability deed restrictions and bifurcating the parcel is a straightforward 11
and necessary step that allows the development to proceed as we have planned. I’m joined 12
here virtually by other staff from the Housing Authority, from the architect, Van Meter Williams 13
Pollack, and the civil engineer, Sandis, as well as several Buena Vista residents who are in the 14
audience today, and a staff are available for any questions you may have, so thank you. 15
16
Chair Chang: Thank you. Does anybody in the Commission have clarifying questions for staff? 17
Commissioner Hechtman, then Reckdahl, then Akin. 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: Thank you. I have three. The first on Packet Page 11, there’s a 1
reference to the existing regulatory agreement, which requires that the property maintain at 2
least 100 affordable units but currently there are only 79. And I was trying to remember back to 3
the time that the property changed hands and perhaps there were a number of the existing 4
homes at that time that were determined to be uninhabitable and irreparable, and so they 5
were basically taken out of service and that’s how we have 79 now. Through this series of 6
actions, we are getting back up over a 100. But is that the reason why we are below a 100 7
today? 8
9
Claire Raybould: That’s consistent with my understanding. I don’t know if the Housing Authority 10
has any additional information to add. 11
12
Kris Adhikari: That is correct. There was also a portion of the park that we were not able to 13
purchase. We refer to it as the dogleg and that was also a loss of actual area in the park. 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: All right. Thank you. Let’s see – second question, Packet Page 12, 16
third line from the bottom, it refers to the associated development to be constructed on the 17
lot, so this is the apartment building, would contribute to the housing inventory, including 2 18
affordable housing units. And I just didn’t understand that reference to 2 since it’s more than 2. 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.
But maybe it’s because the housing inventory was only counting on 2 there. Or is it just a typo 1
that needs to be corrected as this goes to Council? 2
3
Claire Raybould: I think it’s just a typo. I’m not sure. 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. Well in any event, investigate that and if it needs to be 6
corrected in the staff report to Council, please do that. 7
8
Claire Raybould: Sure. Yeah. 9
10
Commissioner Hechtman: Oh. 11
12
Claire Raybould: I’m sorry. I think it was… 13
14
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. 15
16
Claire Raybould:… just an error. 17
18
Amy French: [I believe 37:40] there were 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.
Claire Raybould: Yeah. 1
2
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. And this last question is probably for Albert. So in our land use 3
statement of decision and in the staff report, there’s a reference to tenant relocation. It looks 4
to me like that is a condition of approval of the Streamlined Housing Development Review, not 5
the Vesting Tentative Map, and so really it’s not a topic for us tonight. It’s being handled as a 6
part of the process that’s not before the PTC and I just wanted to confirm that. 7
8
Albert Yang: Yes, that’s correct. 9
10
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. All right. Thank you. 11
12
Chair Chang: Commissioner Reckdahl. 13
14
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Okay. The first of the [inaudible 38:29] on slide 1, I believe your red 15
squares or red rectangles are in the wrong spot. It slid over a little. Yeah, so look – yeah. 16
17
Claire Raybould: Sure. Thank you. 18
19
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: 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
Claire Raybould: Yeah, sorry about that. 2
3
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: And the second would be a question for Albert. For both the Grant Avenue 4
teacher and also for the Mitchell Park Place, it was county projects, and so they were not 5
obliged to follow zoning. Is this the same type of situation where the Housing Authority does 6
not have to follow Palo Alto zoning? 7
8
Albert Yang: We didn’t investigate that question because Palo Alto has such a large part in this 9
project. I think the Housing Authority was – as a courtesy at least – or just didn’t raise that issue 10
and agreed to go [and 39:24] consult with us and go through our process. 11
12
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Okay, thank you. 13
14
Chair Chang: Commissioner Akin. 15
16
Commissioner Akin: Thank you. This question is for staff. On Packet Page 9, we are directed to 17
consider the proposed CEQA exemption. Are you still interested in comments on that? 18
19
Claire Raybould: Yes, please. Of course. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Akin: Okay. I’ll defer until the next round. Thanks. 2
3
Chair Chang: Okay. I’ve got a question. If you look at the Vesting Tentative Map, in the lower 4
left, there’s a proposed 5-foot sidewalk easement for parcel A, and then most of the other 5
easements are repeated twice for parcel − one’s for parcel A and one’s for parcel B, but I didn’t 6
see that same easement note repeated for parcel B, so I just wanted to verify that that’s a 7
missing typo or something like that. 8
9
Claire Raybould: So I don’t think any of them are repeated. It’s just where it happens to be 10
referenced, so it is going across the entire property frontage. It’s just only referenced at one 11
point typically and then when you go through the final map process, you provide all the closure 12
calculations that show the exact point of start and end as part of that final map. But it is 13
intended to go all the way across. 14
15
Chair Chang: Okay, thank you. All right. It doesn’t look like there’s any other – oh, there’s… 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: Is that showing up? 18
19
Chair Chang: It’s not showing up. Do you want to test that right now? Nope. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 41:14]. 2
3
Chair Chang: It’s not lighting up but Commissioner Templeton, go ahead. 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you very much, Chair. I was just trying to ask the same 6
question maybe. Can you show the watercolor or the colored pencil slide? 7
8
Claire Raybould: Sure, hold on one second. 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: When you say frontage, do you mean Los Robles? 11
12
Claire Raybould: Yeah. Sorry. Los Robles being the frontage. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. So then it may end up being the same question, Chair. 15
16
Claire Raybould: Sorry, yes. This shifted but… 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: No. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Claire Raybould: Is this what you’re referencing. 1
2
Commissioner Templeton: No, it’s a pencil drawing. Colored pencils. 3
4
Claire Raybould: Oh, I’m sorry. I see. This? 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. Okay, so that’s where the sidewalk is on this. So this road here 7
with the bike lanes is Los Robles? 8
9
Claire Raybould: Yeah. 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah, okay. And does this mean – I’m just sorry. I got really excited. 12
This is a technical question. We’ll get back to the other stuff later but like does that mean we’re 13
getting painted bike lanes there? 14
15
Claire Raybould: No. 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: Or… 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Claire Raybould: There are no changes to the bike lanes that are proposed as part of the 1
project. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: Oh, I got all excited. 4
5
Claire Raybould: They’re existing… 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: This is a pretty drawing. 8
9
Claire Raybould: Yeah. 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. All right. So good. We have a [inaudible 42:33]. We really don’t 12
have that sidewalk there now and it’s quite an interesting place to go for a walk, so that’s going 13
to be a huge improvement. So I like seeing that. Thank you for explaining that. 14
15
Chair Chang: Okay. So now I’d like to open up to Public Comment. Ms. Dao, do you have any 16
speaker cards? 17
18
PUBLIC COMMENT 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.
Ms. Dao: No, I have no speaker cards or raised hands. 1
2
Chair Chang: Oh, well okay. Hello to everybody out there. I thought that maybe there’d be 3
somebody who wanted to speak. Okay, so then let’s bring it back to the Commission for 4
discussion and comments. Light it up, please. All right, I got Commissioner Akin, then 5
Hechtman. Commissioner Akin, go ahead. 6
7
Commissioner Akin: Go ahead? I just wanted to comment on the CEQA exemption. I was really 8
taken aback by the transportation study in the first respect because it doesn’t analyze VMT at 9
all, and on top of that, it relies on the assumption that up to 35 families that move from a 10
mobile home to an apartment at the very same location are going to cut their daily trip count in 11
half magically. And luckily, this project has a lot of support and it’s unlikely that anyone will try 12
to use this as a delaying tactic but it sure would’ve been nice if we could have leveraged the 13
work that was already done for the Housing Element supplemental EIR, which has not only, I 14
think, enough information to do this, but the significant threshold for VMT is so high, I don’t 15
think there’s any risk the conclusion would change. But just as a way to make it defensible, I 16
thought that should be pointed out. 17
18
Claire Raybould: Sure. Thank you. I’m happy to – I don’t know if there was a question in there 19
but – or if you would like me to say anything. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: No, it wasn’t a question. Just an observation and advice. 2
3
Commissioner Reckdahl: [Inaudible 44:57]. 4
5
Chair Chang: Okay. 6
7
Commissioner Akin: I thank you though. 8
9
Chair Chang: Okay, Commissioner Hechtman. 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. I am in support of the staff recommendation. I did have a 12
couple of minor typos to point out on the record of land use if that moves forward to Council. 13
The first one is on Packet Page 19, Section 4, three lines from the bottom. There’s an extra F in 14
the middle of 61. And then on Packet Page 36, Condition 5, there’s a reference to the trash 15
pickup for the townhomes. And I think this was probably pasted from a townhome 16
development and so I think that needs to be changed to make it apply to this development. 17
That’s it. Thank you. Thanks, staff… 18
19
Claire Raybould: 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 Hechtman: …for this work and really excited to see this project and to see the 2
folks that live in this park really being well taken care of. Thank you. 3
4
Chair Chang: Commissioner Templeton. 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you, Chair. So the question I had when looking at the drawing 7
and listening to our conversation about the impact of the development on traffic and all that, it 8
made me think about the parking. So I walk past this development, this [inaudible 46:45] park 9
every day and there’s a lot of parking on the street and have we thought about that and like 10
what would be the – do people have places to park in the new development design? 11
12
Claire Raybould: Yes, so there’s significantly more parking that’s being provided on site as part 13
of this redevelopment. 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: Awesome. That’s a huge benefit because like having your car on the 16
street is more likely to get broken into and damaged and things like that. So I think that’s a 17
huge benefit plus the sidewalks. I think there’s a lot to like and I really appreciate the attention 18
that everybody has put in from the city, the county, and the neighborhood, so thank you all for 19
doing that and I’m very supportive as 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 Chang: Commissioner Summa. 2
3
Commissioner Summa: Thank you, Chair. I am very supportive of the staff recommendation this 4
evening, interesting comments from my colleagues so far, and I also welcome all the Buena 5
Vista tenants and people helping them that are here this evening. Every time we see this 6
project advance another step, it’s really good news for the City of Palo Alto. So that’s great. The 7
one thing I wanted to mention, which has nothing to do with the map and stuff, is if some 8
minor adjustments could be made to materials, if it’s a possibility, to reduce the heat island 9
effect that this looks like it’s going to have a problem with. That would be really welcome, so I 10
just − as an encouragement, I don’t think anyone wants to hold this project up in any way, so 11
congratulations. Another hurdle down. 12
13
Chair Chang: Okay. I have one more question that I should have asked as a clarifying question. I 14
too am very supportive of this project. So my question is that it talks about 40 percent of units 15
being provided to households earning 30 percent of area median income, 40 percent provided 16
at a rate affordable to households earning 50 percent, and the remaining 20 percent of units 17
