HomeMy WebLinkAbout2024-09-25 Planning & Transportation Commission Verbatim MinutesPlanning & Transportation Commission 1
Verbatim Minutes: September 25, 2024 2
Council Chambers & Virtual 3
6:00 PM 4
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Call to Order / Roll Call 6
6:05 PM 7
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ROLL CALL 9
Chair Chang: Hi everyone. I’d like to call to order this regular meeting of the Planning and 10
Transportation Commission for Wednesday, September 25. Do I need to say that again? 11
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Female: [Inaudible 0:14]. 13
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Chair Chang: Okay. So Ms. Dao, could you please take the roll? 15
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Administrative Assistant Veronica Dao: Chair Chang? 17
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Chair Chang: Here. 19
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Veronica Dao: Vice-Chair Reckdahl? 21
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Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Here. 23
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Veronica Dao: Commissioner Akin? 1
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Commissioner Akin: Here. 3
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Veronica Dao: Commissioner Lu? 5
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Commissioner Lu: Here. Present remotely by myself. 7
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Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 9
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Commissioner Hechtman: Here. 11
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Veronica Dao: Commissioner Summa? 13
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Commissioner Summa: Here. 15
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Veronica Dao: We have a quorum. 17
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Oral Communications 19
The public may speak to any item not on the agenda. Three (3) minutes per speaker. 20
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Chair Chang: Great. So our first order of business today is public comment. Ms. Dao, do you we 22
have any speaker cards? 23
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Veronica Dao: Yes. I have one raised hand on Zoom and one speaker card for in person. I 2
believe first is on Zoom, Riley Adler. 3
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Chair Chang: Great. 5
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Riley Adler: Hello. 7
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Chair Chang: Go ahead, Ms. Adler. 9
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Riley Adler: Hi. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you all today. My name is Riley Adler 11
and I’m a senior at Saratoga High School. And last year I had the opportunity to collaborate with 12
three of my peers − Dylan, who’s also here and going to speak today – to create a documentary 13
called The Dark Future for part of our school’s Media Arts program. And we’re inspired to make 14
this documentary to highlight the prevalent, yet unvoiced, issue of light pollution in our 15
community. And as you’ll see in just a minute, light pollution, the artificial lighting that disrupts 16
the natural darkness of nature has a wide range of detrimental effects. For example, our 17
circadian rhythms use light to guide human processes. So excessive light at night can increase 18
internal health problems like anxiety, fatigue. And if we let our environment become darker, 19
these rhythms return to normal cycles leading to a decrease in mental health issues, especially 20
in teenagers. And a darker environment at night also allows the return of like normal 21
navigation, predation, sleep cycles, and so much more for animal species around here. So we 22
hope to share with you this documentary to inspire more bird-friendly designs and hopefully 1
some dark sky ordinances. And this way we can reduce light pollution in our communities and 2
lead to better health for both us and the wildlife around us. So – yeah. Thank you for the 3
opportunity to speak to you guys today. 4
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Chair Chang: Thank you. 6
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Veronica Dao: Next is also on Zoom, Dylan Wilson, speaking for a group on behalf of Linda R., 8
Lyn H., Margaret H., and Dashiel L. 9
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Dylan Wilson: Hello. Hi. I’m Dylan. I’m also with Riley at Saratoga High School and I would like to 11
show you guys the video that Riley, and I, and the rest of our group created. In North America, 12
nights are becoming 10 percent lighter each year, hundreds of times brighter than they were a 13
hundred years ago, having grim implications for the health of both humans and wildlife. To 14
unpack the consequences of a bright night sky, we interviewed Jane Mio, a freelance 15
environmentalist, on light pollution. 16
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Jane Mio: Light pollution is a robbery of the dark sky. It has eliminated a beauty that has been 18
always for all of us accessible. And it now has become a story of the past. 19
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Dylan Wilson: Light pollution: The excessive artificial lighting produced by humans that disrupts 21
the natural darkness of nature was initiated by the invention of the light bulb around the 22
second industrial revolution. The cost of artificial lighting rapidly declined and lights became 1
increasingly common place. Despite the widely accepted assumption that lights guaranteed 2
protection amongst cities, this misunderstood environmental matter amplifies the degradation 3
of human health and presents significant dangers to natural ecosystems and organisms. In 4
order to understand this complicated topic’s impact on human health, we reached out to 5
Steven Lockley, an associate professor at Harvard in the Division of Sleep Medicine. 6
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Associate Professor Steven Lockley: We have a clock in the brain, which generates 24-hour 8
rhythms and this clock sends signals out to the brain and the body to control sleep, your 9
hormones, your metabolism, your genetics. Controls all the things that you know have a 24-10
hour pattern. So light pollution would be light at night that is confusing the clock because light 11
is occurring at the wrong time and that shifts rhythms and gets you out of sync with the real 12
world. One of the first short-term effects of light at night is an impact on sleep and that has 13
consequences on learning, attention, and mood. Over time, people who don’t sleep enough 14
have a high risk of heart disease, of diabetes, and importantly, depression and anxiety. The 15
impact of light at night and device use on sleep is one of the reasons we think that there’s an 16
increase in mental health issues among teenagers. 17
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Dylan Wilson: Light pollution harms a wide variety of wildlife by disrupting navigation, 19
predation, sleep cycles, forging instincts, reproduction, and other habits that species rely on for 20
their survival. To expand on this, we interviewed Andy Kreyche, the Vice President of Dark Sky 21
International, Santa Cruz Chapter, a worldwide organization leading the fight for darker skies. 22
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Andy Kreyche: Birds migrate at night. They use the stars, the movement of the stars over the 2
course of the night to find their way. They’ll use the moonlight. Some of them might even be 3
tuned in to the earth’s magnetic field. A lot of the stuff we don’t even understand, right? Nine 4
eleven was this great tragedy where a lot of people lost their lives and so we want to pay 5
tribute to these people who lost their lives unnecessarily. So what do we do? We shine these 6
bright, bright lights that mimic the footprints of the Twin Towers in New York City. That’s right 7
around the peak of the fall migration season where birds are trying to fly south. This disrupts 8
their ability because this will exhaust these birds and they won’t make it to where they go. So 9
it’s the ultimate irony to me. We’re trying to pay tribute to people who lost their lives by killing 10
another species, literally. Literally killing another species. 11
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Dylan Wilson: So far, only 19 U.S. states have put in real legislation regarding light pollution. But 13
individuals have the power to regulate their own impact. 14
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Steven Lockley: First of all, think about your own light environment. What lights do you have in 16
the bedroom? How often are you using your phone in the bedroom? How dim is the light? How 17
red-orange looking is the light? What exterior lighting do you have on your house? Is that light 18
pointing to the sky and polluting the sky, so we can’t see the stars or is it shining onto plants 19
that then are going to grow at the wrong time of year. And so you can think about do I really 20
need this light on? Does it really need to be that bright? And am I pointing the light in the right 21
direction, if I’m thinking about external lighting. 22
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Dylan Wilson: If enough people support and actively participate in the fight against light 2
pollution, we can work to secure a darker planet and a brighter future. 3
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Chair Chang: Thank you. Could we have the next? I think that speaker is finished, I believe. 5
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Veronica Dao: Yes. 7
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Chair Chang: Okay. 9
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Veronica Dao: Next is Diane McCoy, also speaking for a group, Connie C., Laura M., Alan K., and 11
Audrey K. 12
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Chair Chang: Go ahead, Ms. McCoy. 14
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Diane McCoy: Yes. Thank you. Good evening. I’d like to play a video, please. 16
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Female: The FAME framework helps us assess where our finance teams are today, identify 18
areas for improvement, and charts a path to more effective and intelligent operations. 19
Workday has the expertise, solutions, and technology to get us there. 20
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Female: Time for a story that’s truly for the birds, from David Pogue. 22
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David Pogue: In February 2023, a Eurasian Eagle Owl, named Flaco, escaped from the Central 2
Park Zoo. For a year, he lived among the skyscrapers and became something of a Manhattan 3
mascot. 4
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Jason Sandler: You would see him kind of going from window to window looking in at people’s 6
apartments. 7
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David Pogue: But then earlier this year… 9
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Female: Well a sad day for New Yorkers and bird lovers across the country. 11
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David Pogue: He crashed into a building and died. As owls go, Flaco was one in a million. But as 13
collisions go… 14
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Andrew Farnsworth: We’re talking about hundreds of millions, up to a billion birds every year 16
annually and that’s just in the U.S., so this is a huge, huge problem. Red-tailed hawk. 17
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Male: Wait. Really? 19
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Andrew Farnsworth: Yeah. 21
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Male: Where’s the hawk? 1
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Andrew Farnsworth: Red tail’s coming in this last building. 3
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Male: Yeah. 5
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David Pogue: Cornell Ornithologist, Andrew Farnsworth, has done the math. 7
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Andrew Farnsworth: That’s like 30 birds a second. Thirty percent of the population over 50 9
years. 10
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David Pogue: Is there a downstream ripple effect from that? 12
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Andrew Farnsworth: Yeah. They have ecosystem functions and services that they provide, 14
including pest control, pollination, dispersal of seeds. As you lose birds, they’re definitely our 15
ecosystem structure ramifications. 16
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Male: How are these birds so clueless as to fly into glass? 18
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Andrew Farnsworth: Birds do not perceive it as solid. They’re thinking, oh, there’s something 20
that’s either I can fly through or a reflection of vegetation or something that they’re seeing in it 21
that they’re perceiving as not solid. So they fly into it often at full speed, maybe 15, 20, 35 miles 1
an hour. 2
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David Pogue: Every year, billions of birds migrate. They navigate by the stars. 4
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Andrew Farnsworth: So light pollution – because birds are mostly migrating at night, light is an 6
incredibly powerful stimulus. It attracts birds. It disorients them. 7
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David Pogue: And we’re not just talking about skyscrapers. Last fall, at McCormick Place, a low-9
slung convention center in Chicago, over a thousand birds died in a single night. 10
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Andrew Farnsworth: I think it’s devastating because there’s really not necessarily any reason for 12
it at this point. We know what to do. 13
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David Pogue: We do know what to do. We can start by turning off non-essential lights during 15
migration periods, which also saves energy and money. 16
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Andrew Farnsworth: We see that birds start to return to normal patterns of behavior as soon as 18
the lights turn off, literally within seconds. 19
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David Pogue: In Texas, a public awareness campaign has produced a dramatic effect. Look at 1
these before and after shots of Dallas, Houston, and Fort Worth. Turning off the lights can cut 2
down bird strikes by 60 percent. As for the rest, it’s all about making the invisible visible. 3
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Andrew Farnsworth: Putting special kinds of decals on the outsides of your windows, spaced 1 5
or 2 inches apart, just as an example. 6
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Male: Isn’t that interrupting our enjoyment of the big vista? 8
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Andrew Farnsworth: Eventually, as you get used to those things, they disappear into the 10
background. 11
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David Pogue: But in newer buildings like this apartment building going up in Queens, you don’t 13
need to sacrifice any view at all. 14
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Daniel Piselli: This is bird-safe glass right here and I don’t see a thing. 16
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Male: No? But on the outside, it’s… 18
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Daniel Piselli: On the outside… 20
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Male: …different? Oh. I see patterns. 22
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Daniel Piselli: That’s right. UV patterns here and you can see it when you walk pretty close but 2
when you step back, you don’t see it at all. It looks great. 3
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Male: That’s ingenious. 5
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David Pogue: The building was designed by FXCollaborative Architects, for whom Dan Piselli is 7
the sustainability director. In 2014, his firm also fixed the biggest bird killer in New York City, 8
the Javits Convention Center. Six blocks of pure glass. 9
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Dan Piselli: We used material called frit on the glass, which is just a bunch of dots that are kind 11
of baked on and the collisions there were reduced by more than 90 percent. 12
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David Pogue: In 2019, New York City passed an ordinance requiring all new buildings to be built 14
with bird-friendly glass. San Francisco, Toronto, and Washington D.C. have all passed similar 15
legislation. And McCormick Place in Chicago, they’ve now installed those safety-dot stickers. 16
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Male: Is it conceivably possible that 50 years from now, Flaco free in New York City might still 18
be flying around? 19
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Andrew Farnsworth: I like to think so. I think that we’re on the right track in terms of the laws 21