would be provided at a rate affordable to households earning 80 percent AMI. So my question 18
is is that going to be split evenly between the apartment units and the mobile homes or is it 19
being split some other way? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Claire Raybould: I think it’d be better if Housing Authority could answer that question. 2
3
Chair Chang: Okay. 4
5
Claire Raybould: If you don’t mind. 6
7
Chair Chang: Mr. Adhikari? 8
9
Kris Adhikari: Let me actually see if anybody from the Housing Authority who’s on line would 10
like to respond to this. Just wanted to give the opportunity before I do. 11
12
Chair Chang: Wonderful. Ms. White. 13
14
Sarah White: Yes. Hi. Good evening everyone. That is correct. The city and county tri-party 15
regulatory agreement with the Housing Authority will be split evenly between the apartments 16
and the mobile home park at those AMI targeting that you mentioned; 40 percent at 30 percent 17
AMI, 40 percent at 50 percent AMI, and the remaining 20 percent at 80 percent AMI. I will add 18
that we do have some existing residents at Buena Vista that don’t fit neatly into those 19
categories and so there are provisions and all existing residents will have a right to return at 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Buena Vista. So it may take some time for those exact ratios, 40:40:20 to be achieved over time 1
through attrition and things like that. 2
3
Chair Chang: Great. Thank you. That’s great news to hear that there is that provision for existing 4
residents. Okay. I don’t see any other lights here. Would somebody like to make a motion? Go 5
ahead, Commissioner Summa. 6
7
Commissioner Summa: I was going to make a motion. I would like to move staff 8
recommendation, parts – there’s two parts as written, parts 1 and 2, and I don’t think I need to 9
read the whole thing. 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: Second. 12
13
Chair Chang: Is there any further discussion? All right. Ms. Dao, could you take the vote, please? 14
15
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Akin? 16
17
Commissioner Akin: Yes. 18
19
Ms. Dao: 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.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: Yes. 2
3
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 6
7
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Lu? 8
9
Commissioner Lu: 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 Templeton? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: Yes. 2
3
Ms. Dao: Motion carries 7-0. 4
5
Chair Chang: Okay, thank you everyone for your hard work and thank you to the members of 6
the public for coming in support tonight. We move onto our next agenda item, which is a 7
legislative item and Continued Discussion and Recommendation on the Proposed Amendments 8
to the Palo Alto Municipal Code Title 18 Chapter 18.52 Parking Regulations. Specific to 9
Implications of Assembly Bill AB 2097. 10
11
3. ACTION/LEGISLATIVE: Continued Discussion and Recommendation on Proposed 12
Amendments to the Palo Alto Municipal Code (PAMC) Title 18 (Zoning) Chapter 13
18.52 (Parking Regulations) Specific to Implications of Assembly Bill (AB) 2097 14
(Continued from the May 29, 2024 PTC Public Hearing) 15
16
Chair Chang: Is there a staff presentation? 17
18
Amy French: Yes, there is. Here we go. So we last talked about this on May 29 and that 19
ordinance is on its path to go to the City Council without this Section D because that was pulled 20
with wording trouble, the “where feasible,” and it was also – there was discussion as framed 21
and discussed in the staff report regarding a number of items that we’ll attempt to kind of focus 22
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
on tonight. So we do recommend that the Planning Commission continue a discussion. Some of 1
that – the recording of that meeting was a little spotty, so trying to listen to the advice and 2
recommendations for additional research was a little difficult. I tried to capture that. So we do 3
plan to present to Council with some kind of capturing of what type of research and what 4
additional resources might be needed for some of that work. So just an overview again, the 5
focus of this piece of the ordinance was this AB 2097, the State law, that precludes imposition 6
of minimum parking requirements on development projects except for hotels and event 7
centers within ½ mile of major transit stops. We have 3 of them in town. Well one’s in 8
Mountain View but the radius extends into Palo Alto. So the Planning Commission was 9
concerned on ways to address the loss of accessible and electric vehicle parking spaces under 10
AB 2097 and the provision of short-term loading spaces. So again, we’ll just kind of characterize 11
these as two topic. Topic 1 being captured here: Should projects utilizing AB 2097 be required 12
to provide a short-term loading space for rideshare and deliveries? And a couple bullets there: 13
How should this policy account for small sites where providing a space may be difficult and 14
should more than one space be required for larger buildings? And then consider shuttle- 15
loading space idea to enable access from pedestrian zones to car parking areas like is found in 16
Europe in places. Consider loading spaces in parking structures and alleys. And then the Topic 2 17
would be should the city require projects utilizing AB 2097 to provide ADA and EV charging 18
spaces on site and would this constrain housing development was a question raised. Again, the 19
ADA support – that was a big agreement point – was that’s needed near retail and services both 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 downtown and California Avenue, and to consider electric vehicle spaces that could be 1
clustered maybe away from the shopping areas and enable folks to walk. So staff began some 2
amount of research working with the Office of Transportation and capturing in this set of 3
tables. So just to – an overall note is that the Office of Transportation is actually looking into 4
ADA space needs in the Cal. Ave. area and there are ADA spaces in the garage – garages, as it 5
should say, and surface lots. This table captures some walkthroughs done this week to look at 6
the street spaces and alley spaces. So you can see here captured with color, we have different 7
types of loading spaces, the yellow commercial spaces, the white non-commercial spaces, and 8
the green spaces, short-term for all. One of the features of this is that for ADA placard holders, 9
they’re allowed to exceed in most cases, I think, the time limits that are imposed upon the 10
loading spaces and the parking spots, the short-term spots. So if they have a placard, they 11
cannot be ticketed for exceeding the 3 minutes or 10 minutes or what have you is my 12
understanding. So this just kind of gives an overview where they are in this area. We haven’t 13
mapped them but it just gives some addresses, so you get an overall sense. So we do we have 14
six 20-minute yellow commercial spots, one 30-minute spot, two 3-minute white spots, and one 15
10-minute loading spot. So then we have the downtown. This is quite a bit more spaces for 16
loading. In addition to loading, there’s taxi cab and valet spaces or there’s two of those. You’ll 17
see in the yellow again reflected the commercial spots; there are 14 of those 20-minute loading 18
spots. There are 4 white non-commercial loading spots with different time limitations and 17 19
short-term green spots with different time limitations. And you’ll see the locations there 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
generally described. So again, the placard holders can go and load in the white as well as in the 1
green. If they’re commercial, they can go to the yellow and they can take longer to do their 2
loading and unloading. These − I should say these table do exclude the public parking garages 3
and surface lots. These are not included in this table, so there are more loading spaces 4
available. Just to note that there have been studies in the last couple of years or so and beyond. 5
There was a study of the University Avenue. There’s a project looking at University Avenue 6
Streetscape. They did not look at the side streets, so they had – it captured a [inaudible 58:22] 7
here that they provided to me showing University Avenue itself between the different blocks. 8
And then there is a 2017 study that was done of the downtown parking occupancy conditions, 9
so I am happy to forward that on for those that may not have seen that back in 2017 before we 10
got into the pandemic. Then, of course, my final slides to show the AB 2097 circle areas, so the 11
first one is our high-volume Palo Alto Station at University Avenue that includes a transit 12
station. So that’s quite a wide swathe of properties that are not subject to providing parking 13
unless they are hotels and event centers. We have the Cal. Ave. Station [inaudible 59:15] and 14
then, of course, there’s the San Antonio Station, which does not have a large volume of 15
properties that would need loading, but there are some of those religious-institution properties 16
along Alma that could flip to housing at some point, so we want to think about those as well. So 17
that concludes this presentation and I can bring back to help us focus the conversation to 18
maybe Topic 1 and 2 and to the pleasure of the chair how you would proceed. 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 Chang: Okay, so just to recap. The plan is to if we want to make any changes, there’s likely 1
more staff time required to investigate more, and so if it is our recommendation that we think 2
certain things should be done and we don’t have enough data for that, that we can make a 3
recommendation that we need certain additional data or we think certain additional things 4
should be done with respect to loading or ADA or EVSE spaces. And then City Council would 5
decide whether or not they're dedicating the additional resources that are needed to generate 6
that data for us. So let’s start with clarifying questions and then – yes. Go ahead, Commissioner 7
Hechtman. 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: So the staff recommendation – and I think this ties a little bit to what 10
the Chair was just saying that the staff recommendation is just to discuss this. So previously, we 11
had the whole of this ordinance and… 12
13
Chair Chang: Yes. 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: …we voted to move most of it forward except for this discrete issue… 16
17
Chair Chang: Yes. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Hechtman: …which is now in front of us. And I’m wondering if we don’t have the 1
ability tonight to move this piece forward to Council with a vote because the recommendation 2
is just to discuss. So can we vote to move it forward in some form? 3
4
Amy French: I mean I think the recommendation could include requesting that the Council 5
pursue and direct staff and resources and stuff to… 6
7
Commissioner Hechtman: So… 8
9
Amy French: Oh, thanks, Albert. 10
11
Albert Yang: Yeah, so if the Commission is ready to recommend a specific change to the 12
ordinance to be included in what goes to the Council, you’re welcome to do that. 13
14
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay, thank you. 15
16
Chair Chang: Commissioner Summa. 17
18
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Summa: Forgive me if this question was asked last time but I don’t remember. 1
How are the circles measured? In other words, where’s the epicenter and is it as the crow flies 2
or… 3
4
Amy French: Yes. 5
6
Commissioner Summa: Yeah, I thought it was. 7
8
Amy French: It’s the crow flies and it’s the epicenter of two of the stations. For the Palo Alto 9
Station, it’s not only the station as the point but it’s also the transit center with the buses that 10
accommodate SamTrans and VTA, so it kind of makes it an oblong circle or an oval in that case. 11
12
Chair Chang: So I think what – Ms. French, just to clarify. So it’s not that it’s measured as a ½ 13
mile from a point. It’s measured as a ½ mile from the edge of an area. Is that correct? 14
15
Amy French: Well it’s measured from a point in the case of the two stations. But in the case of 16
the Palo Alto Station, it’s not only the train station but it’s the transit center that includes the 17
bus turnarounds’ radius, so that’s another transit. So it kind of… 18
19
Chair Chang: Understood. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Amy French: It makes it more oblong. Does that – there were… 2
3
Chair Chang: Commissioner Summa, do you have more clarification? 4
5
Commissioner Summa: But there’s… 6
7
Amy French: I can show the slide. 8
9
Commissioner Summa: …still one basically. There aren’t two circles like a Venn diagram that 10
connect. There’s one circle because you found the center basically established a center of the 11
whole transit center, including the parking lots and everything. Right? 12
13
Amy French: Yeah, I mean I don’t have the ruler in place but a number of folks were looking at 14
it and trying to figure out how to measure this at some point a year or so ago when this went 15
into effect. So this does – you can see how this shape, in other words, is a little more oblong or 16
ovally than the shape for the Cal. Ave. Station. 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: If I may, Chair? 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.
Chair Chang: Yes. 1
2
Commissioner Templeton: It looks like two overlapping circles. You can see right up there 3
there’s a little park at the top and you can that the two circles make a little V shape. It’s 4
definitely two circles, so there’s a – each transit center has a circle and these are overlapping 5
almost entirely. So it’s hard to see because they don’t have an outline but it’s two circles. 6
7
Commissioner Summa: So there’s a train circle and a bus transit center circle? 8
9
Amy French: Yes, that are merged. 10
11
Commissioner Summa: Why are there two? Because I thought the – we established that bus 12
routes were not… 13
14
Amy French: Yes, I can explain. 15
16
Commissioner Summa: Okay. 17
18
Amy French: So bus routes – say at El Camino and Page Mill Road, they are crossing but they 19
don’t have a frequency of 14 seconds headway or some kind of thing like that, and I can’t recall 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
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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exactly, but maybe 14 minutes. Anyhow, this VTA SamTrans Station does have the correct 1
frequency of pickups and drop-offs and moving around, so it qualifies as a high-quality transit 2
stop with the right number of headway buses going… 3
4
Commissioner Summa: Okay. 5
6
Amy French: …back and forth. 7
8
Commissioner Summa: Is that because the individual routes have headways that qualify it or is 9
it because there’s SamTrans and VTA buses using it? 10
11
Amy French: All I know is that in other like – you can’t take the El Camino Bus System and say 12
that that whole thing is a high-quality quarter for the purpose of AB 2097 because you need to 13
have a cross street as well that fits that definition. I don’t have the definition in front of me that 14
I could share with you. I’m sorry. 15
16
Commissioner Summa: Okay. No, I understand that. I would be interested in seeing like how it 17
was calculated precisely because it’s just – that’s why I’m asking a question. So… 18
19
Amy French: Yeah. 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
Commissioner Summa: …that would be useful to know at a later date just for… 2
3
Amy French: Okay. 4
5
Commissioner Summa: …one’s edification. 6
7
Chair Chang: Does your question also [inaudible 66:04] exactly where in the train station how 8
that epicenter is determined? 9
10
Commissioner Summa: Yes. 11
12
Chair Chang: Okay. 13
14
Commissoner Summa: Because I want – I assumed it was the absolute center of the property, 15
which makes one point… 16
17
Albert Yang: So… 18
19
Commissioner Summa: Oh, sorry. 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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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Albert Yang: …it appears – I actually would say it looks like it’s 4 or 5 circles here and each of 2
those blue dots looks like it’s the center of a circle and I believe what was done is they took the 3
center of the platform and in the transit center, there must be multiple platforms that are being 4
used. And if you look at the Cal. Ave. Station as well, you’ll see there’s 2 dots and I think it’s the 5
center of each platform northbound and southbound. 6
7
Amy French: So one side of − the northbound trains and the southbound trains, 2 dots. 8
9
Chair Chang: Okay. Thank you. Other clarifying questions? I got one that’s more like a typo, so if 10
you look at Packet Page 46, I think there’s a typo there just under the number 1 in the middle of 11
the page, the first line that says, “For sites with existing development, the number on-site 12
parking.” I think they’re missing the word of. So it should read the number of on-site parking 13
spaces. Commissioner Lu. 14
15
Commissioner Lu: Yeah, one clarifying question for how to take this discussion going forward. 16
Should we start with Topic 1 and then go to Topic 2? I just want to confirm. 17
18
Chair Chang: That sounds like an excellent plan. 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
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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 Lu: Okay. 1
2
Chair Chang: Let’s do that. 3
4
Commissioner Lu: Thank you. 5
6
Chair Chang: All right. So are there any public comments? I don’t think so. 7
8
PUBLIC COMMENT 9
Ms. Dao: I have no requests to speak. 10
11
Chair Chang: Okay. So let’s move on to Commissioner discussion. Commissioner Hechtman? 12
13
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay, so with that agreed upon direction, I’m going to collapse it for 14
a moment. Sorry, because I’m seeing a couple of issues and one of them isn’t either Topic 1 or 15
Topic 2 and that’s this issue of feasibility. And so we’ve got a couple things going on. First of all, 16
we don’t have a clear definition of feasibility yet, at least not in the staff report and I appreciate 17
that a portion of our transcript was garbled, and so staff really didn’t have the guidance that we 18
tried to offer. But I think I raised that issue about feasibility and really my concern is 19
perpetuation of the Palo Alto process. I don’t want a situation where somebody gets stuck for 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.
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
month debating with staff what is and isn’t feasible. But we know as to the ADA spots and the 1
EV charging spots, those are parking spots and so it’s not even a question of feasibility there. 2
Right? We just – they’re parking spots, so we can’t require them. So − well in a place where you 3
can’t require no automobile parking, it seems to me inconsistent. So what I was wondering if a 4
way to solve all of these things − because really what we want is – we would like people to 5
provide loading where it can fit. We would like them to provide an ADA spot and we would like 6
them to provide an EV charging spot where it can fit and so what I’m wondering is – and we 7
don’t know what feasible means. So one thought I had was to broaden this language that we’re 8
looking at and get rid of feasible and just say that rather than shall provide, say are strongly 9
encouraged to provide a loading space, EV charging space, ADA space. And that will alert 10
developments that these are desirable and will spur, I’m hoping, a design look at it and maybe a 11
conversation with staff. And I think if we approached it that way, I think that’s something that 12
could be packaged tonight without more data. The drawback to that suggestion is it’s 13
permissive rather than mandatory. Right? We’re not mandating that they do it. We’re just 14
encouraging them to do it and that may not satisfy all of my fellow commissioners. But I wanted 15
to lead with that, so that at least people could consider it as we work through Topics 1 and 2. 16
17
Chair Chang: Commissioner Akin and then Commissioner Lu. 18
19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Akin: Thank you, Chair. Yeah, I was thinking along the same lines as 1
Commissioner Hechtman, although I was going to be more prescriptive. In reviewing the code, 2
there’s already a lot of mechanism to use director’s adjustment for reduction. And in fact, it’s 3
really pretty flexible. You can share spaces between properties, spaces don’t have to be on the 4
property of the applicant. There are even fairly generous constraints on how to define 5
acceptable accessible places that are off the property. So what I was leaning towards was I 6
really would like to see at least accessible parking be required and preferably loading zones as 7
well. Perhaps, we could require them and make it clear that if none is provided, then the 8
applicant must submit a TDM plan that describes how the remaining spaces would be provided, 9
how the shortfall would be covered, and it would be director’s adjustment to decide whether 10
the project could then omit accessible places or loading zone all together. But the thinking that 11
I have done so far, it would be the burden of the applicant to suggest a mechanism for 12
accomplishing that and then strictly the director’s purview to accept or renegotiate. So yeah, 13
we’re thinking along the same lines but the details differ so far. 14
15
Chair Chang: Commissioner Lu. 16
17
Commissioner Lu: Thank you. I am still digesting Commissioner Akin’s comment. I think that 18
generally makes sense to me. My interest is in ADA parking and not so much EV or loading 19
spaces. But in response to Commissioner Hechtman’s comment, I wanted to make sure I 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
understood the default state for AB 2097, and my understanding is that if any parking is 1
provided, it would have to kind of align with default standards. So if parking is voluntarily 2
provided and we require 1 ADA space for units of – or buildings of a certain size, for instance, 3
that the applicant wouldn’t have a choice, like the ADA space would have to be prioritized. And 4
so I was trying to like read about AB 2097 and what other cities did and that’s my 5
understanding and wanted to pass that out there as informative to Commissioner Hechtman’s 6
discussion point. But I also want to throw it out there to Mr. Yang, for example, if that is not 7
correct. 8
9
Albert Yang: Yeah, so we discussed this briefly the last time we were talking about this issue. 10
There is a provision in AB 2097 that says basically not withstanding what we’ve said in this 11
section, cities can require ADA and EV spaces to be provided as if this section didn’t apply. And 12
so that provision is a little bit unclear and there’s differing approaches that cities across the 13
state have taken. The majority of the approach is what you described, Commissioner Lu, and 14
that’s what we have – what staff has been doing as well, which is to say if you provide parking 15
voluntarily, you’ve got to provide the EV and ADA spaces as you normally would. The minority 16
approach, that I’m only aware of one or two jurisdictions that have done this but there could be 17
more, is to say you have to provide all of the ADA and EV spaces that you would’ve provided if 18
you – if the normal parking requirement applied. So if you had a normal parking requirement of 19
50 spaces and you are required to provide 3 ADA spaces and 2 EV chargers – well you don’t 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
have to provide the regular parking spaces but you still have to provide those 5 spaces. That’s 1
not the approach that Palo Alto has taken and as far as I’m aware it’s not very common but it is 2
seen in some places. 3
4
Chair Chang: Does that answer your question? 5
6
Commissioner Lu: Yes. 7
8
Chair Chang: All right. Commissioner Summa. 9
10
Commissioner Summa: Thank you. So I’m still – so one thing we can do, I think, is exempt 11
existing development that’s in downtown areas where there’s no setback required because I 12
mean that would clarify that this is just for new developments. And I don’t think we want to 13
start requiring on-site parking in places where there’ s an existing developments all built out. I 14
think that’s one way to clarify – one thing to add instead of the word feasibility, which we all 15
agreed was problematic – I’m not sure how we could craft that language. I think EVSE spots 16
offsite is not problematic for me at all, and I think eventually we’re going to need all EVSE spots, 17
we hope. So it’s kind of like the more we put every – the more we get ready for EVSE in parking 18
spots, the better. But ADA spots certainly come first to me as a priority for people as we make a 19
lot of these changes, including the closure of Cal. Ave. People with – who are differently abled 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
are going to find themselves having to get further from their vehicles. In all cases, I mean 1
there’s a lot of different kinds of disabilities, so – but sometimes, that’s very hard. So I still think 2
we should find a way to get as much close to the locations as we can. Loading spots, I’m more 3
interested in accommodating human being loading like drop off but then traditional – 4
traditionally, we − our loading spot requirements were based on deliveries. So there’s both a lot 5
more deliveries to small businesses than there used to be and there’s also this other thing, 6
which is people who are going to live car-free in large numbers, having a space to drop them off 7
that’s convenient to their home, which also could have some overlap with persons with 8
disabilities. So that’s kind of how I prioritize them. I understand the city has taken a certain 9
direction in their interpretation of AB 2097 but I do believe that AB 2097 has a lot of sort of, 10
“Oh, if you don’t want to do this, this is how you don’t have to do it,” that we haven’t utilized 11
both in what our attorney just mentioned and also a more general principle that if it isn’t good 12
– if this doesn’t work and you can make a good argument for some development or in an area 13
even, I guess you can do it. And I’m a little bit mystified by the circles, I have to admit, because 14
a ½ mile from anything as the crow flies, in my understanding, can only be from one point, and I 15
don’t think there’s an advantage for residents and future residents in expanding the circles, so 16
to speak. So those are my – I’m not sure how to achieve all of this but those are my concerns 17
and I also – I appreciate that staff – that we didn’t have a good record of the meeting and that 18
staff looked at our request and concerns and kind of decided it was too much work to fully 19
evaluate it without Council direction at this time. That makes perfect sense to me. But 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
especially with the ADA, I would also like to know if – I think there needs to be a study of 1
existing ADA spots and how they’re being utilized. I mean maybe there’s enough of them near 2
our downtowns and in the other circle area, the San Antonio area, to accommodate it and 3
maybe we really do need all the extra ones that would’ve been added if things had been 4
developed under our default standards. So that’s kind of where I am right now. Thanks. 5
6
Chair Chang: Commissioner Templeton. 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you so much. I am intrigued by my colleagues’ comments and 9
I wanted to see if Mr. Yang can clarify where those circles are specified to be from in the law? 10
11
Albert Yang: I don’t recall and I’m not sure that I’ll be able to find it tonight but this was – I have 12
a sense that because − as Ms. French said, this is something that staff discussed extensively 13
about a year ago or more. I have a sense that there was direction from the state on how to… 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. But looking at the drawings, you specify the centers of these 16
and those are all transit centers and so I’m not sure it will be that hard to find. But it’s an 17
intriguing question and I seem to recall that it was from transit centers. So if we can find out 18
one way or the other and satisfy Commissioner Summa’s question and get us all on the same 19
page. But assuming it’s that, that would necessitate having more than one center. Right? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Albert Yang: Well I guess to clarify. The question that staff had when we were first looking at 2
this was are these radii supposed to be taken from the edge of the parcel or from the edge of 3
the platform, so… 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: Right. So that’s not what Commissioner Summa was asking. 6
7
Albert Yang: Right. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: She was saying why is there more than one and I thought we could 10
just answer that pretty quickly because it’s based on transit center or is that not your 11
understanding? 12
13
Albert Yang: No, I guess I was just saying that Commissioner Summa suggested that the radius 14
should only be taken from one point, but in staff’s mind, the alternative was to take it from the 15
edge of a polygon. So… 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: Right. 18
19
Albert Yang: …it would not be 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.