and that people are starting to understand. I hope so. 22
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Chair Chang: Thank you. 2
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Veronica Dao: And then last speaker in person is from Shani Kleinhaus. 4
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Shani Kleinhaus: Thank you. I hope you enjoyed those little films. It’s hard to understand these 6
issues but when you can see some of them, that helps. So [Julie Ann 15:45] prepared the little 7
presentation and she’s in China and she wasn’t able to connect, so I’m going to try and make 8
her presentation. So bear with me a little bit here. So thank you. First slide. Palo Alto is blessed 9
with a large diversity of birds in all our city both in the urban areas and in the Baylands and the 10
hills. And I’m not sure – I guess you can see that. Yeah. So next slide. I don’t have what it says. 11
So we thought we’ll show you one of those birds. This bird is a White Crowned Sparrow. It 12
comes here in winter and spends the winters in Palo Alto. It breeds in Alaska and it comes in 13
and – if you can play the song − at the bottom, there’s a little video. Yeah. That little video 14
where it’s [inaudible 16:37]. So this is its song and when you hear that, you know winter is 15
coming. I don’t know if it’s playing the music. No? Oh well. We’ll go to the next one. Next slide. 16
So the White Crowned Sparrow is quite a common bird and it’s very easy to see them in winter. 17
They’re in the Baylands. They are in our area, in the flatlands, the hills. Have somewhat 18
different species with similar kind of habits. It’s called the Yellow Crowned. They are Golden 19
Crowned Sparrow. Because they are on the ground, they’re very susceptible to cats and they 20
also collide with windows. We’ll go to the next one. I can’t read what it says. So there’s other 21
information that Julie Ann prepared that you can see. This video – I hope you can see it because 22
it shows the migration of the species. No, not yet. Go back, please, and see if you can play that 1
video. It’s a video. The purple is where the birds are in winter and this video should show how 2
the birds migrate north and come back. And it’s pretty striking. This is a very common species in 3
a lot of areas in the United States. Can you see if you can make it move? We’ve done it before, 4
so it should work. No? Oh. Can you – I guess we needed the other version. So the next one was 5
really important to see. And maybe I’ll come back and show this in video because what this one 6
shows – this is the United States and this is an app or you can use it on your phones and on 7
your computers. It’s called BirdCast. And when you see it, it shows how with the – when the 8
sun goes down, the birds start migrating and as they – and they migrate all night and it gives 9
you an idea of how many throughout the United States. It’s really pretty striking. I guess – I 10
don’t know if there’s anymore slides there. This just shows the threats to the White Crowned 11
Sparrow. Because of climate change, it’s range is expected to shrink substantially and move 12
north. Cats, like I said before – and I’m not sure what else it has there. And I wish I could show 13
you the videos because they’re pretty good. So maybe later, you can get the – not the PDF. The 14
other version and all these videos would work for you. Thank you. 15
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Chair Chang: Thank you, Ms. Kleinhaus. You can also send things too. You can email them to the 17
Commission. Yeah. Do we have any other speakers, Ms. Dao? 18
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Veronica Dao: No, that’s all our speakers. 20
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Chair Chang: Okay. So our next agenda item is City Official Reports. Ms. Armer. 22
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City Official Reports 2
1. Directors Report, Meeting Schedule and Assignments 3
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Good evening. We’ve got just a couple slides here on the 4
upcoming meetings for the Planning and Transportation Commission. We’ve got the stream 5
corridor ordinance review planned for October 9 and we do have scheduled an opportunity to 6
look at draft ordinances for dark sky/lighting and bird-friendly design for October 30. So that is 7
an upcoming discussion. In addition, in November and December, we have a number of 8
different items coming forward. We expect to bring to you the Annual Comprehensive Plan 9
reporting, the Housing Element implementation programs status, and parking programs update 10
and discussion. As you’ll see, there have been some things shifting around since our report at 11
the last meeting. And so then on the next slide, we’ve got just a couple of upcoming items going 12
to Council. The workplan for Planning and Transportation Commission, as well as for ARB and 13
HRB will be going to City Council on October 21. We are asking the chairs for each of those 14
committees to attend, talk to the workplan, and we’ll be reaching out with more details about 15
the PowerPoint for that presentation. And that, I believe, is the end of our items for this report. 16
Please note that we did put together a list of agend-, meeting dates for 2025 and that was 17
included in your packet. Do please let us know as soon as you have information about any 18
expected absences, so that we can make sure to plan for those or work – if you’re joining us 19
remote, we need to know that as soon as you have that information. Thank you. 20
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Chair Chang: Thank you. Any questions from Commissioners? Oh. Commissioner Hechtman. 1
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Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. So October 30, the dark sky ordinance draft is scheduled 3
to come back before us. And I just wanted to remind staff that one of the things we’re hoping 4
will be a part of the staff presentation is some member of the Police Department to talk to us 5
about their lighting concerns because those were expressed sort of secondhand in prior staff 6
reports and we’d like to hear directly from them. 7
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Jennifer Armer: Thank you. We do – have made note of that request and we have reached out 9
to them to get additional information. 10
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Director Jonathan Lait: I actually have maybe a little bit more. We’ve already met with them 12
and I don’t believe their presence will be necessary when we meet. 13
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Commissioner Hechtman: Oh. Okay. That’s fine. Yeah. As long as we get some – as long as 15
you’ve done the work… 16
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Jonathan Lait: Yeah. 18
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Commissioner Hechtman: …and can report to us on whether they continue to have concerns or 2
maybe they’ve changed their minds on some of these lumen issues. I just want to see if they’re 3
on board. Also, are we getting a report from anybody from Transportation tonight? 4
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Chair Chang: So I think Mr. Rius is on line, right? 6
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Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 8
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Jonathan Lait: Yes. 10
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Jennifer Armer: Yes. 12
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Senior Engineer Rafael Rius: My turn? [Inaudible 22:58] This is Rafael Rius, Senior Engineer with 14
the Office of Transportation. Thank you, Chair and Commissioners. Couple of updates from our 15
department. First one’s for the El Camino bike lane and repaving project. You’re probably 16
experiencing it but it’s right in the middle of paving. It’s actually − expect to finish the paving 17
portion by next week. They are – they will also – Caltrans will also be paving parts of Los Altos 18
and Mountain View, so striping is not going – it’s going to be temporary striping until – they’re 1
expecting November when they’ll come back and restripe all three cities. And formal 2
completion of the project right now is targeted for spring of 2025. That’s because they have to 3
do some electrical stuff for the traffic signals for the detectors and such. I know during the last 4
meeting, we talked about fall of 2025 as an end date and that’s the contract completion date 5
for the contractors. Got clarification on that. So they’re hoping not to have to go all the way to 6
fall and targeting spring for completion. Next project. Our department recently kicked off the 7
Southern Palo Alto bike/ped railroad crossing alternatives analysis. It’s really early in stages. It 8
got kicked off. It’s going to start – the project’s going to start with background and data 9
collection as well as development of an outreach plan. We don’t have dates yet but our staff 10
anticipates bringing this project – or this item to this Planning Commission – Planning and 11
Transportation Commission probably in early 2025. And kind of in parallel, this project efforts 12
will be coordinated with the Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan update. And then my 13
last update I have is just that Bike Palo Alto is Sunday, October 6. [Inaudible 25:02] be at 14
Fairmeadow Elementary School at 1:00 – 1 to 3 PM And that’s all I have. Any questions? 15
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Chair Chang: Go ahead, Mr. – Commissioner Hechtman. 17
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Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. Mr. Rius, can you update us on your department’s 19
discussions with the Police Department on including KSIs in our monthly traffic incident report? 20
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Rafael Rius: Yes. So I did, myself, request that of P.D. There was – there is pushback right now. 2
The data that we share with you is the same data that we share with the Bicycle and Pedestrian 3
Advisory Committee. They will – first response back have been declined by our PD. So I’ve also 4
shared the request with the project manager for the Safe Streets for All project that are leading 5
the effort and understand the need for it, so I’m going to – kind of recruiting their help in 6
changing our PD’s mind to get this. I do want to note though that the Safe Streets for All report, 7
it does use historic data and I believe that data − that includes KSI that’s being used as part of 8
that analysis. If it hasn’t already, will be made available to the Commission. So… 9
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Chair Chang: So Mr. Rius, like I understand that the police aren’t wanting to give us this 11
information. And I understand that our Safe Streets for All project uses historical data but it’s 12
really disconcerting to me given the goal is to reduce the KSIs to zero that we are not seemingly 13
able to track it. So what can we do to help you get this information because we want the 14
information. 15
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Rafael Rius: Understood and I’m in agreement with you completely. Let me talk to Sylvia who’s 17
our Transportation Planning Manager and see what kind of efforts we can combine to change 18
their minds. 19
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Chair Chang: Would it help… 1
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Rafael Rius: [Inaudible 27:15]. 3
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Chair Chang: …if the Commission wrote a letter to PAPD? 5
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Rafael Rius: I mean it would – it wouldn’t hurt but let me – yeah. We’ll – I’m not sure how to 7
answer that. But I will – I think it would – any kind of support would be use-, helpful and I’ll 8
mention this also to our planners. 9
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Chair Chang: Okay. Thank you. 11
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Jonathan Lait: Chair. I… 13
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Chair Chang: Yeah. 15
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Jonathan Lait: So I’m not very familiar with the material that you’re asking for and I understand 1
it sounds like there’s some inner departmental need for coordination. So let me take that on as 2
a responsibility to follow up with the chief transportation official and the police chief to see if 3
we can’t get you the information you’re looking for. 4
5
Chair Chang: That would be great. So just the context for this is that it’s the monthly report on 6
collisions in Palo Alto and we’ve been asking for – it took us many months to get the report. But 7
then since we’ve received the report, we’ve wanted information on – for each of the collisions 8
if it was a collision that resulted in a serious injury or a death. And it seems really relevant 9
because of the project and we’ve asked repeatedly for that too. But I understand that they’re 10
having data difficulties. [Inaudible 28:38]. 11
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Jonathan Lait: And if there’s – if the data is not available, that’s one thing but if it’s available, 13
then we’ll look at ways to being able to share that. 14
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Chair Chang: Great. Thank you. 16
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Commissioner Hechtman: And ultimately, it must – sorry. Ultimately, it must be available 18
because the Safe Streets program – the measure of success is a reduction in fatalities and 19
significant injury. So the only way to determine its success is to have data to see those numbers 1
go down. So it may be a formatting issue and I appreciate the director taking this on. Maybe it’s 2
as simple as – it may just need to come to us in a different form and we can work with that. But 3
it has to come to us in some form and it shouldn’t be the data from two years ago. I think that’s 4
what we’re talking about. 5
6
Chair Chang: And if it’s not available, then that’s something that’s going to obviously have to be 7
solved and – for the success of the program. So either way – yeah. Thank you. 8
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Commissioner Hechtman: I had one other minor… 10
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Chair Chang: Yeah, go ahead. 12
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Commissioner Hechtman: …thing. Today in public comments, one of the items was a – sorry. In 14
the emailed public comment, was a letter from someone regarding the Challenger school 15
queuing out on – he said Arastradero but I was wondering if that section is – is it Charleston? 16
Yeah. It’s Charleston where the cars necessarily sit in the bike lane because the width of the 17
street is not sufficient for them to sit outside the bike lane without blocking that road – that 18
line of traffic. So I just wanted to make sure that the Transportation Department was aware of 1
that and they’re going to look into it and we might hear about it in a future meeting. 2
3
Rafael Rius: I can confirm we did receive that concern − the submission of that concern. And I 4
kind of preliminarily at best – the staff had brought it up to me and I – for – we have to research 5
a little bit. We’re going to have them look into the use permit and kind of any requirements 6
because typically there’s requirements to try to keep the queuing on site and not let it spill onto 7
the streets. But – and then if there’s any action that can be included with that. But – yeah, I 8
don’t have too much other information on that right now but it’s – we did receive it. I can 9
confirm we did receive it and we’ll be looking into it. So… 10
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Chair Chang: Thank you, Mr. Rius. Actually I have a follow on about that one. There’s also 12
additional traffic violations. You can see that there are cars in the intersection and so I imagine 13
it is causing – aside from being illegal, it’s also causing a lot of problems for the traffic there. So 14
that communication from the member of the public or – the communication between the 15
member of the public and, I believe, it was a school official was saying that they welcome the 16
assistance of PAPD in addressing some of the traffic violations that are occurring. So if in your 17
liaising with the Police Department, you could also pass that on, that might be helpful. It does 18
look very unsafe. And then finally, Mr. Rius, I had an unrelated question about El Camino Real. 19
So I wanted some clarification. You were saying that they’re almost done with the paving. So 20
does that mean that the current traffic disruptions that we’re experiencing as a result of the 1
paving will temporarily cease until they come back for the restriping? 2
3
Rafael Rius: Yes. That’s – I would anticipate that. I can’t speak directly with 100 percent 4
confidence but I would anticipate all of the equipment – I mean it would – the roads will be 5
smooth with temporary thinner lines temporarily until they can come back and stripe the 6
permanent thicker lines. But yeah, my understanding is the next month or so they’ll be working 7