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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
Commissioner Templeton: Okay, so I’m just going to repeat back what I heard and maybe we 2
can continue questioning if that’s needed. But it is important for us all to be on the same page, 3
especially if that’s a concern for one of our commissioners, so I – my understanding based on 4
the drawing is that there’s no need to consolidate centers. Each center has its own right to its 5
own radius except in this case, they’re just overlapping and if they were a mile apart, they’d still 6
have the right to their own radius. So I don’t know. That’s my interpretation and I would love to 7
hear any other interpretations. Thank you. 8
9
Chair Chang: Commissioner Reckdahl. 10
11
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Yeah, there are a lot of housing bills up but I know one of them was the 12
edge of the platforms, so you’d have the whole – any bus stop, any part where you could load, 13
that was the criteria. Another one was just the property. So if you didn’t like the parking lot, the 14
final corner of the polygon of the property, that was where it [was measured 83:48] from. But I 15
can’t speak to 2097. I do like the idea of Commissioner Akin’s suggestion for the director 16
approval. Staff, can you discuss how onerous is a director’s approval? 17
18
Amy French: Well typically, a director’s adjustment for parking and loading would go hand in 19
hand with an architectural review application for a new project, so that would have – it would 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
be bundled together if there were a site and design project, which we don’t see a lot of those 1
anymore but usually in the foothills with homes. But in any case, that could be bundled and 2
brought to the Planning and Transportation Commission, but generally, it’s kind of a staff-level, 3
director-level process that can be appealed along with the architectural review approval for a 4
project. If – and most projects would go through that route, architectural review. So I think… 5
6
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: So in general, there’s not an extra hoop jumping. It’s just that they present 7
their plan and say this is why we think we don’t need a loading spot and then staff can discuss 8
and say yes. 9
10
Amy French: Yes. 11
12
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Or no. 13
14
Amy French: And it would ride along with that action. 15
16
Albert Yang: So I guess the one thing I would add to that response − for housing projects, it 17
could be a significant additional issue. So it would – we are anticipating that most housing 18
projects are going to go through a streamline review where they have [inaudible 85:28] most 19
one courtesy meeting with ARB and that review is typically just comparing it to objective 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
standards. So adding in a discretionary request would be potentially adding time to that 1
process. But on the other hand, if you have a project that is providing on-site affordability, they 2
could potentially waive this requirement under Density Bonus Law. 3
4
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Okay. Thank you. 5
6
Chair Chang: Okay, I’m going to chime in with my comments before we move on to the second 7
round. So I also feel strongly that the ADA parking should be in close proximity, and also 8
because we are the Planning Commission, I don’t want to do anything too short-sighted with 9
respect to electric vehicles because I know that the state has laws, I think, in 2030 where 10
everything is going to be electric if that doesn’t change between now and 2030. But I know 11
we’re going that way and so I am worried about not providing for our core commercial areas 12
and areas where we’ve also said with the housing improvement that with the HIP incentives 13
that there could be a lot more height and a lot more density that we’re not planning for the 14
ADA and EVSE, as well as loading spaces. I know that it’s been in the news quite a lot but with 15
Uber and meal delivery services that not having adequate loading zones is becoming a real 16
problem and causing safety issues as well as traffic issues, and so I want to make sure that we 17
try and plan for that. I am not – I like Commissioner Akin’s idea. I’m not sure how – if that – so 18
I’m not sure about the magnitude of the problem for all three categories of spaces. And then I 19
worry about how onerous it may or may not be, so that’s – those are just my thoughts. 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.
something like EVSE, I like the idea of us as a city planning for it and it’s something that makes 1
sense to me as something that could work well with say an in-lieu fee but that could also 2
become very onerous. So those are my thoughts. It certainly makes sense to group EVSE spaces 3
together and if we were to say to do those installations in the city parking structures, they 4
would cost money. And so it would make sense for a new development to contribute a small 5
amount. It doesn’t sound like it would be a lot of money necessarily towards that 6
infrastructure. So those are my thoughts for now. So we’ll move on to the second round of 7
comments. Commissioner Lu. 8
9
Commissioner Lu: Thank you. A few comments. Also one kind of question to scope out for 10
feasibility. I’ll start with the question. So I’d appreciate any context on how the city currently 11
permits or charges for curb cuts and driveways. And my reference point is most – virtually all 12
projects will have sidewalk frontage and potentially a viable solution is to for properties that 13
dedicate no parking, carve out a chunk of the sidewalk for a disabled spot or a loading spot and 14
that would not take up more space or kind of give that unit – give that building necessarily 15
special privileges. Since I live in a 40-building unit and we have a double-width driveway just 16
going into the building – so yeah. I want to understand that practice around curb cuts and 17
driveways and whether that could be a viable solution for disabled access. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Amy French: So I don’t know if Nate is on and he would like to weigh in on this topic. I know 1
when − downtown for instance, we’re not doing curb cuts in the University Avenue area. That’s 2
just with smaller lots. We don’t want to have curb cuts, so – but the outer areas, of course, curb 3
cuts are an option, the farther out from the center. Nate, did you have – were you tuning in on 4
this? 5
6
Nate Baird: Unfortunately, I don’t really have a perspective on this piece. Unfortunately. Sorry. 7
8
Amy French: Okay, thank you. 9
10
Commissioner Lu: Yeah, if we can’t reach a resolution tonight, I think that would be a topic I’d 11
be interested in following up on, just understanding the city can facilitate a process that puts 12
those loading spaces and accessible spaces on the sidewalk. Okay. A couple comments. I 13
understand Mr. Yang’s comment and Commissioner Summa’s comment about there is another 14
option to like require disable accessible and full accessible and electric parking. I don’t think we 15
– my preference is not to take that option. I think option 1, as described by Mr. Yang, is more in 16
the spirit of the law and we genuinely do want to encourage people to have more of a car-free 17
lifestyle. Similarly, I think electric vehicles are a much lower priority. I think if a developer wants 18
to build the project with very little or no parking, I think that’s a really exciting opportunity and 19
an exciting experiment and they will have bike parking. They will potentially have other 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.
mitigations and having no vehicle is vastly superior for the environment and for traffic than 1
having an electric vehicle. Actually, I’ll wrap my comments there and think more about 2
director’s approval and come back. 3
4
Chair Chang: Okay. Commissioner Hechtman. 5
6
Commissioner Hechtman: So in the first round, I sort of lumped everything together, now I’m 7
going to break it apart. So looking at what we have in the staff report, on Packet Page 45, 8
Subpart A of the ordinance deals with parking. It mentions loading but really defers it to Section 9
D, which I’ll talk about in a minute. But what it says is if you’re in a government code Section 10
65863.2 location, no automobile parking is required. And so I was wondering what Mr. Yang 11
described as the Palo Alto practice, which is in line with the majority that none’s required but if 12
you provide them then we are, as Commissioner Lu said, prioritizing ADA and EV. Is that in 13
some other section that just isn’t in the staff report? 14
15
Albert Yang: So I guess I would say we’re not – when you provide parking voluntarily, Palo Alto 16
doesn’t prioritize ADA and EV. We just require the standard ratio of ADA and EV spaces. And 17
those requirements are – I’m not sure if they’re in a different part of 1852 but I do know that 18
they are also in the building code. 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: Okay, so I think what that means is with the language that staff has 1
drafted and recommended for Part A, no automobile parking is required. But if somebody 2
comes in with a plan that does have some parking, they are directed to these other existing 3
sections of the code that say you have to meet the ADA and EV requirements even if that takes 4
all the parking you want to provide. 5
6
Albert Yang: Yeah. 7
8
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. All right. And when they’re told that, is that a requirement that 9
they can have waived through Density Bonus Law? 10
11
Albert Yang: No, that’s not something that can be waived. 12
13
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. So it seems like we’ve got pretty good protection on those 14
issues now unless we want to go to the minority view of the couple of cities that have made it 15
more stringent and so I guess I’m liking that approach because I feel like we are covered there. 16
So now let me go to the other topic and that is the loading spaces which is the sole subject of 17
Part B of this section and what I’m wondering is first of all, if we started that last sentence with 18
something like, “Subject to adjustment by the director in the event of demonstrable 19
infeasibility.” Right? Now I think we put a little more pressure on an applicant to show it can’t 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
be done. And if it can’t be done, then they can get out of it by having the director so determine 1
but I wanted to ask Mr. Yang on this one, if we have that preface to this, would that be 2
something that could be waived using Density Bonus Law? 3
4
Albert Yang: Yes. 5
6
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 7
8
Albert Yang: I think that is something that could be waived. 9
10
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. So because it could be waived, you almost don’t need that 11
prefatory clause because either you do it or if you’re in Density Bonus Law and you either don’t 12
want to or can’t, you just make that one of your concessions that you ask to be waived. So then 13
all we’d have to deal with is not every project is a Density Bonus Law project, right? 14
15
Albert Yang: Right. So it wouldn’t apply to any commercial projects and actually I think 16
Commissioner Summa’s suggestion is well taken that we carve out projects that aren’t changing 17
the existing footprint. So AB 2097 is very broad; it could apply to tenant improvements. So we 18
want to make sure we’re not capturing those. And in addition, I would say that the city is going 19
to be rolling out improved and expanded HIP, Housing Incentive Program, probably this fall 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
hopefully, and projects that take advantage of the Housing Incentive Program are – well they 1
can’t take advantage of the Housing Incentive Program if they’re using Density Bonus, so there 2
might be actually a fair number of housing projects that also decide not to use the Density 3
Bonus. 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. All right. So then I think for the Subpart D – I think we have to 6
have some mechanism for a requirement and relief and really if we can’t define feasibility but 7
can provide a mechanism for a decision on it, that’s kind of second best. And so maybe that’s 8
how we could handle D along with folding in this concept that Mr. Yang just mentioned that 9
Commissioner Summa had first described. So okay, I’ll leave it there. 10
11
Chair Chang: Commissioner Akin, then Reckdahl. 12
13
Commissioner Akin: Thank you, Chair. Yeah, just to – I’m not sure I followed all of your line of 14
thought there. The – for me, the reason the director’s adjustment was attractive is that it’s 15
applicable even when Density Bonus Law is not involved and there’s a surprising amount of 16
mechanism already in place in the code for doing things that you would like to do. You don’t 17
have to prove as an applicant that it’s infeasible to provide accessible parking places. You 18
simply have to make a convincing case that those can be handled some other way that’s 19
acceptable to the director. So it eliminates the feasibility issue as well as building in flexibility 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 you might want to use for shared parking in particular and – so I found it attractive 1
because a lot of the mechanism that we’re struggling to provide is actually there already 2
because we’re only interested in reducing a requirement, which is what the director’s 3
adjustment is intended to provide. 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: So if I could just clarify the discussion about feasibility is solely 6
limited to loading spaces. It’s only showing up in D, so when we’re talking about ADA or shared 7
parking, that’s not where this feasibility concept is written in the code. 8
9
Commissioner Akin: Yeah. Although it doesn’t need to be limited to that. 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: Right. And so I’m only trying to figure out how when we’re talking 12
about loading zones, loading spaces, can we have a little bit better guidance than where 13
feasible. That’s why I tried to split it and first talk about ADA and EV spaces. 14
15
Chair Chang: Commissoner Reckdahl. 16
17
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Yeah. With loading spaces, what I’m concerned about is if we don’t 18
provide them, they’ll just double park or park in the bike lanes, and at my work, they do that all 19
the time and if you’re biking down there, you have to go around into the traffic just because 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
there’s no drop-off zone. But I mean for ADA, 2097 gets rid of parking requirements just 1
because you’re close to transit and you’ll be able to go to transit and you’ll be able to walk your 2
½ mile to your location. Someone’s who’s disabled is not going to walk a ½ mile, so they have a 3
much higher bar and so for them, they are much more likely to drive even if it’s a very 4
convenient public transit option. So I think we have to provide some, so I’d be more in the 5
minority approach. The question then is do you want a full allocation or do you think that there 6
will still be some reduction and we can reduce the amount that you normally would have to 7
have in a development. And I’d be open to that. Having some required but not necessarily the 8
full complement of ADA parking. 9
10
Chair Chang: Commissioner Templeton. 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. I just want to echo something that Vice-Chair Reckdahl 13
just said. You have to be able to do certain things and ability is not something everybody has. 14
Right? So we have to accommodate them and that’s what the ADA laws are about. So I think as 15
long as we feel that we have sufficient direction from the code that those things are covered, 16
then this discussion is extraneous but if we think that this somehow will eliminate ADA parking, 17
then I think that’s where we need to be protected. So I think what I’m asking my fellow 18
Commissioners or Mr. Yang to weigh in on is what risks do we actually have. I know we’re 19
spending a lot of time on this. We want to make sure people are protected and that’s our goal I 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
think of everybody up here. But what we don’t understand is where we are at risk because it 1
seems that somehow our existing laws already require this and we’re trying to ascertain in a 2
bunch of different directions. We’re looking at it from every angle. We’re trying to ascertain 3
what risks does this state law provide to us and we’re just really not clear on that. So if anybody 4
wants to weigh in a little bit on why we think this would override some of our other 5
protections, I think that would be really helpful for this discussion. Thank you. 6
7
Chair Chang: Let me just – so my understanding is that with at least the adoption of – or with 8
the certification of the new Housing Element that there will be much increased density in these 9
circles. And since we thought that there was the need in the past for a certain ratio of ADA 10
spots, now that there’ll be more development in here and those aren’t required to create any 11
ADA spots, then there presumably might become a shortage. But I think that’s one of the big 12
questions − is that we don’t know what the demand is going to be. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: Do we think – are you saying this would override the federal-level 15
mandates for… 16
17
Chair Chang: I asked the same question, so I’d love it… 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah, I agree. I know. I think we just don’t have the answer to that 1
yet. 2
3
Chair Chang: Yeah, I’d love it if Mr. Yang could chime in on that. I – just because I asked that 4
same question at pre-meeting. 5
6
Albert Yang: Right. So I don’t believe that AB 2097 exposes the city to any additional risks under 7
the ADA. All the examples of sort of city services or some of the cases involving people claiming 8
that sidewalks are inaccessible, they don’t have the right curb cuts. Those all deal with 9
accessibility of a service when you’re providing it or accessibility of a resource when it’s being 10
provided. And in this case, for parking, the parking is not being provided and when it is 11
provided, the city is requiring the accessibility be provided in that same [inaudible 106:13]. 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: Well how is housing not a services being provided by a housing 14
system or housing unit? 15
16
Albert Yang: Well… 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: If you can’t access that, then – yeah. I don’t understand. Thank you. 19
Go ahead. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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
Albert Yang: So that’s – again, I think there’s a basic difference between city programs and city 2
infrastructure and a zoning code and its requirements for private development. And… 3
4
Chair Chang: So can I just chime in here? If I understand correctly, AB 20 – Mr. Yang doesn’t 5
believe that AB 2097 creates a liability for the city in terms of the city not meeting federal ADA 6
law; however, it may create a practical problem where people who need ADA parking don’t 7
have it. So we wouldn’t be legally at risk from – if I understand correctly. But then I think what 8
we all up here are concerned about js that we may not have enough spots to meet demand. 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: And it’s just a matter of precedent. At some point, somebody’s going 11
to want to access their house and won’t be able to. 12
13
Chair Chang: That’s right. That’s one of − that’s why I think we should lean toward − with 14
respect to the ADA parking, we should lump it in with a currently proposed treatment for a 15
loading zone where we require and then allow director’s discretion. And another idea I had – 16
and I don’t know – I could ask Mr. Baird. Do we have any city rules right now for on-street ADA 17
parking like if – are there a certain number of on-street spots that are required to be ADA? 18
Because that’s another way to solve it. Right? If we’re moving toward a car-free world in these 19
circles, we could take street parking in these circles and a lot − a percentage to ADA. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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
Nate Baird: And really with our on-street curb programs, we just make sure that the users who 2
would be affected are in agreement about what needs to happen. So if we have a loading zone, 3
we will assess whether the folks around that loading zone all agree to that loading zone and the 4
time needed. And so if the folks around it on street curb space wanted an ADA spot there, we 5
could agree to put that in, I believe. But I am not aware of any specific requirements generally. I 6
know that in the Cal. Ave. area, we had some blue ADA spaces where we’ve removed some 7
parking, so we are actively looking at relocating those spaces that were previously there that 8
have now been removed, putting them somewhere nearby. But I’m not aware of like what 9
conditions led to the original imposition of those. In general, we have a process for people 10
requesting on-street ADA spaces and it’s kind of a – engineers kind of evaluate the need and 11
what’s happening but it’s – everything’s kind of very context specific and addressing very 12
specific problems that have arisen for stakeholders in a very specific area but not a general 13
requirement because those − it's just really hard to predict what the specific needs are. And 14
when the uses change often, sometimes the curb changes – those changes change as well or 15
the needs change. So generally in long term, the Office of Transportation is looking at ways to 16
provide more flexible curb changes and use changes but there’s lots of ways that can be done 17
with technology moving forward. We’re just not currently equipped with the policy or the 18
technological pieces to do that flexibility that we need, but we are looking into it right now. 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 Chang: Okay, thank you. Commissioner Akin. 1
2
Commissioner Akin: Yeah, [inaudible 110:56] this discussion, I was looking at the code earlier 3
today, 18.54.030G governs accessible parking that isn’t associated with a particular building, so 4
that includes some of the on-street parking and there are requirements there. They’re not 5
onerous but there are some spelled out there, particularly proximity to entrances and proximity 6
to shortest paths, if I remember correctly. So they’re pretty reasonable. Following up on 7
comments from Commissioner Templeton and Commissioner Hechtman, I wonder how much 8
of this is – how much of the discussion is based in uncertainty about how likely it will be that 9
zero park developments will be built. If you look at the requirements that exist in the code, if a 10
developer decides to put parking into a project, then to me, they seem pretty reasonable for 11
provision of accessible spaces. So I don’t worry about that case. It’s the case where there is zero 12
and per Commissoner Lu’s comments, I think that case is going to be more common within the 13
next say 5 to 10 years, so I don’t have any way to evaluate how common it will be because this 14
has to do with is a project marketable to its potential tenants and I’m no expert on that. But 15
that’s the case that concerns me. 16
17
Chair Chang: Yeah. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Akin: For where we already have a willingness to provide parking, I’m not too 1
worried but where we’re building zero-parked places, that’s where I think we need some 2
assurance that people will have access. Okay. Thank you. 3
4
Chair Chang: Commissioner Templeton. 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: I really like how you put that, Commissioner Akin, because I’m 7
thinking now about testing a scenario and building software, right? You test all the cases you 8
can anticipate but when we built this code, we didn’t anticipate zero parking as an edge case 9
and now we do. And so [inaudible 113:29] you’re saying there is a scenario we haven’t 10
anticipated with our code the way it is and we need to backfill that potential bug. So that’s an 11
interesting perspective and I do think this was never anticipated, so maybe we do have to think 12
about minimum requirements for ADA like how to counteract the scenario we didn’t anticipate. 13
So I wonder are the changes we’re making tonight only for the AB to whatever it is or is it for 14
anything that has no parking, like is there any other – can we fix this bug with just this stuff 15
tonight or do we have to make something more broad? 16
17
Chair Chang: I think we’re just trying to fix what – the bug that’s created by AB 2097. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Templeton: And that’s the only way we can have no parking, as we understand 1
it. Because I think there’s at least another… 2
3
Chair Chang: Well theoretically… 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. 6
7
Chair Chang: …based on what Mr. Yang said, there could be parking – well no, he said it was 8
protected. He said ADA was protected for builder’s remedy, so… 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. Well if it’s just this one, I understand better and I’m really 11
appreciate that you guys – we had a chance to have this discussion in more depth. Thanks. 12
13
Commissioner Lu: And on Commissioner Templeton’s point, I just want to quickly ask or 14
confirm, [all of this 114:59] discussions in the context of AB 2097 Housing projects with 50 or 15
more units? I see some nods but I also see some concerns. 16
17
Chair Chang: I don’t think so because AB 2097 actually says that anything in the circle, any 18
development in the circle isn’t required to be parked. Is that correct, Mr. Yang? 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.