in Mountain View and Los Altos and then coming to stripe all three cities in November. 8
9
Chair Chang: Okay. Thank you. So it sounds like within – by the end of the month, they’re 10
probably going to be finished in Palo Alto at least with the repaving. Is that correct? 11
12
Rafael Rius: I was told by the end of next week. Oh. I guess that is the end of the month. So, 13
yeah. I’m sorry. 14
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Chair Chang: Great. I think we’re all excited for that. Thank you so much. Okay. So… 16
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Male: Chair. 18
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Chair Chang: …our next agenda item… 2
3
Male: I’m sorry, Chair. 4
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Chair Chang: Oh. Sorry. 6
7
Jennifer Armer: Just one point of clarification. There was an email sent this morning with the 8
collision data for August and I just wanted to make sure is it something above and beyond that 9
that you are looking for? 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. Are you looking at that on your screen? 12
13
Jennifer Armer: Yeah. I have it. 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: If you look at the last column, it lists injuries but that’s a generic 16
term, so that could be any level of injury. And so what we’re looking for is a breakout from that 17
number of any fatality – whether any of those injuries were either fatalities or significant 1
injuries. 2
3
Jennifer Armer: Okay. Thank you. 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. 6
7
Jennifer Armer: Thank you for that clarification. 8
9
Chair Chang: Thank you. Okay. So our next agenda item is our main agenda item of the evening. 10
This is a study session to review potential amendments to the regulations for the Affordable 11
Housing Incentive Program, AHIP, and the Housing Incentive Program, or HIP in Title 18. Could 12
we have the staff report, please? 13
14
Study Session 15
Public Comment is Permitted. Three (3) minutes per speaker. 16 17
2. Study Session to Review Potential Amendments to the Regulations for the 18
Affordable Housing Incentive Program (AHIP) and Housing Incentive Program (HIP) in 19
Title 18 (Zoning Ordinance) of the Palo Alto Municipal Code to Implement Programs 20
3.3 and 3.4 of the Adopted 2023-2031 Housing Element 21
22
Jonathan Lait: Yeah. Thank you, Chair and Commissioners. We have Jean Eisberg from Lexington 1
Planning who’s going to give the presentation. Ms. Dao, if we can have the slide deck put up on 2
the screen. 3
4
Jean Eisberg: So while that’s coming up – Jon, unless you have anything else you want to say − 5
Mr. Lait. I can get started. 6
7
Jonathan Lait: Yeah. Thank you. 8
9
Jean Eisberg: Okay. So again I’m Jean Eisberg with Lexington Planning. I’m joined by Jane Lin, 10
Architect and Urban Designer from Urban Field, and Tim Bretz, who’s a principal with Keyser 11
Marston Associates. So we’re going to tag team this presentation. So our agenda and meeting 12
purpose. So I’m going to go over the Housing Element, both of the local incentive programs, the 13
Housing Incentive Program and the Affordable Housing Incentive Program, and potential and 14
plan changes that are identified in the Housing Element. We’ll also talk about the context of 15
State Density Bonus Law, which plays into the options that developers have when they’re 16
pursuing housing projects. We’ll review the draft findings of both the physical and financial 17
feasibility analyses that were called for in the Housing Element. And these suggest some 18
potential changes specifically to the HIP, the Housing Incentive Program. And then we’ll have a 19
discussion and look forward to your feedback. Next slide, please. So there’s really three 20
programs that developers have available to them in Palo Alto to achieve additional density. So 21
projects have a base zoning – a base set of zoning standards that produce a certain amount of 22
housing yield and then they have this option to pursue additional density bonuses. So first we 1
have the Housing Incentive Program. That allows for modifications to development standards 2
for market rate projects. So those projects only need to meet the City’s inclusionary 3
requirements. It’s only eligible for projects in commercial districts and it requires that projects 4
go through architectural review with the ARB. Next, we have the Affordable Housing Incentive 5
Program, or the AHIP. Again, allows a certain number specific development standards that can 6
be modified for really middle-income projects. It says affordable but this is up to 120 percent of 7
AMI. And again, only in commercial districts within a ½ mile of major transit at Caltrain. And 8
again, in exchange for processing through architectural review. And then third, we have State 9
Density Bonus Law, which you may be familiar with, which allows a broader set of modifications 10
to development standards in exchange for on-site affordable housing. So no fee payments in 11
lieu or senior housing. Next slide, please. So we’ll talk a little bit about how these compare. So 12
just getting a little bit deeper, the AHIP was adopted about six years ago and originally required 13
a legislative map amendment. So that meant that a project that wanted to invoke the AHIP had 14
to go in front of the ARB, a recommendation by the PTC, and then adoption by City Council 15
because that was a legislative action. This was modified just a couple years ago to streamline 16
the review process. And again, just require architectural review by the ARB. Now the program’s 17
only been used once in the last six years. So this − we can infer from that that maybe it hasn’t 18
been that successful or at least hasn’t been broadly applied. Next slide, please. So the Housing 19
Element calls for very specific changes to the AHIP, so my hope is that this is not – we won’t 20
require a lot of discussion around this but I just want to explain what those changes are. So the 21
Program 3.3 in the Housing Element calls for modifying FAR to allow a 2.4 FAR, allows for up to 22
a 60-foot height limit from 50 feet but only for projects that have a deeper level of affordability. 1
So that’s at 60 percent of AMI rather than 120 percent. So it will create two classes of building 2
height depending on the affordability of a project. And then third, to reduce parking ratios 3
consistent with State law. In terms of applicability, the program is proposed to modify the 4
applicability, not just for commercial districts and not just within a half mile in transit but to 5
apply to all housing opportunity sites. So a developer could invoke this if they have – if they 6
meet the affordable threshold. Next slide, please. So shifting gears to the Housing Incentive 7
Program. This was approved about five years ago as part of a package of zoning standards for 8
the previous Housing Element to increase housing production. This was an alternative to State 9
Density Bonus Law. So a developer would have to choose. Can’t use both. The idea behind the 10
HIP was to provide a way to maintain the City’s base zoning density and require architectural 11
review. So the ARB reviews the project. There’s not an unlimited number of waivers that you 12
see in State Density Bonus Law and then that way it offers more predictable design control. 13
There was a discrete list of – there is a discrete list of standards that can be modified under the 14
HIP. No other eligibility requirements. Again, this applies to market rate projects that just need 15
to meet the City’s inclusionary requirements. But again, it has not been very well utilized. It’s 16
been used by a couple projects; twice in the last five years. And the Housing Element, as we’ll 17
see on the next slide, looks at some modifications. Next slide, please. So the first three points, 18
again the Housing Element provides very clear direction from Program 3.4. First, to streamline 19
the process. Things have changed since adoption of the HIP. Now we’ve got a number of 20
streamlining programs allowed by State law. The ide- and by the city with a new streamlined 21
process that’s allowed by the code. So a HIP project with this new program implementation 22
that complies with objective standards could be administratively reviewed through one 1
meeting with the ARB. Second, the program calls to modify the retail requirements, waiving the 2
retail preservation requirement for opportunity sites development and reducing the 3
replacement and requirement on other sites except in specific locations. Third, to expand the 4
applicability. Again, right now, the HIP is only applicable in the commercial districts. This 5
program implementation would add both the RM Zones and the ROLM/GM focus area on the 6
eastern side of the city. Now the fourth item is the one I expect we’ll spend a little more time 7
today. And this is where we needed to do more analysis and why we have Jane and Tim here to 8
help us. So we’re looking at modifying some of these standards. That’s what the Housing 9
Element program says. To look at a few different standards. Potential building height, FAR, 10
parking, and other development standards to enable [greater 41:46] housing production. And 11
so we’ll talk about what we found from that physical and financial analysis. Next slide, please. 12
So this is just showing in gray or black – showing where the existing Housing Incentive program 13
applies and then in sort of this pink/mauve color where it would [inaudible 42:10] in the future, 14
including the RM and the GM/ROLM zones, and then to all housing inventory sites. Next slide, 15
please. And then again we’re comparing this to State Density Bonus Law because, of course, 16
developers have a choice and they’re going to choose what makes more sense for their project. 17
State Density Bonus Law, just to recap, is bonus density in exchange for on-site affordable 18
housing or senior housing. It allows for an unlimited number of waivers of standards that would 19
physically preclude the development of the housing units. And there’s been a number of 20
changes in this law in recent years since the adoption of the City’s HIP programs, most notably, 21
allowing unlimited density bonus for 100 percent affordable projects and up to 100 percent 22
density bonus for a mixed-income project. Next slide, please. So when we’re looking at 1
potential changes, we can think of them in the context of what a developer might choose and 2
the local HIP needs to be as good or better than the incentives under State law in order for 3
anyone to use it. Right now, currently, there’s a couple incentives and the green boxes are 4
showing relative benefits or advantages. And so the HIP actually can provide higher densities 5
than what can be achieved under State law. And that’s because the City’s base zoning standards 6
are relatively low in many districts. The FAR is the densities and the HIP can allow FAR in density 7
higher than what State law can allow. The other key advantage of the HIP is that all a project 8
needs to do is meet the City’s inclusionary housing ordinance. And that is a fee in lieu for rental 9
projects, on-site housing for – excuse me – for for-sale projects. Most rental housing developers 10
will choose to pay the fee in lieu. It – they pay the fee up front, they get it off their books for 11
the long term, and so that’s really one of the key advantages of the HIP. On the flipside in State 12
law, there’s a lot more flexibility. There’s an unlimited number of waivers, so if certain 13
standards don’t work for a project, a developer has that waiver and the City needs to grant it. 14
On the City side, one of the key reasons again that the HIP was adopted was to require 15
architectural review and to add that predictability in terms of what community members, the 16
city could expect in terms of the design of a project. Next slide, please. So how do we 17
determine what that sort of right sweet spot of development standards are. And this is where 18
the analysis comes into play. Next slide, please. And so what we did is – first, we tested the 19
City’s existing zoning standards to understand what are the – what is the envelope that’s 20
produced by the existing standards, how many units can you get on a – for a typical site and 21
then next looked at whether that prototypical model would actually be financially feasible. 22
Would somebody build it? Then we went ahead and tweaked those standards, tested the 1
modified standards to see if we could achieve financial feasibility and now what we’re talking to 2
you about tonight is considering some modifications to again improve both that physical and 3
financial feasibility. Next slide, please. So we mostly took sites from the Housing Element 4
opportunity sites. We tried to choose a selection of sites that were different in terms of being 5
interior lots, corner lots, lots with alleys. I will say these sites are on the smaller side. We have a 6
number of 5,000, 10,000 square foot lots. So you could think of this as a more conservative 7
analysis. In general, larger sites are going to perform better in terms of both physical feasibility 8
because you have more room to work with, especially at the ground floor, and then financial 9
feasibility. You get more units on the site. You have more economies of scale. So we’ll move on 10
to the next slide and I’m going to shift gears and hand this off to Jane. Thank you. 11
12
Architect and Urban Designer Jane Lin: Thank you, Jeannie. Hi everyone. My name is Jane Lin. 13
I’m an architect and urban designer with Urban Field Studio. I worked closely with Jeannie and 14
with Tim, who is the economist, to work on these feasibility studies. And in your packet, there is 15
a report on all of the different studies but we thought we’d just use this one for a quick review 16
of what is in there. But as Jeannie just explained the process, the first thing we did was look at 17
the zoning standards that you have already for RM30 and a number of other sites as well and to 18
just define what is the developable box. Generally, there is a height limit, there are other kinds 19
of setbacks, and we took the sites that we got and looked at exactly what fits inside of that site. 20
And in many cases, it – the – there were − the resulting yield for sites was noted and the way 21
that you had to fit within it sometimes was a little less than logical but it does give us a sense 22
of what we can do to maximize what is going on on the site in terms of housing. So just to keep 1
going, next slide, please. What we found when we did the existing zoning standards and tested 2
them – and this is really just from an architect’s point of view, a physical feasibility study, so it’s 3
just what fits. We found that really you couldn’t go any higher density than a townhome. Even 4
on the larger sites, it was really hard to achieve townhomes. I mean – sorry. Anything larger 5
than a townhome. And generally, if you’re trying to get retail or mixed use or stacked flats, any 6
kind of apartments − that these existing zoning standards were limiting for that. And so that’s 7
something to consider as we are trying to figure out which standards are affecting that physical 8
feasibility. In many cases, we looked at the parking, building height, FAR, densities, and retail 9
requirements to all together as a combination of what’s affecting the physical feasibility. On the 10
next slide, please. Oh. And this is where after we tested to see how much we could yield, we 11
had Tim come in and kind of give it the economist’s approach. 12
13
Senior Principal Tim Bretz: Thanks, Jane. Again, I’m Tim Bretz with Keyser Marston Associates. 14
And so – yes. The first stop was to create development scopes that could be physically achieved 15
on each of the sites. And so the next step after that was to test the financial feasibility of those 16
scopes of development. And so to do that we performed pro forma analyses for each of the 17
development prototypes. And the pro forma analyses consist of various inputs, primarily 18
including construction costs, which includes land costs, direct costs, indirect costs, and 19
financing costs. And then estimated sales prices or market rents for each of the prototypes. And 20
then typical developer profit margins. And so for the pro forma analyses, we solved for what 21
we’re calling either a net financial surplus or a net financial cost. And so if the prototypes’ value 22
was greater than the construction costs and the developer profit margin, then we deemed that 1
to be − to have a net financial surplus and we deemed it likely to be developed. Conversely, if 2
the prototypes’ value was less than the construction costs plus the developer profit margin, 3
that resulted in a net financial cost. And for those prototypes, we deemed them to be unlikely 4
to be developed. Next slide, please. And so this table summarizes the findings of the prototypes 5
that we developed for the existing zoning standards. Each of the prototypes for the pro forma 6
analyses resulted in a net financial cost and so we deemed each of those prototypes to be 7
unlikely to be developed under existing zoning standards. Next slide. 8
9
Jane Lin: All right. So once we realized that it was – that only townhouses could fit and that 10