Albert Yang: Oh. That’s right. Yes. But to Commissioner Templeton’s point, at least Section D, so 1
that first discussion topic, the code begins with residential mix-use structures with 50 or more 2
dwelling units. So for a restaurant that doesn’t want to offer any parking, that’s not really 3
explicitly in scope of our discussion on Part D. So we aren’t, by default, making any wider 4
sweeping rules right now, I believe. 5
6
Chair Chang: Ms. French, that wasn’t my understanding. I thought that we were discussing – I 7
mean we specifically pulled D. 8
9
Amy French: Yes. 10
11
Chair Chang: But the issue that was raised was the whole of 1852.040, correct? 12
13
Amy French: Well I believe, looking through the minutes, that Item D is the one that was pulled 14
out of the ordinance, the rest moved forward but there was interest in having more 15
information to have a robust discussion about what are the solves for what – how can we think 16
about our areas that are in the AB 2097, so – yeah. 17
18
Commissioner Lu: That makes sense but I just wanted to point that out, so if we want to we 19
should be explicit about all the uses that we want to extend too. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 are we – do I understand correctly we’re just discussing the D at 2
the top of Packet Page 46 and is the question still whether we include where feasible. 3
4
Chair Chang: That’s a good question, Commissioner Templeton. 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: We could spend all day working on… 7
8
Chair Chang: Not a very constructive discussion that we’ve been having. 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. 11
12
Chair Chang: So as I – if I recall our discussion last time − this implementing AB 2097 came to us, 13
there were broader comments also brought up about – so for example, for ADA , at least when I 14
was thinking about ADA in that discussion, it wasn’t just with respect to housing developments; 15
it was about everything in that circle. But for loading specifically, I think we were specifically 16
concerned with those units. But then kind of in the discussion of ADA and EVSE, because that’s 17
a carve out in the state law, I think we were all interested in having a little bit of a broader 18
discussion. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Templeton: Understandable. So I guess what I’m asking, Chair, is how do you 1
want to wrap this up? 2
3
Chair Chang: Well why don’t we start with the most specific thing, which is with respect to D. I 4
think we had some pretty specific ideas about how to remedy that. So maybe if we could start 5
with – well I’m seeing a few more lights now. So let’s go to those but I was going to suggest that 6
we could start with a motion there and then I think maybe what’s required is a 7
recommendation to Council that we would like to study some other areas more. Okay. So 8
Commissioner Reckdahl, then Hechtman. 9
10
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Okay. With regard to the ADA, there are 2 scenarios that really bother me. 11
One is someone who needs handicap parking and they can’t find a spot and now they have to 12
park 3 blocks away or whatever. That’s very onerous and that’s not very good. The other is a 13
whole bank of handicap parking that no one uses. That’s also – because that’s very expensive 14
and you could use something else instead to avoid that. Second, one possibility would be just to 15
combine the two in the sense that if you made half those spots handicapped only and half of 16
them be 3-minute parking, that 3-minute parking could be used by handicapped also. And that 17
also would allow DoorDash people and people picking [inaudible 119:26] Ubers to use those. 18
And as long as its short enough, if all of the designated handicapped are full, handicapped 19
person can wait for 3 minutes and then they can take that spot. So it would have a minimal 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
effect on the worst case of not being able to find a spot but also make those spots more usable. 1
So I think that has a possibility. 2
3
Chair Chang: Commissioner Hechtman. 4
5
Commissioner 0htman: All right, so it seems like the last time we considered this, we did move 6
Subpart A forward to the Council and Subpart A is what says in the circle, “No automobile 7
parking shall be required.” But really that’s taken up a lot of our conversation tonight because 8
the ramification of that is we sort of default into language and other parts of the code about 9
ADA parking and EV parking that it is of concern to us. So I think we have a couple of options 10
regarding those parking issues. One is essentially take a wait-and-see attitude. Right? We’ve 11
already forward this to Council. I don’t know if Council is holding for us or they’ve already 12
moved forward with it but if they don’t change it, it’s going to roll out in what’s described as the 13
majority practice of cities. Right? Where if you provide no parking, then there’s no ADA parking, 14
there’s no EV parking. But if you do, then we’re going to require it. Right? And so we can let 15
that just roll out in what I call a wait and see and see as we move forward if this becomes an 16
issue. If we get a development or two developments which are not proposing any parking and 17
there are ADA ramifications that are of concern, it seems like every other meeting we’re 18
amending some ordinance or another, and so this could be revisited in the future. The 19
alternative is to inform the Council that this is a concern of the Commission’s and we really 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
think it would be wise to move to this position that a few cities or at least a couple have taken 1
that we want those spots or as the Vice-Chair said at least some part of those spots that are 2
required and communicate that to them. So that’s sort of the alternatives I see for Subpart A, 3
which again, we’ve already moved forward. On Subpart D, if I’m understanding Commissioner 4
Akin, I think what you’re saying is we could just get rid of “where feasible” because without that 5
language, there is still flexibility in our code to handle the situation where, for whatever reason, 6
there literally is no place a loading zone could go. And I’m comfortable with that approach if 7
that was the concept, if I understood it correctly. I’m actually comfortable with that approach 8
because then we’re not going to have a fight – well we may have a fight but we’re not going to 9
have a disagreement over whether it’s feasible or not. You’re going to implicitly have to show 10
there’s no reasonable way to do it. So I’d be okay with sort of solving that problem that way. So 11
basically you’re just getting a requirement to provide a loading spot and if there is some reason 12
you can’t, you’re going to go to the director and get an adjustment or use one of our other 13
modifying mechanisms in the code, so I would support that. 14
15
Chair Chang: And maybe just to knock one thing off of our plates, do we have a motion for that 16
piece? 17
18
Commissioner Hechtman: I’m happy to make a motion if there’s no more discussion. On D, 19
we’re talking about? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Chang: On D. 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. 4
5
Chair Chang: Just trying to – D, which is specifically loading for… 6
7
Commissioner Hechtman: Right. 8
9
Chair Chang: …developments with 50 or – yeah. 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: Right. All right. So I will move that the PTC recommend to the Council 12
adoption of Section 18.52.040 Subpart D with the elimination of the words, “where feasible.” 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: 040. 15
Commissioner Hechtman: Sorry. Did I say – what did I say? 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: It should be 040. You said 440. 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: Oh, sorry. 040. – 18.52.040, Subpart D, the modification provided in 1
our packet with the elimination of the words, “where feasible,” so that the sentence begins 2
with the word “projects.” 3
4
Commissioner Akin: Second. 5
6
Chair Chang: All right. Do we have discussion on the motion or would anybody like to speak to 7
their motion? 8
9
Commissioner Lu: And just to recap, there’s no explicit language needed about director 10
approval. 11
12
Chair Chang: Based on what Commissioner Akin said of his reading of the code, yes, there’s no… 13
14
Commissioner Lu: Okay. 15
16
Chair Chang: There’s nothing. 17
18
Commissioner Lu: I just want to confirm. Yeah. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Chang: Oh, Mr. Yang, did you want to say something? 1
2
Albert Yang: I was just going to say it’s not needed. It might be helpful but staff can think about 3
that and I think it’s in – we understand the spirit of the PTC’s motion. 4
5
Chair Chang: Okay. Great, then. Ms. Dao, would you like to – Ms. Dao, could you please take the 6
vote? 7
8
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 11
12
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Summa? 13
14
Commissioner Summa: Yes. 15
16
Ms. Dao: Vice-Chair Reckdahl? 17
18
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Yes. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Lu? 1
2
Commissioner Lu: Yes. 3
4
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 5
6
Commissoner Hechtman: Yes. 7
8
Ms. Dao: Chair Chang? 9
10
Chair Chang: Yes. 11
12
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Akin? 13
14
Commissioner Akin: Yes. 15
16
Ms. Dao: Motion carries 7-0. 17
18
Chair Chang: Okay. Now I think we need to address the stickier issue of our large concern about 19
ADA spots and secondarily potentially EVSE spots. I think Commissioner Hechtman did a really 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
good job summarizing kind of what we can do here. I don’t – I mean I didn’t – I don’t remember 1
saying that we − I was okay not providing ADA spots but I guess we did approve that last time. 2
So I would love a way to flag that for Council. It seems like a pretty large issue. Commissioner 3
Templeton, did you want to say something? 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: I also don’t remember it that way. I thought we had a lot of 6
discussion about it and put it off but sounds like maybe we were not as careful in our motion or 7
something. 8
9
Chair Chang: Yeah, maybe we didn’t carve out… 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. 12
13
Chair Chang: …adequately. 14
15
Commissioner Akin: Perhaps, Ms. French, if you could bring up the presentation slide that had… 16
17
Amy French: Sure. 18
19
Commissioner Akin: …the two subjects for discussion on it. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Female: Just let her pull it up. 2
3
Chair Chang: Commissioner Summa’s light is on. So maybe you can – do you want to start 4
speaking? 5
6
Commissioner Summa: Not if Commissioner Akin was going to ask a question or make a point 7
about the slide he just asked to bring up. 8
9
Commissioner Akin: Yeah, I see the question I asked last time, which was, “Would the state 10
consider this a constraint?” And I gather that’s not of a concern at the moment. That’s probably 11
a question for Councilor Yang. 12
13
Albert Yang: Oh, I see it is in there under Topic 2 but it just didn’t get its own bullet point. At the 14
end, it’s, “Would this constrain housing development?” So we don’t know what the state would 15
say and I think it would depend on how it plays out. So if we’re getting applications on larger 16
sites that are able to provide this, then that would be all right. If it turns out that developers are 17
saying, “Well if I have to build on top of parking now where I otherwise wouldn’t have any 18
parking on the site, I’m going to either not be able to do this project or I’m going to lose units,” 19
then I imagine that the state would have an issue. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Akin: Okay. It occurs to me that we haven’t touched on another relevant subject, 2
which is unbundled parking. So we may well find that developments choose to unbundle and 3
then parking is no longer physically close but I don’t see any way to handle that tonight. So we 4
did capture that we were interested in talking about this and maybe making a recommendation 5
to Council about it. So per Commissioner Hechtman’s language earlier, our task now seems to 6
be simply to make a recommendation. Is that your understanding as well, Commissioner 7
Hechtman? 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: Oh, yeah. I think if we’re really talking about something that would 10
ultimately modify Subpart A, which we already forwarded, then I think in subject to Mr. Yang’s 11
guidance, we’re making a recommendation to really revisit that recommendation that we made 12
for their consideration to mandate some level of ADA and possibly EV parking. 13
14
Chair Chang: Commissioner Summa. 15
16
Commissioner Summa: I had my light on before. Since ADA and EV spaces was captured in the 17
slide by staff and we know there were some problems capturing our conversation that evening 18
– there’s gaps in that tape. I think – I’m not sure we didn’t always mean to have this carve out 19
for us to discuss in the future first of all. And I don’t know how we’re going to make – I don’t 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
know what exactly we should do other than make – I don’t see how we can make a very specific 1
recommendation to Council on the specific way to solve this based on the fact the staff didn’t 2
feel they could go further without getting Council approval for that course of action because it 3
was going to be too much work. So I think what we have to do is present some options and say 4
that it is – and emphasize that while it may not be required under AB 2097, we feel there is a 5
morally-compelling argument that we should use what is legal in the law to best serve a project 6
with accessible parking. So I think it has to be a general principle and I think various approaches 7
could be conveyed. 8
9
Chair Chang: Agreed. Do we have – I don’t know that I’ve heard consensus for what all those 10
principles might be and do we need more information to be able to – so one idea I heard was 11
we could just simply require the ADA parking that would otherwise be required. Another idea, 12
kind of modification on that, was to require some portion of the ADA parking that would be 13
required. 14
15
Commissioner Summa: Well – and Commissioner Reckdahl had a specific recommendation… 16
17
Chair Chang: Right. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Summa: …that combined what would have been the required ADA parking 1
perhaps under baseline and federal law with limited time parking − not sure 3 minutes would 2
do it but whatever − to accommodate people not possessing placards to use those with the 3
understanding that maybe we don’t need as many assigned ADA spaces. And we just don’t 4
know that. I don’t see how to… 5
6
Chair Chang: So we would – so it sounds like what we would need is to move a 7
recommendation on to Council that we look more closely at the need for ADA parking as well as 8
a way to remedy the situation if there are a lot of developments that provide zero parking, 9
correct? 10
11
Commissioner Summa: Yes, and we sort of dropped EVSE, I guess, from our conversation but I 12
mean I don’t – as I said, I think that could be offered offsite without any problem but then it’s a 13
matter of whether there should be some financial contribution to upgrade parking stalls to 14
accommodate electric charging. 15
16
Chair Chang: Well I would agree with that. Is there more – Commissioner Lu? 17
18
Commissioner Lu: Okay. So just trying to synthesize some of what I’m hearing with the focus on 19
the ADA spaces. I think I personally disagree on the EVSE spaces. We want to communicate to 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Council that we should prioritize ADA access. We should ask Council to work with or to direct 1
staff to create a policy on street sidewalk parking that is both ADA accessible and supports 2
loading spaces in a way that’s responsive to developments, so that we can actually prioritize an 3
ADA space in front of the development if it comes before us. And I think we also want to have 4
some clarity around what the actual – what the other requirements would be. I think I agree 5
with Commissioner Summa this is something that staff would need to take a pass at like for 6
different uses and different numbers of units and different square footage, what the right 7
number of ADA spaces to ask either on the development site or on this sidewalk should be. So 8
those are like – those are maybe the three things that I think we have some consensus on 9
potentially just communicating the overall priority of ADA spaces, making sure that our city 10
policies around sidewalk and curb site ADA and loading spaces would be responsive to the 11
development and taking a pass at more-detailed requirements. 12
13
Chair Chang: Commissioner Reckdahl. 14
15
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: I’ll try a motion and see if we want to amend. PTC recommends that 16
Council direct staff to investigate the need for ADA and EV parking in areas subject to AB 2097 17
and then return subject to PTC for further deliberation, maybe for a recommendation. 18
19
Chair Chang: Do we have a second? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Templeton: I will second it for the purposes of discussion. 2
3
Chair Chang: Okay, great. Commissioner Hechtman, I see a light but I don’t know if that was 4
from before the motion. 5
6
Commissioner Hechtman: Well it was from just before because I had a motion kind of along the 7
similar lines but it picked up a couple more concepts; one of yours and one that Commissioner 8
Lu just mentioned. So let me just read it. Right? And then… 9
10
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: I’m happy to [inaudible137:46] my out if you like yours better. 11
12
Commissioner Hechtman: Right. It’s just a little more detail. So my motion would be that the 13
PTC recommend to the City Council that it consider some modification of Section 18.52.040A to 14
mandate at least a minimal number of ADA parking spaces for projects within a ½ mile of public 15
transit consistent with the language of government code Section 65863.2 and the position 16
taken by some cities responding to AB 2097 of the first point. And then the second point was to 17
direct staff to develop – and I don’t know if this should be develop or refine a policy − to 18
provide ADA parking spaces on streets and other public property in these areas, a ½ mile within 19
transit areas. So that was the concept of the motion I was thinking of making. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: How to best handle this? So Commissioner Reckdahl, does that like – we don’t 2
have substitute motions but… 3
4
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Right. 5
6
Chair Chang: …you could… 7
8
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Yeah. 9
10
Chair Chang: …withdraw but I just wanted to… 11
12
Commissioner Hechtman: Or just amend your motion to say that. 13
14
Chair Chang: Amend your motion to say that. 15
16
Commissioner Hechtman: Or some part of it. 17
18
Chair Chang: Right. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Right. 1
2
Chair Chang: But I think that there was a piece of your motion that was missing potentially, 3
which was about EVSE spaces. 4
5
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Yeah. 6
7
Chair Chang: Okay. 8
9
Male: So was your omission of EVSE spaces intentional? 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: It was because the sense I’m getting from the Commission is that our 12
big concern right now is accessibility and maybe EV will take care of itself down the road. The 13
need is not as pressing and the solutions are possibly different because there could be 14
economies of scale to cluster them in certain places where, of course, that’s not going to be 15
true for accessible parking. So… 16
17
Male: [Inaudible 140:09]. 18
19
Commissioner Hechtman: …I did intend to leave it out. But I’m open to… 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Chang: Well maybe what we could do is address the two types of spaces separately. 2
Right? So we could do a separate motion. 3
4
Commissioner Hechtman: Sure. 5
6
Chair Chang: On a separate recommendation regarding EVSE. 7
8
Commissioner Hechtman: Sure. 9
10
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: I’m skeptical about requiring EVSE but I haven’t closed the door and that’s 11
why I wanted them to investigate and see if they have other reasons to encourage us. Right 12
now, I don’t see that the Commission wanting to mandate EVSE parking but maybe we haven’t 13
thought about it enough or maybe staff hasn’t thought about it enough. So that’s why I 14
included it in the motion. So… 15
16
Commissioner Hechtman: It could be a third prong just softer than – in that first prong, we’re 17
really promoting this idea of you should find a minimum number of ADA spaces. The third 18
prong could be softer. Right? Investigate the desirability of mandating some level of EV 19
parking. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: In the form of in-lieu parking or otherwise too, right? So that… 2
3
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: It’s a [inaudible 141:15] of do people want to investigate EVSE or not? 4
5
Commissioner Summa: As a seconder of the motion, I will say that I think it should still be 6
investigated but I feel much more strongly about ADA issues. 7
8
Chair Chang: We got a question from Commissioner Templeton. 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah, I just wanted to answer Vice-Chair’s question as well. Forgive 11
me, I’m not clear. Are these EVSE parking spaces we’re talking about on the street, on the curb? 12
Or they could be underneath? 13
14
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Private. On private property. 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: So do we not have laws about that already or are we worried that 17
they’d be vacated by this bill? 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 Chang: It’s the same issue of we have laws if you decide to provide parking in these 1
circles. If you decide – right now, if we implement as written, if you decide not to provide 2
parking, you won’t be providing any EVSE parking. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: I see. So I’m in alignment with Commissioner Summa on this. I think 5
if a building decides to go no parking, I don’t care if they don’t have EV parking spaces. I really 6
wish they wouldn’t do that because everybody who has an EV might want to charge theirs. I 7
have seen in other jurisdictions, a lot of EV street parking, which would be kind of interesting 8
and might make this conversation less tense because we do want to see people park – use their 9
EV’s and have somewhere to charge them, but I don’t think that discussion is on the table 10
tonight, so thank you. 11
12
Chair Chang: So to the maker and the seconder – so maker. 13
14
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: I see Commissioner Hechtman writing furiously here. 15
16
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes, if the Commission is interested in adding a third 17
recommendation regarding EV, somewhat softer, I’ve written that down so I could recite it. 18
19
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Yeah. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Hechtman: For everybody’s consideration. 2
3
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Recite away, please. 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. So as a… 6
7
Female: We already have a motion on the table, right? 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: Right. 10
11
Chair Chang: No. So – but he’s considering an amendment. 12
13
Commissioner Hechtman: Right. 14
15
Chair Chang: Yeah. 16
17
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay, so the third prong of the amended motion, if you will, would 18
be that the Council investigate the desirability of requiring at least a minimum number of EV 19
parking spaces for projects within a ½ of public transit and then we could include that same 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
language I had on the first prong consistent with the language of the government code, which 1
authorizes that and the position taken by some cities regarding AB 2097. So it would be really 2
very much the same as the ADA spaces but rather than mandate at least a minimum is 3
investigate the desirability. 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: Did you want to add anything about in-lieu fees? 6
7
Chair Chang: I think that − the only idea about in-lieu fees is I think all of us are saying that even 8
if we find that there is a need for EVSE parking, that we all feel pretty strongly that it doesn’t 9
need to be right on site in the same way that ADA does and that there could be other more 10
flexible solutions that would allow us to solve the problem without creating difficulties for the 11
property owners and developers. 12
13
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Which I think is consistent with investigate. 14
15
Chair Chang: Yes. 16