even then it wasn’t that feasible, we started to consider which zoning changes were needed to 11
enhance feasibility. And when we’re looking at this, we’re trying to accommodate higher- 12
density stacked flats and mixed-use development on these sites and just trying to see what it 13
takes to make that happen. We know that this would improve the financial feasibility and 14
whenever we could, we tried to retain Palo Alto design values that are part of the standards. So 15
what we typically did was look at the key development standards to change and that included 16
increasing or eliminating the residential density, increasing the floor area ratio (FAR), and 17
reducing parking requirements. These are all really important to increasing the amount of 18
housing you can get on each site. There were a lot of other additional regulations to refine 19
when we were looking at these sites and they really had to do with what was already in place in 20
terms of the neighborhood context and this had to do with increasing building height, making 21
sure that where it is in the city − some of these changes are actually quite minor or slight. And 22
then others are looking at daylight plane. We’ll look at that in just a moment. Revising that 1
slightly but maintaining the [inaudible 52:50] of it, reducing setbacks also slightly, and then 2
increasing site coverage, and then revising the use requirements for retail. On the next slide, 3
you’ll see that as far as our example is concerned, you can see compared next to each other 4
what is – what the yield is for the existing zoning and what the yield is for the modified zoning. 5
In this case, it really helps allow the – a little bit more density. It goes from four to seven units 6
and it makes a little bit more logical sense in the way it’s constructed. Here what you see is the 7
daylight plane in particular, it has – it is maintained in general; however, it is – where it starts is 8
raised to 16 feet and this is − actually when it starts at 10 feet, it’s stricter than a lot of other 9
heights right there at the setbacks. So it’s really a small change of 6 feet for where it starts but 10
it does decrease the height when it – in the way that it does for the 45-degree angle. That stays 11
the same. So what you see here is how all of these different standards work together to make it 12
possible to have a few more units on site. This is not a significantly big change going from 35 13
feet to 40 feet. It still can maintain the character of residential neighborhood. And so this is just 14
one of the examples here but there are other examples where we really look at how you can go 15
from townhomes to apartments in that typology. And what you can see is there are quite a few 16
tables in that report that show how – what the big differences are. And when we were testing, 17
we really were seeing that the biggest thing that limits density is parking. And so there’s some 18
exploration of how that could be decreased. And actually it’s not always the ratio that 19
decreases but also the way that it’s parked in whether it could be parked in a tandem 20
configuration where it’s part of a podium parking and there’s other ways that it could be 21
parked. We also considered mechanical stackers for some of the site tests as well. Also, 22
increasing the site coverage and this what is currently in existing zoning is less than half of the 1
site being covered. In considering something that is a little bit more than half but still making 2
sure that it’s not 100 percent site coverage, it’s really still meeting with the setbacks more than 3
what the setbacks [inaudible 56:06] for site coverage. And just to also adjust the daylight plane 4
how we explained before. Really keeping it but adjusting it upwards for where it starts. There 5
are clearly more different standards and how they work but I just wanted to stress that the way 6
that they work, they need to be considered all together because without each of these moves, 7
it is really difficult to achieve any kind of higher density than what is existing. And now I think I 8
pass this back to Tim. 9
10
Tim Bretz: Yeah. And so again we prepared pro forma analyses for the conceptual scopes of 11
development that Jane came up with for the proposed HIP zoning standards. And the results of 12
these pro forma analyses were they all resulted in net financial surpluses. And so we deemed all 13
of these prototypes to be likely to be developed. Next slide, please. 14
15
Jean Eisberg: Okay. Thank you. So a number of the potential HIP changes have actually already 16
gone into effect. So when we talk about the current zoning standards that Jane was testing, we 17
were testing the standards that were in place prior to the updates in January that were adopted 18
as part of the Housing Element and to meet the RHNA. And so some of that has already 19
happened. What we’re talking about is this additional increment of standards needed to get to 20
that financial feasibility. And as Jane explained, on the right-hand side, this is really a package of 21
standards that work together. Next slide, please. So again, the idea here is to push the HIP 22
towards being a really viable option that someone could use instead of State Density Bonus Law 1
in order, again, to retain the City’s design values, so we don’t have this unlimited number of 2
waivers, instead we have this discrete list of development standards that can be modified 3
under the HIP. And the advantages still here are that you can get more density under the HIP 4
under what we’re suggesting here. You have the in-lieu fee and then the parking, streamlined 5
review process are the same. Next slide, please. So again, if we think about sort of summarizing, 6
why is this still relevant? Why do we still need to do this even with the changes that were made 7
in January? First, the changes made in January only apply to Housing Element opportunity sites. 8
Essentially, there’s now two tracks of standards that apply in Palo Alto depending on whether 9
or not the site is a housing opportunity site. So there’s two different sets of standards that 10
apply to even the same zoning district. So we want to create an incentive program that’s a 11
viable option for those non-housing element opportunity sites. Second, the HIP, as explained in 12
the Housing Element, supports the City’s AFFH goals. Those – that’s the Affirmatively Furthering 13
Fair Housing goals to distribute housing units and affordable housing units throughout the City. 14
If we were to not do the HIP, an alternative could be a rezoning or upzoning on a citywide level. 15
Third, that this is reflecting community support for higher-density housing and that we’re 16
seeing in the market, it looks more like for five, even six stories that we’re seeing both in Palo 17
Alto and nearby. And that the City has recently established for portions of El Camino Real and 18
the focus area, the ROLM/GM focus area. And then lastly, again that this provides an 19
opportunity for that more predictable design control through either architectural review or 20
even the streamlined review consistent with objective standards, especially in light of changes 21
in the State law. We have SB 330 that now caps the number of [inaudible 60:06]. SB 35, which is 22
a ministerial approval. And so this provides that streamlining, which is comparable to State law. 1
Next slide, please. So how would this actually work? Again, I’ve explained we have these sort of 2
two tracks now of standards. There’s different base zoning standards that apply depending on 3
whether a site’s a housing opportunity site or not. The thinking here is that the HIP would be an 4
increment, so as Jane explained, maybe it’s a 1.0 FAR increase that’s needed. That would be 5
added either to the base zoning whether it’s an opportunity site or not. So that increment is the 6
same. The total amount you could achieve is different depending on whether you’re a housing 7
opportunity site or not. Next slide, please. So wrapping up, we have our study session tonight, 8
we are going to meet with the ARB next week to get their feedback on the ideas for potential 9
changes to the HIP, and then we expect to come back to the Commission before the end of the 10
year, and then to Council after the new year. Next slide, please. So these last three slides in 11
terms of the PTC’s discussion, first, looking for confirmation of those AHIP modifications. Again, 12
these were well specified in the Housing Element. Modifications to the zoning standards and 13
expanding the applicability. Next slide, please. Then confirming the HIP modifications. So on 14
this slide, we’re showing the specific changes to the HIP that were outlined in the Housing 15
Element in terms of streamlining the process, modifying the retail preservation requirements, 16
and expanding applicability. Next slide, please. And the last, and again this is probably where 17
we spend more of our time, is considering this package of potential modifications. And as Jane 18
explained, this is really a package. So all of these standards work together to create a building 19
envelope that allows a project to be built. Now if there are dealbreakers on this list, things that 20
you have concerns about, we can push and pull on these standards but they are interrelated. 21
And so, especially when we think about the ground floor, it's a very competitive space. And so 22
reducing parking requirements frees up room for retail or other uses. So things like that. So we 1
are looking for your feedback here about standards you may have concerns about. So this is – I 2
think that’s the last slide. And that wraps up our presentation. I just want to encourage you − 3
we do have Jane and Tim here tonight. They will likely not be here when we have our 4
ordinance. So I want to encourage you to ask them any questions you have about all the pro 5
formas and all the models. Thank you. And we’re happy to answer any questions. 6
7
Chair Chang: Thank you. Let’s start with Commissioner questions. Clarifying questions, please, 8
only. And then we’ll take public comment if there is any. So light them up if you got questions. 9
Okay. First, Commissioner Reckdahl, then Commissioner Akin. 10
11
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Yeah. Can you go to Slide 10? 12
13
Female: This is so much better. 14
15
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Okay. Can you refresh my memory – difference between waivers and 16
concessions? That always confuses me. 17
18
Jean Eisberg: So waivers are exceptions to physical standards that would preclude the 19
development of the housing units. Concessions are for standards or regulations that add actual 20
[costs 63:59] to a project. So for example, if a city were to have a requirement around a specific 21
material that was required, that could be requested as a concession. Whereas waivers we 1
typically think of as development standards like setbacks, upper-story setbacks, things like that. 2
3
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Okay. So daylight plane would be… 4
5
Jean Eisberg: A waiver. 6
7
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: A waiver. Unlimited waivers. Okay. Next question is if you look at Slide 13 8
– yeah. These sites are all pretty small, which was a good test case. How do they compare to 9
the population as a whole? We have on Packet Page 70 and we have output – the printout 10
here. We have all the different HIP sites. How do these – are these a good cross-section? Are 11
these smaller than the average lots or how does this compare? 12
13
Jean Eisberg: It is a pretty good cross-section. I will tell you we did look originally at some larger 14
sites. A lot of the larger sites that were opportunity sites were already either had projects on 15
them proposed – because typically the larger sites that are available will go first. We wanted 16
the test sites that didn’t have development projects because we tended to know that the 17
development projects were penciling. So I would say they are representative but yes, this is a 18
somewhat conservative estimate because it – conservative evaluation of financial feasibility 19
since we did test smaller standard sites. 20
21
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Okay. Thank you. 22
1
Chair Chang: Commissioner Akin. 2
3
Commissioner Akin: I first thank you for the depth and quality of this work. It’s really excellent 4
and also the presentation answered a number of the clarifying questions that I would otherwise 5
have had. But I do want to pursue a couple more. One question I would have asked was are you 6
looking for support on all the changes as a package or are you open to discussion in 7
modifications. And what I’m hearing is you really want to treat this as a package but with some 8
reluctance, there can be open discussion on some of the items. So is that an accurate 9
assessment? 10
11
Jean Eisberg: The package of standards gets to the maximum density. Now we’ve put that out 12
there as maybe our objective in figuring out where is that threshold, where is that line of 13
feasibility. I don’t want to suggest I’m coming to you and we already have suggested an answer 14
and you need to accept it. But I don’t mean to intend that at all. We are looking for your 15
feedback on areas that you have concerns about that you don’t think work. We were trying to 16
be very sensitive about adjacencies. We know that there’s often concerns about adjacencies to 17
lower-density districts. My caveat is only that if we are not going to – if we don’t want to see 18
any additional building height, then we want to be more generous about lot coverage. The – we 19
can push and pull in some of these places but the development envelope we’re trying to get to 20
the same amount of yield. 21
22
Commissioner Akin: Right. I’ll have more to ask you about when we get to the commissioner 1
comments then. We had an interesting project not long ago on Encino Way where we were 2
trying to build out to − essentially to the lot lines and it caused some interesting problems with 3
fire safety, which resulted in design changes. So I’m curious as to whether any of the prototypes 4
that were developed as part of this effort were vetted for fire safety and whether that might 5
have some effect on whether they’re viable or not. 6
7
Jean Eisberg: Jane, do… 8
9
Jane Lin: [Inaudible 68:02]. 10
11
Jean Eisberg: …you want to talk about that a little bit? 12
13
Jane Lin: Yes. Well what you have in terms of setbacks and building heights are very commonly 14
found in other cities as well and I think that they are – they follow fire safety rules. There are 15
other ways of dealing with adjacent buildings and, of course, then those codes kick in but 16
basically there’s nothing here that is unusual compared to other cities and you see very much 17
similar kinds of zoning – or development standards applied. 18
19
Commissioner Akin: So the cases that particularly caught my eye were the zero setback cases 20
for a side and rear. So that’s not very common around here and I don’t know what provisions 21
might have been made to make that possible. But it certainly was an issue with the design we 22
saw recently. And that’s why I brought it up. I think that’s enough for clarifying questions for 1
me. Thank you. 2
3
Chair Chang: Commissioner Lu. 4
5
Commissioner Lu: Thank you. I’m really excited to discuss this. I had just a few kind of technical 6
clarifying questions. The first one is about the AHIP. So I understand the benefit for moderate 7
income housing, but if someone wanted to develop more affordable housing, why would – can 8
you explain why the AHIP at 60 percent is appealing compared to using the State Density Bonus 9
plus SB 35? 10
11
Jean Eisberg: I think it is very lean. I think you’re raising a good point. The State Density Bonus 12
Law is known. It’s generally easier. I think that the – we haven’t seen – we’ve only seen use of 13
the AHIP at that higher threshold. I’m not sure we’ll see it at this lower threshold with the 60-14
foot height limit. That said, again it does offer higher densities, so – no. Excuse me. It doesn’t. 15
Because State Density Bonus Law, you can be unlimited with 100 percent projects. So I think it’s 16
thin. To be honest, we – we’re trying everything. I think that was part of the Housing Element 17
approach. It called for some specific changes to the AHIP and I think part of it’s like let’s give it a 18
try and see if it works. But I hear you. I’m – I think that that AHIP is lean compared to State 19
Density Bonus Law. 20
21
Commissioner Lu: Yeah. And just for context for other people also, the State Density Bonus 1
Law, of course, gives more flexibility as long as the weighted-average affordability is, I think, 80 2
percent and SB 35 also gives more streamlining I think. So the combination of those two would 3
be strictly better than the AHIP at lower income levels like 60 percent. Also I just wanted to ask 4
what’s the vision for how ARB study sessions will work if there’s only one study session. Will 5
they make recommendations that the planning director will then take or will they just kind of 6
provide optional advice or will they comment on objective standards? Like what – well what do 7
we envision that looking like? 8
9
Jean Eisberg: So the way that expedited – I think it’s called expedited review − streamline 10
review is written into the code right now. One study session with the ARB. It’s based on 11
objective standards. And so essentially the staff report is maybe written a little bit differently 12
that these are the objective standards and it – the review by the ARB is isolated to the objective 13
standards and not – although they make other comments, it’s just about compliance with 14
objective standards. 15
16
Assistant City Attorney Albert Yang: Yeah. I’ll just jump in to say we’ve done this several times 17
already and it – basically, the ARB will provide sort of voluntary guidance to the developer like 18
here are some changes we think would improve your project and it’s left to the developer to 19
accept those or not. 20
21
Commissioner Lu: Okay. So even when the comments are related to objective standards, those 1
are still voluntary and not necessarily … 2
3
Albert Yang: Yeah. 4
5
Commissioner Lu: [Can you just 72:19] comment more on that? 6
7
Albert Yang: Yeah. Sorry. No, if there’s an issue with meeting an objective standard or if there 8
was some – an error that was made in how it was applied, we would treat – that would be a 9
recommendation to the Director – that the Director would take into consideration. But for the 10
most part, the ARB review is focused on other issues because there’s not much to say about an 11
objective standard, right? It’s generally you’ve met it or not. And so the ARB is going to be 12
providing more subjective guidance but it’s not binding. 13
14
Commissioner Lu: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I know we’ve done this a few times but it’s helpful to 15
clarify. Kind of related to Commissioner Akin’s question, have we gotten any feedback from for-16
profit or non-profit developers about HIP updates or AHIP updates? 17
18
Jean Eisberg: So we’ve talked to developers as we’ve been preparing both the Housing Element 19
and the El Camino focus area standards and the ROLM/GM focus area standards. So part of the 20
preparation of these physical models − you may recall these physical models that Jane showed 21
are also in – actually in the Housing Element. This is what helped identify potential 22
governmental constraints in that chapter. And so we did review these standards with a few 1
different developers to get their feedback. 2
3
Commissioner Lu: Okay. Thank you. And maybe one last question kind of on the edge of a 4
clarification and a more substantive question. What – have we considered any other forms of 5
streamlining like deadlines for review or deadlines to get in front of the ARB or anything else 6
kind of similar to other streamlining measures in the state and other cities? 7
8
Jean Eisberg: Staff may have – okay. 9
10
Jonathan Lait: Yeah. I can weigh in on that one. So we have – we’re not proposing to codify 11
anything. Often, when processing an application, there’s a number of variables that are at play 12
when we’re doing that. But what we have done and have already implemented is when a 13
project is coming to the Architectural Review Board, it is our intent to get that first hearing or 14
that first meeting with the Architectural Review Board within 60 days and – give or take a few 15
days in either direction, just based on when these get scheduled. So we are already in the 16
process of getting that initial feedback from the Architectural Review Board early on in the 17
process even before maybe some issues of zoning compliance may be addressed, so that we 18
can help the applicants streamline their review or facilitate their review. 19
20
Commissioner Lu: Oh. [Inaudible 75:31] interesting. So for like an AHIP or for a streamlined 1
project, the ARB study session will potentially happen even before other like evaluations of like 2
zoning compliance and things like that? 3
4
Jonathan Lait: Well – so when we have an application that comes in, there’s – depending on the 5
quality of the application − if there’s a lot of challenges with it or there are components of the 6
project that do not clearly comply with the code and will result in significant design changes, 7
we’re not going to waste the applicant or the Board’s time on that. But for projects that 8
generally are compliant with zoning, height, setbacks, parking, all the things that we would look 9
for, we would move that on to the Architectural Review Board for an initial review within 60 10
days. That’s our goal. And that would apply to projects that are – whether they’re going 11
through a streamline review process or whether they’re going through a more − the previous 12
traditional process of the Architectural Review Board, [major 76:41] ARB subject to the ARB 13
findings. We still do that for those projects as well. 14
15
Commissioner Lu: Got it. Thank you. Just wanted to clarify that and get that all fresh in my 16
head. Thank you. And those were my questions. 17
18
Chair Chang: Commissioner Hechtman. 19
20
Commissioner Hechtman: I have a few questions but I think only one is really a technical 21
question. So I’ll save the rest and just ask this one. We’re seeing in State law, parking 22
requirements are coming down, and in some instances, actually being eliminated. And I’m 1
hearing anecdotally that the lender community is not entirely buying into this kind of new 2
vision. And so that as your proposed parking drops, the financing tightens up– for example, 3
people who are interested in developing projects with no parking are having trouble finding 4
financing. So I’m – was wondering if in your financial feasibility analysis, you had… 5
6
Female: Good question. 7
8
Commissioner Hechtman: You were picking up threads of this and it was considered in the 9
analysis. And recognizing looking at your numbers that I didn’t see anything proposing zero 10
parking, just really what I call modest decreases in parking. And so I’m wondering if with those 11
decreases that you’re projecting, you’re seeing any financing difficulties? 12
13
Tim Bretz: I agree with your assessment that projects that are parked at zero are – will likely 14
have trouble finding financing for 100 percent market rate projects. You’ll see some of them in 15
really dense areas but not so much in less dense areas. And so for the prototypes that we 16
analyzed, all of – none of them, as you mentioned, include no parking. A lot of them are parked 17
at one space per unit or half a space per unit. And so we did sort of factor that into the financial 18
feasibility analysis. We – if we didn’t think it would be financed, we would have told Jane and 19
said, “This doesn’t make sense, so we shouldn’t do this.” So yes. That sort of was in the 20
background of how we analyzed the prototypes. 21
22
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. 1
2
Chair Chang: Okay. Seeing no lights, I have a few questions. So let’s – since we’re talking about 3
financial feasibility, Mr. Bretz, could you talk to us about what the assumptions were for 4
financial feasibility. You talked about the types of assumptions but I know that in past projects 5
where there is some financial feasibility analysis that was being done, sometimes people 6
disagreed about the assumptions that were going in. So to educate us, it would be really helpful 7
if you could tell us what is that standard profit margin that is included as well as maybe interest 8
rates or what are the kind of key factors that you put into the model? 9
10
Tim Bretz: Yes. Sure. I mean everyone typically disagrees with us on some assumption. So it’s 11
not unheard of. So to start off with, we did a bunch of research on the inputs that we put in the 12
pro forma. So we researched recent land sales transactions. We researched construction costs. 13
We work on projects throughout the Bay area, throughout California. We keep track of 14
construction costs. And then we also researched the recent sales comparables for similar units 15
and then market rate wraps. And so based on that data collection, those are sort of the 16
assumption inputs that we put into the pro forma analysis. So it’s based on current real-time 17
real estate dynamics. And then for the sort of profit margin question, we work on a number of 18
projects, we talk to developers, we’re constantly reviewing real projects and going back and 19
forth with developers. And so on the for-sale side, we set the profit margin at 12 percent of the 20
net sales revenue, which is a common assumption and – which is assumption that is our 21
professional judgement on what the sort of expected profit range should be. For the apartment 22
scenarios, we used the capitalized valuation approach. And so first what we do is we research 1
current capitalization rates. And so that’s – there’s a bunch of brokerage firms who do surveys 2
every quarter like CBRE or PricewaterhouseCoopers and then CoStar also tracks capitalization 3
rates. And then we also get capitalization rates just from the projects that we’re working on. 4
And so the first step is to – we – what we would do is we capitalize the net operating income 5
and that comes up with the total value of an apartment project. And then we apply a profit 6
percentage to that capitalized value and then in this case, we sat the apartment profit 7
percentage at 10 percent of that value. And again, that’s our professional judgment of where 8
typical apartment profit percentages are set. We’ve talked to developers. We’ve reviewed 9
projects. We’re comfortable with that assumption. Again, I – every developer is probably going 10
to say it’s too low but I also − on the flipside, no developer has ever told us our profit margin is 11
too high. So those are sort of the main factors. And so when all of them are combined – so the 12
construction costs and then are offset by the sales revenue or the capitalized value with that 13
profit margin built in, then we solve for is there a financial surplus, which makes it seem like it 14
would be likely to be built or is there a net cost, which is – it seems unlikely that this type of 15
project would be built. 16
17
Chair Chang: Okay. So one question I have − you were talking about the capitalization but we 18
were – we’ve been reading in the news that with the interest rates having gone up that a lot of 19
projects, say in San Jose and in other cities that were supposably going to be built, then were 20
put on hold. So how is that factored in? 21
22
Tim Bretz: So the interest rate is going to be separate from the capitalization rate. It was 1
actually kind of interesting. Typically, they’ll track with each other where interest – as interest 2
rates go up, cap rates typically go up. In the past couple years with interest rates skyrocketing, 3
cap rates didn’t actually go up that much. But the interest rate gets factored into the 4
construction loan and the construction cost. And so as those interest rates go up, the 5
construction interest during the construction period goes up. And yes, it’s correct. That was a 6
huge hit to some projects that were on the development pipeline. And all those developers sort 7
of paused and said, “Let’s wait for them to come back down or let’s wait till our numbers shake 8
out.” We did this analysis in June. We set the interest rate at 7 percent. The projects for the 9
proposed HIP standards were deemed financially feasible, so there was a slight – at least a 10
slight financial surplus on those ones. But I’ll be honest, as interest rates come down, that is 11
going to drop total construction costs commensurately. So in the immediate future, you could 12
have projects perform better with lower interest rates. What could also happen though is that 13
that could generate demand for more projects. So more materials are being used in the area, 14
more labor is being used in the area, which could increase the direct and indirect costs of the 15
project conversely. So it’s sort of a – yes, in the medium term, interest rates may have an 16
impact but over the long term, it may not be as drastic as one may think. 17
18
Chair Chang: Okay. Thank you. On a different topic, I have a question about something that was 19
in our packet as well as presented tonight, which is that the HIP is necessary to support the 20
AFFH. And I wondered how it supports that given that the – one of the big reasons the HIP is 21
attractive is that it allows in-lieu fees, which then means that rather than the affordable units 22
being included in a development that they would be concentrated in a particular area. Could 1
staff explain that part to me? Is it just that because HIP applies to more area, then it spreads 2
the housing out more or… 3
4
Jonathan Lait: Yeah. So I’ll take a first cut and then ask Jean if she wants to weigh in with some 5
additional context. But in our conversations with the – with HCD, again HIP isn’t required for 6
RHNA or meeting our numbers but it was seen as a tool to increase housing production 7
citywide because it – we’re broadening its extent into multifamily zones. I will note that – and 8
so just by producing more housing, we’re putting more on the market and there’d be a variable 9
affordability – I’ll say small affordability on that issue. But we will collect – with the collection of 10
in-lieu fees, the idea is that we’ll be able to collect more and leverage those dollars further to 11
support additional projects. And so that’s the connection that I see between the Capital A 12
affordable housing component and HIP and how they come together. Ms. Eisberg, do you have 13
more that you want to add to that? 14
15
Jean Eisberg: No. That’s great. 16
17
Chair Chang: Okay. I still – that makes – I mean it makes sense in terms of affordability but the 18
fair housing component, sort of historical redlining and that kind of a thing and – I would think 19
that inclusionary housing is better from that perspective rather than what the HIP allows. 20
21
Jean Eisberg: Maybe I can add a couple points then. Part of what the expansion of the HIP is 1
doing is adding the RM sites and faith-based sites on the R1 zones to eligible HIP sites. So these 2
are – whereas the commercial districts are on the corridors and although the corridors are 3
spread throughout the city, they’re not within the neighborhoods. So one of the key parts of 4
the RM zones and those faith-based sites on the R1 zones is that they’re more within the 5
neighborhoods of Palo Alto. So a key part of that is really the potential to have multifamily 6
housing across neighborhoods in the city. 7
8
Chair Chang: Okay. That makes sense. Thank you. And then I had a question about retail and 9
the HIP. In with − and – I can’t remember what packet page it was but it was in the slides talking 10
about reducing the retail requirement except for Cal. Ave. and University Avenue and certain 11
nodes along El Camino. So which – are those nodes currently defined already or is that a TBD 12
thing that we don’t know exactly where those nodes are going to be? 13
14
Jonathan Lait: Sure. I can respond to that. So the – that is a sort of a general reference that is 15
aligned with a document that the City prepared a long time ago, the South El Camino Boulevard 16
or [quarter 89:02] plan or – I’m transposing some of the words, I guess, in that study but in that 17
document, there is a sort of a couple of grainy images of the street grid and identification of 18
nodes in that area that have – are identified as areas that we want to continue to promote 19
commercial or mixed-use developments. So the idea behind the – make – allowing for 20
adjustments to reduce retail for HIP projects would be to allow some reduction in the areas 21
that are not in the ground floor or combining districts or these key strategic locations along El 22
Camino. And we can come back with a map to show you where those are. They’re generally 1
going to be where California Avenue aligns and there’s a couple other streets that intersect 2
along El Camino that would be flagged. The other part about El Camino that’s challenging is that 3
some of the streets aren’t approaching at clear intersections. They’re offset a little bit. And so 4
that takes that into consideration too. 5
6
Chair Chang: So when – how old is that South El Camino Real Design Guidelines? Do we – or 7
approximately. Because it’s not been readjusted given our El Camino Real focus areas, right? Or 8
it’s not been adjusted since we identified all the new Housing Element sites, correct? 9
10
Jonathan Lait: We’ll find that date. It’s been decades since that’s been produced but we still 11
have that record and − as part of the housing focus area work and then the expansion work that 12
we’re about to get underway as well, we’ll be looking also at that guide to inform decisions 13
about development potential in those areas as well. 14
15
Chair Chang: Okay. Commissioner Summa has a question that’s directly related to that. 16
17
Commissioner Summa: Yeah. When I read this, I was wondering if it was based on the Grand 18
Boulevard concept that was never adopted. 19
20
Jonathan Lait: No, it’s the South El Camino Design Guidelines or… 21
22
Commissioner Summa: Okay. 1
2
Jonathan Lait: …something along those lines. 3
4
Commissioner Summa: And the string of pearls idea? 5
6
Jonathan Lait: Yes. 7
8
Commissioner Summa: That’s a pretty stale – well I’ll wait till later… 9
10
Jonathan Lait: So… 11
12
Commissioner Summa: …to make comments but… 13
14
Jonathan Lait: Agreed. But… 15
16
Commissioner Summa: It… 17
18