17
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: So, okay. I’m willing to – we’ll have to talk with seconder. As the maker, I 18
am willing to take that as an amendment. It’s not a replacement motion but it’s an amendment 19
that is the same as your suggestions. Is the seconder open to 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
Commissioner Summa: I think so. I think it captures our concerns and it doesn’t try to solve a 2
problem I don’t think we’re equipped to solve this evening. 3
4
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Okay. 5
6
Chair Chang: Okay, great. 7
8
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Just – did Veronica catch that all or do you want Bart to read through that 9
again? 10
11
Chair Chang: Commissioner Lu’s got a comment. 12
13
Commissioner Lu: A quick comment. I’m open to the language on investigating EVSE, though I 14
agree that’s generally much lower priority than ADA and we − I feel like I probably have enough 15
information not to support EVSE but I’m still open to investigating it. A clarifying question on 16
the motion. On the discussion of what other cities are doing, can you repeat the language 17
around that a little bit? I just want to make sure the intention or the reference is clear. 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: Sure. So the language was consistent with the language of 1
government code section such and such and the position taken by some cities regarding AB 2
2097. 3
4
Commissioner Lu: Okay, so we’re investigating the position that other cities have taken but we 5
aren’t even saying that whether that was Option 1 or Option 2 in Mr. Yang’s previous mention. 6
7
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah, we’re not describing whether it was the cities in the majority, 8
which… 9
10
Commissioner Lu: Yeah. 11
12
Commissioner Hechtman: …of course, here it wasn’t. 13
14
Commissioner Lu: Yes. 15
16
Commissioner Hechtman: But I didn’t think we need to describe it as the minority position. 17
18
Commissioner Lu: Yeah. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. 1
2
Commissioner Lu: Cool. Thank you. 3
4
Chair Chang: Okay. So any further discussion on – so we’re moving – the motion that is on the 5
table now is the heavily-amended motion. Is there any further discussion on that before we 6
take a vote? 7
8
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: I just want to make sure that staff has the motion. 9
10
Commissioner Hechtman: Do you want me to go through it again or… 11
12
Female: Well… 13
14
Commissioner Hechtman: Are you comfortable in our transcription services capturing it? 15
16
Amy French: No, not because they’re a problem but sometimes the sound − something 17
happens. 18
19
Commissioner Hechtman: 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
Amy French: I don’t know. 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: Right. 4
5
Amy French: So what I have is a motion by Vice-Chair Reckdahl that the Planning and 6
Transportation Commission recommend that Council direct staff to investigate the need for – 7
and I have ADA spaces and return to the PTC for recommendation and the EVSE part is pulled 8
out into investigate the desirability of EVSE if there’s a need for more flexible – oh, no, that was 9
just a [inaudible 147:48]. And then with all that stuff about the government code and… 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: Let me reread it. 12
13
Amy French: Yeah, okay. 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: Because I don’t think that captured it… 16
17
Amy French: Okay. 18
19
Commissioner Hechtman: …fully. So, all right. So the Vice-Chair’s motion is… 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Do you need to drink a glass of water while you do this? 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: …that the PTC recommend to the City Council that it consider some 4
modification of Section 18.52.040 Subpart A to mandate at least a minimal number of ADA 5
parking spaces for projects within ½ mile of public transit consistent with the language of 6
government code Section 65863.2 and the position taken by some cities responding to AB 7
2097. Second, a recommendation that the Council direct staff to develop a policy to provide 8
ADA parking spaces on streets and other public properties in these areas within a ½ mile of 9
public transit. And third, the PTC recommends that the Council investigate the desirability of 10
requiring at least a minimal number of EVSE parking spaces for projects within ½ mile of public 11
transit consistent with the language of government code Section 65863.2 and the position 12
taken by some cities regarding or responding to AB 2097. Okay. Hopefully, we capture that… 13
14
Amy French: Yeah. 15
16
Commissioner Hechtman: …on tape. 17
18
Amy French: I had written all that but I wasn’t sure if that’s – if all of that was accepted… 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Male: [Inaudible 149:42]. 1
2
Amy French: …by the – okay. Thanks. 3
4
Chair Chang: Okay. No further discussion? All right. Ms. Dao, could you please take the vote? 5
6
Ms. Dao: Chair Chang? 7
8
Chair Chang: Yes. 9
10
Ms. Dao: Vice-Chair Reckdahl? 11
12
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Yes. 13
14
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Akin? 15
16
Commissioner Akin: Yes. 17
18
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 1
2
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Lu? 3
4
Commissioner Lu: Yes. 5
6
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Summa? 7
8
Commissioner Summa: Yes. 9
10
Ms. Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 13
14
Ms. Dao: Motion carries 7-0. 15
16
Chair Chang: Okay, great. So I think that means that we are done with this agenda item. This 17
moves us on to Commissioner Questions, Comments, Announcements or future meetings and 18
agendas. This is where if you – if anybody did have questions about [the RRP 150:28], we could 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.
raise them now. And staff won’t be answering the questions but can eventually get us answers. 1
Commissioner – is this a ghost light or… 2
3
Male: [Inaudible 150:46]. 4
5
Chair Chang: Commissioner Lu. 6
7
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Questions, Comments or Announcements 1
Commissioner Lu: Yes, I’d like to flag a question about related tenant protection programs from 2
our Housing Element. So in Program 6.6 of the Housing Element, we list out a number of tenant 3
protections with a completion date of June 2024; some of those I know are complete but others 4
I’m unsure of. Some of those reference communication and like identifying funding and things 5
like that that happened on the backend and some of that also refers to an ordinance requiring 6
90 days’ notice for a 6 percent rental increase instead of a 10 percent rental increase. So I just 7
would like follow-up and confirmation of the status of the renter-focused Housing Element 8
programs since I really see them as a package that all kind of goes together with our RPP, 9
spiritually. Yeah. 10
11
Chair Chang: Okay. We have Commissioner Summa and then Commissioner Templeton. 12
13
Commissioner Summa: If – I would appreciate if staff could find the methodology that was used 14
to create the circles and they could just share that with us. Thank you. 15
16
Chair Chang: Commissioner Templeton. 17
18
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Templeton: I just want to reiterate my August away dates are the 19th through 1
the 23rd now, so I will be here for the 14th and – yeah. If anybody wants to talk to me [inaudible 2
152:35], I’ll be in Chicago. Thank you. 3
4
Chair Chang: Commissioner Hechtman. 5
6
Commissioner Hechtman: So in our director’s report at the beginning of the meeting, we didn’t 7
get a report from transportation but there was a reference to transportation will be here at the 8
end of the meeting, so if there’s a transportation, ask then. And so is Mr. Baird still here? 9
10
Amy French: It looks that he dropped off. 11
12
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 13
14
Amy French: But I can convey that question. 15
16
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. Well it’s the same comment I had last time except I wanted to 17
confirm that the transmission worked. We now have the May traffic data, which shows injuries 18
and I want to encourage transportation staff to contact the police department, who I 19
understand issues that report, to find out if they can break out fatalities, this combined 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
category of fatalities and serious injuries. Significant injuries. I can’t remember the term. 1
Because that’s what we are supposed to be reducing to zero in the next number of years. And 2
so it would be great if that information can be included. And so hopefully at our next meeting, 3
which isn’t for a month now, we’ll hear from transportation that they’ve talked to the police 4
department and they’re working on doing it or it can’t be done and here’s why. All right? So 5
that was the transportation comment. And the other comment I want to make is – and this is 6
not staff’s doing but I’m noticing that our transcribers are falling seriously behind in producing 7
minutes and it’s a problem because they’re going to stack up for us, which creates more work 8
for us, but I think the bigger problem is our recommendations go to Council faster than the 9
minutes are being produced. And so they’re going to Council without even our summary 10
minutes to look at and so there’s no way for Council to get the gist of our discussions unless 11
they’re going to watch the whole video, which is not realistic to expect them to do that. So I’m 12
sure this is a concern of staff’s too and I don’t need to get into the details now but whatever 13
you can do to light a fire under our transcribers or hire new ones or replace the service if 14
they’re inadequate, let’s see if we can catch up. We got a break here, right? Council will take a 15
break and so let’s see if we can catch up on those. Thanks. 16
17
Chair Chang: Yeah, it makes it difficult even for this meeting because we didn’t know what we 18
ourselves said. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Female: Exactly. 1
2
Chair Chang: So there was – I have a request for a future agenda item, which is − I know that we 3
are not discussing tonight the Residential Registry Program but – and I know that there is not 4
the opportunity to see it again before the Council Ad Hoc sees it but because this program is 5
going to go live in October, I’m really hoping that it can come before the entire PTC again 6
because the last 2 times that the PTC voted on the Residential Rental Registry Program, which is 7
once when we were looking at a whole host of renter protection. And then second, most 8
recently, when we forwarded the recommendation to have one to Council that we all wanted 9
to see the questions because it was so difficult for us and we agonized over enacting many 10
renter protections because we didn’t have any data. And so we wanted to make sure as this 11
body that had spent many – a long time deliberating over all the various renter protections that 12
we were also gathering the right information. And so I’m hoping that the questions can be 13
brought before the PTC so that we can give cohesive feedback to the consultants that are 14
preparing that. There’s also a whole host of questions that I have like how are we enforcing it? 15
How much are the program fees that we’re charging? How much time is required for the initial 16
registration and for an update as well as will there be on-line training for people? There’s going 17
to be in-person training it says in our packet but will there be on-line training? So that’s just my 18
request. Commissioner Templeton. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Templeton: Thanks. Well if we’re giving requests, I have a request. I was at the 1
wonderful Fourth of July barbecue – I mean a chili cookoff this weekend and talked to some 2
constituents there and one of them – it’s too bad Nathan is gone because one of them was 3
talking about the parking permit program in downtown and that it was – they’ve identified 4
some areas for improvement and want to have a chance to give feedback and don’t know 5
exactly how to do that. And I wonder if we do any kind of periodic check-ins on those permit 6
programs even if it’s a study session or even how we’re getting feedback from constituents. So I 7
would love to hear more about that next time maybe. Thanks. 8
9
Chair Chang: I think that we are adjourned. Thank you. 10
11
Adjournment 12
8:27 PM 13
14
15
/ls 16