Jonathan Lait: …I think what maybe has per- what may persist through time though is sort of 19
the desirability of maintaining local-serving commercial at strategic locations along El Camino to 20
serve the areas. I agree that other parts of the document may have advanced but I think it’s 21
worth at least exploring as a part of this process whether or not we want to retain maybe a 1
higher standard for retail on the ground floor at those locations. 2
3
Commissioner Summa: Okay. Thank you for that. I’ll save my comments for later. 4
5
Chair Chang: Okay. I have two more clarifying questions. So one is is the AHIP the same piece of 6
legislation that also says that if a development in Palo Alto is 100 percent affordable, with 7
affordability being defined as 120 percent of AMI or lower, then the development fees are 8
waived for that project. So we had seen a project that came before the PTC this year that was 9
100 percent affordable and then therefore would not pay development fees as a result. 10
11
Albert Yang: That is not – sorry. That’s not part of the AHIP. It is – it’s been a longstanding part 12
of our individual development fee ordinances. 13
14
Chair Chang: Understood. Okay. And then my final question is there was a comment that was 15
made during their presentation that the AHIP has only been used one time in six years and I 16
was wondering if we knew how many – and it was for Wilton Court, I believe. But how many 17
other affordable projects were there? So I’m kind of wondering is it that AHIP is not being used 18
or just that affordable projects aren’t being built because it’s so difficult to achieve like the 19
financing for affordable projects. 20
21
Jonathan Lait: Yeah, I agree. I don’t know if there’s a causal relationship necessarily on that 1
because there are other factors that go into how – affordable housing production. So you’re 2
right, it is the Wilton Court. That is the example that set the standard for the AHIP program and 3
what we’re trying to do here then is allow for greater development potential sort of in line with 4
I’ll say some recent policy direction that we’ve been developing as a part of the Housing 5
Element and with the housing focus area. But then also associating that increased height with 6
that lower affordability. But you’re right. I don’t know that we can say one’s directly related to 7
the other. 8
9
Chair Chang: Right. Like I don’t know – it’s not necessarily that the AHIP doesn’t work. I mean it 10
may not work but also just there’s not been a huge number of affordable housing projects in 11
general, right, that didn’t use the AHIP. 12
13
Jonathan Lait: Right. And it goes back to the earlier question about the applicability of the AHIP 14
where there are – there just are – the State law has advanced to a point where AHIP itself may 15
be less desirable for more deeply affordable housing production. So this does create though an 16
opportunity. I know in the past we’ve had some conversation about middle-income housing. 17
We have the one example that people site as maybe not a great example on Page Mill Road in 18
El Camino. But the AHIP with its affordability up to 120 percent AMI, which is a more restrictive 19
affordability than that one particular project, which went up to 140 and 150 percent AMI, still 20
may provide an opportunity for interested for-profit developers to build in that market. And I 21
think we’ve seen some interest in that neighborhood of affordability. So it – I think it still has 22
the possibility of being another avenue where somebody may want to build an affordable 1
housing project at 120 percent AMI. 2
3
Chair Chang: Okay. Thank you. And then we’ve got two more lights going up. Commissioner 4
Akin. Can we go to Commissioner Summa first? Is that okay? She’s got… 5
6
Commissioner Summa: [Inaudible 95:51]. 7
8
Chair Chang: Oh. Okay. So Commissioner Akin then. Go ahead. 9
10
Commissioner Akin: Thank you, Chair. This question is for Mr. Bretz and I’d like to follow up on 11
Chair Chang’s question about financial feasibility. Pardon me. A reference that I commonly use 12
for financial feasibility studies is Century Urbans that’s done for San Jose and updated every 13
year. And the calculation that they used for minimum acceptable developer profit is a 5.75 14
percent return on cost. So I was curious if you would – and I did work those numbers for some 15
of the prototypes and the target profit turned out to be less than KMA’s. So I wondered if you 16
would say a few words about why the approach you used is preferable. 17
18
Tim Bretz: Yeah. So we’ve shifted from doing a return on cost metric and it – what – this 19
happened a few years ago when capitalization rates really dropped. So what the return on cost 20
metric is it’s a capitalization rate plus a profit margin built into the same percentage. And so it’s 21
typically the capitalization rate plus 1 to 2 percentage points on top for profit. And that will get 22
to you to your 5.75 or 5.50 percent return. What ended up happening is with lower 1
capitalization rates − so we’re using a 4 percent capitalization rate in these analyses. The – a 2 2
percent percentage on 4 percent is a much bigger number than 2 percent on like a 6 or 7 3
percent capitalization rate. And so we were seeing – we’re ending up with big profit margins 4
that didn’t make sense and we didn’t think were justifiable. So that’s why we split the analysis. 5
And so we just take the capitalization rate itself, come up with the value. The cap rates again 6
are based on empirical data real projects. And then we set the profit percentage on what our 7
professional judgment − the profit percentage would be and set that against value. And so then 8
the profit is less driven off of how cap rates fluctuate. 9
10
Commissioner Akin: Okay. Thank you very much. 11
12
Chair Chang: Okay. I think that’s it for our clarifying questions. 13
14
Male: [Doria 98:24]. 15
16
Chair Chang: No, she’s done. So do we have any public comments that have come in? There’s 17
one here in chambers. 18
19
PUBLIC COMMENTS 20
Veronica Dao: Yes. One in person from Nikita. 21
22
Nikita Kutselev: Hello. Thank you. My name is Nikita. I − yeah. I live in Palo Alto for three years 1
and – with my family and kids. So we’re [renting 98:55]. Our house [inaudible 98:57] like 2
$6,000. [Inaudible 98:59]. So I was hoping to like maybe buy something. I can’t afford [a house 3
99:03] because it’s – they cost like starting from [$2M 99:06] and I cannot (inaudible 99:10] 4
affordable because I’m apparently too rich for that. So maybe I’m kind of stuck in the middle. 5
This is why I am here. I want to support this project. Increasing density is like long overdue. And 6
a couple of remarks regarding parking. So I personally was happy to buy condo with like zero 7
parking, for example. Like – but what I think is missing is requirements for bicycle parking 8
because like when we increase density, we want to discourage people from using cars, right? 9
And my conclusion to you is bicycle. So like bicycle parking would be great if we have this in the 10
requirements. And what – another thing like – I’m not sure if in U.S., it’s a thing but for 11
example, in France, they – instead of minimal parking requirements, they increase the 12
maximum parking requirements somewhat, for example. Like not we are going up like at least 13
20 parking lots but at most [inaudible 100:32]. And – yeah, I think that’s it. Oh yeah. One more 14
thing about previously talking about reports about collisions, so – and so you’re talking about 15
serious injuries and maybe deaths. I think non-serious injuries should also be included in the 16
report because they can indicate the [inaudible 101:00] intersections [inaudible 101:02] could 17
be useful. Yeah. That’s it. Thank you. 18
19
Chair Chang: Thank you. And just to clarify for our members of public who may be listening, the 1
current report does include injuries; it just doesn’t break them out for us into what is serious 2
and not serious. Okay. 3
4
Veronica Dao: I have one on Zoom also. 5
6
Chair Chang: Oh. Great. Thank you. 7
8
Veronica Dao: From C. 9
10
C: Hello. I missed the first bit of this, so I’d like to apologize if this was already covered. But in 11
the meeting notes, it noted that the plan was to streamline all 100 percent affordable housing 12
development projects that would prioritize them over other housing projects regardless of 13
submission date. And I just wanted to point out that because California – because Palo Alto has 14
a affordable like inclusion ordinance, a lot of larger projects have or have to have affordable 15
units in them whether that be in-lieu fees or included. And so to me it seems a little logical to 16
prioritize a 20 unit 100 percent affordable housing project over a 100 unit 25 percent affordable 17
project, which has more market rate units but also nets you more affordable units. And I was 18
kind of hoping that maybe the streamlining could be done based on the number of total 19
affordable units rather than just sheerly anything that’s 100 percent affordable because I think 1
that might benefit more since it seems like there’s more market development − like 2
development of market housing than there is 100 percent affordable anyway. Yeah. That’s it. 3
4
Chair Chang: Thank you for your comment. Okay. Then I think that brings us back to 5
Commissioner comments and discussion. So yeah – the staff is just looking for us to – go ahead. 6
7
Jennifer Armer: Sorry. I didn’t want to interrupt but did through the Chair want to share the 8
additional information. We found that the El Camino – South El Camino Real Design Guidelines 9
are from 2002. Those are available on line. The nodes that are listed there are at some of the 10
larger intersections, California Avenue, Barron-Ventura. There’s the Triangle Area – are the 11
nodes that are noted there. With the idea that in between that, it may be more reasonable to 12
have residential-only developments. 13
14
Chair Chang: Thank you. Okay. We’ve – so I was saying that our goal is provide feedback to staff 15
on the proposals or the various things that can be added to the HIP. So I’m trying to think – 16
we’ve got two lights here from Commissioner Hechtman and Commissioner Akin; however, 17
there’s two areas that we also need to provide comments on and maybe we don’t have 18
comments regarding the AHIP and more on the HIP but I’m not going to structure the 19
discussion anymore than that. Okay. Go ahead, Commissioner Hechtman. 20
1
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. So I have some questions that aren’t really clarifying 2
questions that I want to ask in this round and then I’ll provide comments in a subsequent 3
round. And I’m hoping that these questions help to really frame sort of the bigger picture of 4
why we’re even talking about this right now. The staff report has divided the field of changes 5
into plan changes, so those are those that are arising pretty clearly from one of the two Housing 6
Elements that we’ve adopted, 33 or 34. And then what they described as potential changes. So 7
those aren’t really spelled out in those policies but these are the building blocks that our 8
consultants have talked about that will help achieve what should be financially-feasible projects 9
that provide housing. So my first question is if the City adopted all of these potential changes in 10
addition to the plan changes and as a result, we were – I’m going to say too successful in the 11
sense that we are overrun with development applications and realize that in some ways we 12
perhaps provided too much flexibility or generous relief from the current requirements – these 13
are all ordinance-based and so we would have the opportunity to relook at this, amend the 14
ordinances, and, of course, people who had applications pending, perhaps they would benefit 15
from the prior version but moving forward we could basically tighten the flow a little bit. That 16
would be normal process. I want to make that there’s no reason that that wouldn’t be occurring 17
with these ordinance changes we’re contemplating. 18
19
Jonathan Lait: So yes. Based on current State law, I believe that is correct. That if we found that 1
we were given that scenario that you described, we would have the ability to reevaluate that 2
but let me check in with Albert Yang to see if he has a different perspective on that. 3
4
Albert Yang: That’s exactly right. 5
6
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. Thank you. The second question – if we only make the plan 7
changes and none of the potential changes, what are the prospects of Palo Alto making 8
substantial progress toward our RHNA housing numbers in the sixth cycle based upon these 9
revised City regulations that would include the plan changes and the State law vehicles 10
described in the staff report. 11
12
Jonathan Lait: So are you asking if the AHIP, which is more prescriptive, were to go forward but 13
the HIP, which is less prescriptive, did not go forward? 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: No. As I’m reading the staff report, there are some plan changes for 16
the AHIP and some plan changes for HIP. 17
18
Jonathan Lait: Yeah. 1
2
Commissioner Hechtman: So we go ahead and we make those changes but none of the other 3
potential changes. So we just make the plan changes but don’t do all the other things that the 4
consultants have talked about. So now we have those two vehicles available for applicants to 5
potentially apply for or they can use one of the three State law vehicles, the SB 330, the 35, the 6
State Density Bonus Law. So I’m trying to sense if that is the envelope of possibilities, how 7
realistic is it that we’re going to see significant development here in the sixth cycle to move us 8
toward our RHNA numbers? 9
10
Jennifer Armer: So I can get started and then Jeannie may have something to add as well. The 11
categories of changes – there are certain things that are pretty explicit in the Housing Element 12
and so it’s pretty straightforward to go ahead and bring those forward to you for consideration 13
and moving forward with them. There’s another category of changes, which we still do need to 14
make some changes. There is that commitment in the Housing Element and it is part of, beyond 15
the RHNA, the providing additional housing throughout the city. And those are the ones where 16
it’s not as explicit, which is why we had to do this additional study. It’s listed as potential 17
because the exact components that we will move forward with are not yet explicitly defined. 18
But there is still a commitment to make some changes. And then Jeannie, if you wanted to add 19
anything to that. 20
1
Jean Eisberg: No. That was a great explanation. Thank you. 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: Maybe let me ask it a different way. If we make the minimal changes 4
that we can make to our existing regulations consistent with these new policies that are in our 5
Housing Element, what’s the likelihood that we’re going to make substantial progress over the 6
next six years, the rest of this cycle, toward our housing goals? Or are we really binding 7
ourselves to something that’s not a lot better than we’ve seen used − the HIP and AHIP already 8
used in the last few years? 9
10
Jonathan Lait: I want to distinguish, again, HIP and AHIP from RHNA, which is our housing target 11
goals. We have planned for those numbers, and in that regard, if we adopt the HIP or not, we’d 12
still have – that wouldn’t affect sort of our RHNA numbers. But it does have consequences for 13
Housing Element implementation and HCD would likely find us not compliant with the Housing 14
Element if we did not proceed with HIP standards. S-, that’s – so that’s one component of that. 15
If we make the minimum changes and when you say minimum changes, I’m thinking that’s the 16
prescriptive language that is in the Housing Element for AHIP and it is the package of suggested 17
changes that is before the PTC for discussion tonight. That package of options. If that were to 18
move forward, then – and that might be the crust of the question that we’re trying to 19
understand here. Then I think we’re in compliance and our housing production we would 1
expect to be increased – the potential for housing production. I don’t think we have a number… 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. 4
5
Jonathan Lait: …associated with that but it would also make up for any deficiencies that there 6
may be in the order – in the ordinary course of development that where our housing 7
opportunity sites aren’t developed as planned. 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 10
11
Jennifer Armer: And just – I think part of what you were talking about may have tied to the final 12
three slides that the consultants shared during their presentation. Where they had two slides; 13
one about AHIP and one about HIP, which were the pretty prescriptive items. They were pretty 14
straightforward to move forward with. And then a third slide, the final slide that had a list of 15
these different modifications to the development standards. And so I would not call those first 16
two the minimum. I think based on the study that’s been done, we do need to also consider 17
some additional changes of what is listed on that third slide, that proceeding without making 18
some of those modifications, as the Director was saying, would likely find us not in compliance 19
with our Housing Element in terms of implementation. And so then the discussion tonight can 1
be if there are some of those items in that final package that are of significant concern, we can 2
talk about if there are adjustments that could be made to that while still being compliant with 3
the Housing Element. 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. And I’m supportive of that last page bullet list. What I’m really 6
trying to frame this conversation with is what happens if we are too conservative. Because if 7
over the next years – six years, we build a thousand units using the AHIP, even though that’s – 8
those aren’t on opportunity sites, they still reduce our remaining RHNA balance. So that’s good. 9
So what I was really trying to set up is I think we need to use the work that’s been done here to 10
set us up to succeed and set us up to come closer to those RHNA numbers even on the non-11
opportunity sites because there are consequences when we get to the end of the cycle if we are 12
deficient. 13
14
Jonathan Lait: I would argue there are consequences before we get to the end of the… 15
16
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. 17
18
Jonathan Lait: …cycle if we do not implement the Housing Incentive program. 19
1
Commissioner Hechtman: Right. And that was the point you were making is we’re going to get 2
in hot water with the HCD much earlier than six years from now if we don’t take enough of 3
these steps… 4
5
Commissioner Summa: Two years now. 6
7
Chair Chang: I know. 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: …to have what they feel is a State law compliant plan to go forward. 10
11
Jonathan Lait: Yes. And I think from their perspective, it’s implementing the Housing Incentive 12
program and from our perspective, it is trying to find the right balance… 13
14
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. 15
16
Jonathan Lait: …of development standards that we want to – the levers that we want to adjust 1
to make sure that the development is consistent with sort of our interests and while still 2
allowing for a feasible development [inaudible 114:58]. 3
4
Commissioner Hechtman: Right. Very helpful. Thank you. 5
6
Chair Chang: Commissioner Akin. 7
8
Commissioner Akin: Thank you, Chair. I’m struggling with whether to get on into the details to 9
start with or to hit the general points first. I think maybe I’ll do the details because they’ll be 10
easier to work through. The iterative process that the consultants went through, I think, 11
probably gave them a good sense of the interactions between these modifications and how 12
important each one was. But for those of us working from the final product, it is really difficult 13
to understand that because the prototypes don’t apply the modifications systematically, so 14
there’s no way to work back. A good example of this is take a look at Site F, which is the RM 40, 15
where the no-parking option actually yields fewer units than the limited parking option. So you 16
want to know what else changed there and why wasn’t the same pattern followed for the two 17
projects. And that’s just exactly the opposite of what you’d expect in a real-world project. 18
Choosing prototypes of this kind is a design of experiments problem for those of you have 19
studied that at some point in school. And there are ways to do this methodically. And so if we 20
have to do this sort of project again, it might be nice to look into that. That way we can get 1
some results that we can more easily work back from. Since each of the modifications we’re 2
talking about has a quality of life cost compared to what we have today, one approach that you 3
could have taken would be to say what’s the minimum set of changes of modifications we need 4
to make a financially feasible project possible on each of these test sites? On every one of these 5
test sites. And that would get you a different set of answers than we’re looking at today. And I 6
don’t have a good sense for how it would vary. So that leaves me a little unsettled. But I 7
decided to do what I could to make a stab at that. So I worked through all the prototypes and 8
counted the proposed modifications that were actually used. And the big three, no surprise. 9
Parking reduction is number one. Reducing setbacks is number two. And increasing the height 10
limit is number three. So it’s pretty clear that no matter what we do, those are going to be 11
supported because they need to be. The others, there’s a lot more debate about because of the 12
concern about interaction and particularly how that might have been affected by the choice of 13
the small properties for test sites. I can’t draw any more conclusions about that but I did want 14
to make two closing comments on this subject. One is about maximum residential density. We 15
might have to let that go. I accept that. But if I had a choice, I prefer to keep it because it is one 16
of the few standards we have that actually encourages family-sized units. By not building too 17
many too small, we have the opportunity to encourage projects that have some that are large 18
enough for families. So I’m reluctant to let that one go. And touching finally on the small lot 19
effect. This is outside our purview but it might be worth staff putting on the list. We might want 20
to think more about incentivizing lot consolidation to get larger lots. In which case, all of the 21
modifications that we’re talking about would be more effective. Okay. That’s all for this round. 1
I’ll have more on the next. 2
3
Chair Chang: Commissioner Reckdahl. Or… 4
5
Female: [Vice 119:27]. 6
7
Chair Chang: Vice-Chair Reckdahl. 8
9
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: That’s fine. I’m still a Commissioner. Yes. Can you pull up the last slide? 10
Twenty-nine there. That’s just the list of all the different options. And how does this compare to 11
our PHC experience? What are people asking PHC compared to this list? And I don’t know if 12
Jonathan knows that off the top of your head. 13
14
Jonathan Lait: So I don’t know that we’ve got a documented comparison of PHC applications to 15
this list but we do know that those applications routinely ask for increased height, increased 16
FAR, changes to dwelling units, and as Commissioner Akin noted, those are the ones that 17
always come up. Parking was – are frequently asked for as for reductions. And we do typically 18
see setbacks and [lot coverage 120:39] in daylight plane. So I’d say most of these are 1
incorporated into that. These are very similar to, looking at this list on Slide 29, at least 1 2
through 6 tend to be – and 7 tend to be pretty consistent with variations of what we would see 3
on PHC application. 4
5
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Okay. This is a question for Mr. Bretz. So which of these has the biggest 6
partial derivative? Which is the biggest bang for the buck or are they all interrelated and there 7
aren’t – they all affect feasibility. 8
9
Tim Bretz: They really are all interrelated. I want to point out again we’re working with pretty 10
small sites here. And so what’s going to drive value is more units – more income-producing 11
units that you can get on the site, so changing parking may allow you to get an additional unit 12
or changing the height definitely allows you to get more units. And so they all sort of work 13
interchangeably in order to figure out like how do you actually get another income pro- or more 14
income-producing uses on these sites. 15
16
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Okay. So what I’m looking at like – [inaudible 122:03] the Packet Page 66, 17
which has all the proposed zoning prototypes. 18
19
Tim Bretz: Right. Yeah. 1
2
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: And so on each of these, were there multiple parameters that kind of 3
maxed out? So, for example, if you look at the – they list the FAR across the board. If I want to 4
make this more feasible, what am I bumping up against? 5
6
Tim Bretz: Let me get to that. So for each of the prototypes, a number of the development 7
standards were changed. We didn’t change just one. Like we didn’t just change parking in one 8
or density in one. They’re all – the productions were designed with multiple changes made. And 9
so it was – and Jane, I don’t know if you want to jump in on sort of how that process plays out. 10
11
Jane Lin: Yeah. So some of the assumptions really have to do with constructability or the way 12
people typically build the units and just thinking about all the different design possibilities that 13
make those units more efficient. And so in some cases, just trying to think about how even – I 14
mean we laid out just some very basic internal circulation even just to get a sense of if you’re 15
really trying to design this without completely designing it like what is the most logical thing 16
you could do within the development envelope. And I think when you do that, there’s quite a 17
lot of like trying to figure out – okay. Whether or not you’re being efficient with the structure, 18
with thinking about how the parking works. And so those kinds of things are factored in. 19
They’re much more architectural and whenever it’s possible, I – when you’re thinking about the 20
development envelope, the one that really is very limiting is the daylight plane because they 1
can see this angle and that one is the hardest one to work around. And it makes sense for 2
adjacency for sure. It just has a huge impact in some cases. It impacts projects from two 3
different sides and so that’s one where it really is very limiting. But the other is just trying to 4
figure out in some cases if you could get one more level and then we kind of see where the FAR 5
comes – what it comes to. Or if you’re trying to just figure out if you’re able to get another unit 6
in a logical manner. There is a little bit of working back and forth. It’s seeing what the FAR is 7
now for existing standards and then also really checking to see if you’re able to increase it, then 8
what that becomes. So there’s a lot of back and forth. And – yeah. 9
10
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: But for example, if I look at Site C, it only has a FAR of .94. And that seems 11
kind of low if we’re trying to really make this as feasible as possible. So we must have been 12
bumping against something else on that design. And you think that was circulation or what do 13
you – I’m not sure if you know these sites off the top of your head. 14
15
Jane Lin: I do but sometimes these really specific numbers – I’ll try to track it back but… 16
17
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Okay. 18
19
Jane Lin: …this is – yeah. 1
2
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: If you don’t know, that’s fine. I was just kind of poking at this. 3
4
Jean Eisberg: One of the reasons you see the variation is that it was different standards for 5
different districts. So sometimes we were not able to fill out the development envelope 6
because we bumped up against the FAR or the density. We typically were able to achieve the 7
height but not always. So you do see variation across the different districts about [inaudible 8
126:04]. What was catching us in terms of not being able to fill out that envelope. 9
10
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Yeah. And knowing what – on this particular one, what was limiting that 11
might be useful to understand if you’re trying to get more production out of the CC(2) zone, 12
what other things you want to consider. 13
14
Jane Lin: Okay. I finally found it and if you want to see − I am such a more visual person. Packet 15
Page 43 has – just through the layouts, you can see all the – you can see how the site works. 16
And this one happens to be – it happens to have retail as part of it and so retail doesn’t – I 17
mean the FAR for retail and the parking associated is perhaps impacting that. And I think that 18
might be it. So retail makes it a little bit more complicated. So that’s my first reaction off of 1
that. 2
3
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: The retail makes it complicated because you’re losing space or there’s 4
some design customization that’s required when you have retail in building? 5
6
Jane Lin: Well I think the .9 FAR had to do with commercial retail with existing commercial 7
requirements, which was quite a large requirement. And it… 8
9
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Oh. 10
11
Jane Lin: …meant that the ramp like – and it also required under like – it required so much 12
parking on site, it required underground parking. And so I think basically the .9 FAR really has to 13
do with the impact of the retail requirements there but… 14
15
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Is that… 16
17
Jane Lin: …when I look at the… 1
2
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: …point 94 – is that the amount of residential floor area or is it the amount 3
of total floor area? 4
5
Jane Lin: I think it was − .9 was the commercial FAR, not the overall. So the overall for that was 6
1.4. 7
8
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Okay. Another question for Mr. Bretz is in the indirect costs. When I look 9
at this, it’s varying from like 39 percent up to 48 percent. Is labor considered indirect costs? 10
11
Tim Bretz: So the indirect costs are their architectural engineering − and we split it up into 12
various categories. So it’s architectural engineering and consulting permits and fees. The 13
affordable housing in-lieu fee is included in indirect costs and we have taxes, insurance, legal, 14
and accounting costs, marketing costs, development management fee, and an indirect cost 15
contingency allowance. So those all combined plus financing are included in that line item. 16
17
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Okay. 18
1
Tim Bretz: And… 2
3
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: So labor is under direct costs then? 4
5
Tim Bretz: Yeah. Labor – like your typical labor will be included in the direct – the shell cost of 6
the construction of the building. We have a contractor allowance on this individual pro forma. 7
8
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Okay. And so is there a quick answer of why – what’s the difference 9
between 39 and 48 percent? Is it just this – you have some economies of scale in the larger 10
project? 11
12
Tim Bretz: Yeah, there’s likely economies of scale. Again, it might be the affordable housing in-13
lieu fee. Let me look and see. 14
15
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Okay. 16
17
Tim Bretz: What page are you on? 1
2
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Sixty-six. 3
4
Tim Bretz: Okay. Yeah. So I think in this one, it looks like it is – it’s probably related to the 5
architectural engineering and consulting costs. We vary that between the townhome and the 6
apartment projects and then also how the economy of scales are achieved. 7
8
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Okay. And one last question. One of the concerns in the Housing Element 9
was that we – there’s a tendency to go to micro units and we wanted to make sure that we had 10
various different types of designs. And so there’s a program that exempts floor area if you have 11
three or more bedrooms. So the bed – the extra bedrooms don’t add to your floor area ratio. 12
But now if you’re doing this and we’re relaxing the floor area ratio, does this make that 13
program less effective? 14
15
Jonathan Lait: We haven’t developed any implementing or proposed any implementing 16
regulations for that program at… 17
18
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Yeah. 1
2
Jonathan Lait: …this moment, so… 3
4
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Yeah. 5
6
Jonathan Lait: …I don’t know that we’ve… 7
8
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Well but just that concept. The program was just to evaluate whether that 9
could be used to encourage – and Commissioner Akin brought up the point that you have – one 10
of our – if we get away from the maximum density, we may end up with a whole bunch of 11
micro units because that will be more profitable. And so this would be one other way − or say, 12
“Well if we’re going to get rid of the maximum density, what other knobs do we have to 13
encourage large units?” And that – this program and the Housing Element would be one knob 14
that perhaps would encourage larger units but now if we are relaxing the FAR requirements, 15
now maybe they don’t need the [inaudible 131:34] and so they – they’ll say I’d rather have two 16
bedrooms as opposed to a four bedroom. [I don’t know 131:40]. Does that make sense? 17
18
Jonathan Lait: It does. And I don’t know, Ms. Eisberg, if you have some response to that. 1
Otherwise, we can take that comment and give some… 2
3
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Yeah. 4
5
Jonathan Lait: …thought to it. 6
7
Jean Eisberg: I would say in general it would be a bit of a gift. So let’s say you achieve the 2.5 8
FAR and then you get an exemption for additional FAR for the three plus bedroom units. I 9
would say with the exception of maybe a developer choosing to do a townhome project – and I 10
know the Housing Element calls for increases in minimum densities to avoid that. Developers 11
do frequently want to do more until they hit the end of a certain construction type. So the 12
models that Jane has showed are really about wood construction over a concrete podium. And 13
at some point after the five stories of wood construction, we kind of max out that typology. But 14
we – hopefully that helps a little bit. 15
16
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Yeah. 17
18
Jane Eisberg: It could be a gift but we… 1
2
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: It depends… 3
4
Jane Eisberg: There’s a [inaudible 132:40]. 5
6
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Yeah. In some cases if you have some extra room, you might use it; 7
otherwise, in general, you might not. Okay. But just – I do have a concern if there’s any other 8
knobs that we can think of to increase the likelihood of having larger units, I think that’d be a 9
good thing. I don’t want to be building micro units only; I want a variety. Okay. Thank you. 10
11
Chair Chang: Commissioner Summa. 12
13
Commissioner Summa: So thank you for this report. I have to say I was very interested in 14
Commissioner Akin’s original – his initial comment, which sort of said, yes, it – at first glance, 15
this report provided a lot of data but you couldn’t quite see how the conclusions were arrived 16
at. And that was something I felt too. At a very high level – and there was a lot of work done 17
here, so I really appreciate it. But at a very high level, what this – the outcome of this will be to 18
concentrate dense housing where we already have dense housing with the exception of where 1
we’re really changing ROLM to housing in certain locations in the city. And the reduction – the 2
way to get there is by reducing development standards for people living in the new housing. 3
But it will also reduce the development standards for people living closest to the new housing 4
and – or what’s being proposed. It will also eliminate retail and parking options. And we’ve had 5
projects come in where they could have less parking and they’ve wanted to do very big condo 6
projects and they wanted them to be fully parked. And we’ve also seen fewer − they haven’t 7
come to us yet but we’ve seen some preliminary proposals for really under-parked by our 8
current standards and very small micro units. So to me, I guess – I guess what was missing for 9
me and I don’t mean this to sound flippant at all – but was the – because the profit is directly 10
tied to reducing the quality of life for our future and current residents. And that’s troubling to 11
me but I guess I was hoping to see an evaluation that also included sort of the lowest profit that 12
would still attract development because that would be associated with the least diminished 13
development standards for quality of life. And I think it’s Packet Page – I have to find it now. But 14
– it’s Packet Page 20 at the top. No, this isn’t it. Anyway, it was about this change in setbacks 15
and it was – suggests – oh, no. It’s Packet Page 22 at the top. Once again, we have transition 16
areas that are greatly reduced except we’re going to retain them where zones [abut 136:13]. R1 17
− I really feel that should read low-density residential zones. R1 keeps sneaking in as being the 18
only one we were going to protect this way and I find that troubling and we’ve – I think it might 19
just be kind of a little bit of not thinking. So I’d like to see that reflect what minimum 20
protections we might come out with in the end. I would like to see that reflected for – changed 21
to reflect our concern about all low-density residential zones. So – and I’m – I am also worried 22
about getting all micro units but I’m also worried about developers want to – wanting to just 1
have all very big, very expensive condo projects. So – and I think we kind of have seen both. So 2
I’d be – and then when it comes to being consistent with AFFH, I’m not really con-, sure how 3
it’s consistent when, as I said with the exception of new neighborhoods, where we had no – we 4
didn’t have residential uses before. All the density is exactly where it is. And I’m not suggesting 5
we put it in other places in the city but − where it would be unwanted because I don’t – that 6
isn’t my goal. But I think it’s pretty impactful the way it’s being suggested and – but we may 7
have to do some of these things as it – I don’t know. As we contemplate this more – oh. Plus I 8
think also if we’re going to raise the height in certain areas between 5, which is insignificant to 9
me, and 23 feet, we have to also add on another 33 feet that State law would add to the 23. 10
No? The director is shaking his head, so… 11
12
Jonathan Lait: These are – this is an alternative to the State Density Bonus, which is why we’re 13
proposing… 14
15
Commissioner Summa: Well if… 16
17
Jonathan Lait: …[inaudible 138:14] standards. 18
19
Commissioner Summa: Yeah. If they were to use it, I – it’s very hard – somebody mentioned 1
this. I can’t remember who. But it’s hard to – oh. I – it was Commissioner Lu. It is hard for me 2
to kind of look at these and think they’re going to be more attractive in most cases in the State 3
Density Bonus Law, which has no end of waivers that you can have. So those are my initial 4
comments. Thank you. 5
6
Chair Chang: Commissioner Lu. 7
8
Commissioner Lu: Thank you. I’ll just mainly focus my comments on like one discussion topic 9
about streamlining for this round. But firstly, I did want to say that I’m really excited to work on 10
this. I think it addresses some of the wonkiness in the Housing Element like I – in the past, I’ve 11
taken issue with how in the Ventura neighborhood, we have one Housing Element site that is, I 12
believe, the Chevron. But then 1½ blocks away, the Shell is not a Housing Element opportunity 13
site. And I think by really strengthening these measures, we have more consistency and 14
predictability and an option to develop neighborhoods in corridors more than some of the lot- 15
by-lot zoning previously offered. On my main discussion topic right now, I’m curious about any 16
other consideration about streamlining both for the HIP and for the AHIP. And one reference 17
point that I have like prominently in top of my head is Executive Directive 1 in Los Angeles. If 18
you’re fam-, if anyone here is familiar with that, I think that’s gotten a lot of positive attention 19
about how – by giving a 60-day [inaudible 140:04] for approvals that there were, I think, in the 20
ballpark of 18,000, one hundred percent affordable at 80 percent affordability requirements − 1
units proposed by privately-funded developers. And to me that seems like an amazing success. 2
That like maybe we can’t get to such aggressive levels of streamlining but something that we 3
should look at and something that could really reduce those indirect and soft costs in our 4
analysis. So I want to get some reactions to that, maybe from Mr. Bretz. Like how much can we 5
move the needle with streamlining for some of these costs and – yeah. Like is that a viable 6
alternative to some of the other physical site changes that we’ve been discussing? 7
8
Tim Bretz: I don’t know if you’re going to achieve like specific cost reductions enough to 9
overcome like adding an extra floor or reducing parking standards or that. But I will say that 10
developers like – really like – love certainty. And so if they know that they can go through a 11
streamlined process and get – enter the application on day one and get out of it on day 100 and 12
they know all the milestones in the meantime, that gives them a lot more certainty. And that 13
sort of – it’s like a sort of non-cost but like a – it helps them with their development process in 14
general. So I do think that you would achieve some – you’ll definitely achieve some sort of 15
carrying costs, some architectural engineering costs but the idea of certainty would be very 16
beneficial for developers. 17
18
Commissioner Lu: Okay. Thank you. 19
20
Tim Bretz: Does that… 1
2
Commissioner Lu: Yeah. 3
4
Tim Bretz: It’s like – it will be hard to quantify exactly like what does a streamlined process take 5
versus a non-streamlined process take. Do you – you could take out a few months for land 6
carrying costs? But really I think the certainty that developers will gain will be the bigger 7
benefit. 8
9
Commissioner Lu: Okay. I’m curious, Ms. Eisberg or Director Lait, how we can think about more 10
aggressive streamlining, maybe committing to some of the like 60 day deadlines for ARB review 11
or some of the other things that we strive for and actually publicizing those. Like could that be 12
something that we bring back next time we look at the HIP and AHIP? 13
14
Jonathan Lait: So I’ll – Commissioner Lu, thank you for that. I do think we actually have some 15
significant streamlining initiatives that we have already embedded into it. And I think the 16
distinction may be between what we’ve done and what you’re asking for is having some 17
codified mandate to process something within 60 days. And I don’t believe that we are – I 18
would want to study more about the workload implications about that should we start seeing a 19
increase in housing applications, which we are expecting. We have committed to and we have 1
already implemented a number of measures. We’ve – we have talked about housing projects 2
being exempt from an architectural review subject only to one courtesy review and we would 3
process that again quickly. For projects that are subject to architectural review, we’ve 4
committed in the Housing Element and we have already implemented reviewing projects within 5
45 to 60 days. We have a stated goal to process applications within 90 days after a 6
development application has been deemed complete. So these are specific numbers that we’ve 7
identified to help streamline our efforts, and I believe in that context, it’s similar to ED1 where 8
they’ve identified streamline review initiatives. I don’t know if they’ve codified them or if it was 9
just part of a broader policy but we too have identified policy objectives in that regard. So yeah 10
– so I guess if there’s more specific recommendations on streamlining, we’re happy to 11
understand what those are. But I would say with respect to HIP, we’re really looking at 12
development standards as a – in this context to see how we could respond to the Housing 13
Element on the HIPs, which is again development standard focused and not streamlining 14
focused. 15
16
Commissioner Lu: Yeah. And I totally understand our existing efforts on streamlining and I’m 17
not saying that 60 days is a magic number for us for any specific milestone. I think if we do 18
believe that ED1 has been effective or like the principles of really aggressive streamlining have 19
been effective, I see that as one potential option to explore that doesn’t compromise some of 20
our other like physical standards. I’ll leave this here though and would be curious if any other 21
Commission members have thoughts about streamlining and whether that’s a lever we’d want 1
to explore more before that comes back to us. So − thank you. 2
3
Chair Chang: Seeing no other lights right now, I’d like to comment. And I’ll start with where 4
Commissioner Lu ended. So I guess my question is is this a problem that even needs solving? In 5
other words, how long do we typically take to respond to – how long does it take to turn 6
something around right now? And I can see if it were four months, then maybe we should say, 7
“Okay. We want to cut that time in half or something.” But if we’re already at around that 8
amount of time or even less potentially, then maybe this is not a problem that necessarily 9
needs solving. 10
11
Jonathan Lait: I suppose it depends on who you’re asking and their experience. But I will tell you 12
that there’s a lot of variability on the applications that we process and where we get criticized 13
on how long we take is on planned home zoning applications, PC or PHC applications. And you’ll 14
notice in the Housing Element, we make no reference to planned home zoning or PC zoning 15
applications as a tool to advance our housing production objectives principally because we 16
understand that it is not an efficient tool or process to produce housing. And we’ve relied on 17
other measures, changing our baseline zoning, the Housing Incentive program, and many other 18
programs. And in those cases, those are legislative actions, which require hearings before the 19
City Council, the Planning and Transportation Commission, Architectural Review Board, back to 20
the Planning and Transportation Commission, and then on to City Council. You’re in the process 1
of reviewing one at 660 University and that’s an application that often gets sited as taking too 2
long. But a review of that record shows that the City’s time is – that is not all City time. I’ll note 3
that. Meaning that the applicant has spent time not submitting revised plans or getting 4
materials back to us. So there’s some variability in that. The – your question is is this a problem 5
to solve. I think when it comes to these objective housing projects and affordable housing 6
projects, it’s not a problem from my perspective and we also need to see more housing 7
applications coming in. So with – I think it’s something for us to continually to be mindful about 8
how long and to track this as a metric. How long is it taking us to process these applications? 9
Are we meeting our 60 − or 45 and 60-day goal? And if we’re not, then we need to look at 10
some strategies to achieve that. But at this moment, I don’t believe it’s a problem to solve. And 11
I will note Coleman Frick has noted that as a part of the HIP, we do actually have some 12
streamlining initiatives. One is that HIP would be subject to one architectural review, so that’s 13
instead of the three – up to three hearings. And we’ve also removed the director’s discretion in 14
being involved in that. And as Tim had noted, developers like predictability and so when you 15
remove that discretion out of whether you can take advantage of a certain provision, that helps 16
move the project forward as well. 17
18
Chair Chang: Thank you, Director Lait. I mean I – because we always hear about the Palo Alto 19
process but my sense is that the Palo Alto process is often on – it relates to certain projects that 20
are particularly high profile. In other words, if it weren’t particularly complex like a PHC, those 21
things kind of just get approved and there’s a lot that happens and our staff is working hard on 1
lots of more standard projects that don’t take nearly that much time. And that often – I mean 2
I’ve heard the answer from staff [inaudible 149:58] as why did something take so long. It would 3
be because it was an incomplete application or the project entirely changed because the 4
applicant changed their design. So that’s why I asked that question because it does sound like – 5
without knowing that there’s a systematic problem going on, I’m not sure that it makes sense 6
to be focusing our efforts solely on – like on streamlining. And absolutely if it takes – if it starts 7
taking too much time, then it would be lovely if we could just throw more city resources at it, 8
right? Like City Council could resource more people. And that would be lovely if we could have 9
more housing being built without relaxing other standards. But that doesn’t seem to be the 10
issue. And so thank you for saying that. So my – I wanted to comment first of all, to thank staff 11
for all their work on this and I can see how thoughtful staff was in coming up with these ideas 12
and taking into account the desire not to impact like neighboring zones too much at least. And 13
so I had a couple thoughts. If you could pull up the slide that has the nine discussion topics, that 14
might be helpful. So I think the lowest-hanging fruit on the slide is Number 8, which talks about 15
allowing downtown – the downtown housing plan in San Antonio area plan to dictate the 16
modified HIP for those areas. But one thought I had was that well sure, that makes sense. But 17
then another thought I had was that we may move much more quickly on the HIP than on the 18
downtown housing plan as well as the area plan. And so if we come up with things for the HIP, 19
maybe we adopt them for those areas as well until those areas come up with something. They 20
might decide to go further but that might be a way to help things along and speed things along. 21
I think that the areas, of course, that I was most concerned about as I looked at the rec-, some 22
of the proposals, were setbacks, daylight plane, the parking, and then there’s the first slide on 1
HIP, which was about modifying the retail requirements. So starting with the retail 2
requirements, I just really want to make sure that what’s included – like I think it does make 3
sense to modify the retail requirements. I just want to make sure that we really do have robust 4
nodes along El Camino, particularly because we want to put in more housing there and 5
particularly because we don’t want to increase congestion and we want to have services within 6
15 minutes of their home or walkable services. And so I’m not sure − having not looked at it, I 7
don’t know if those South El Camino Real Guidelines are good enough and that we might need 8
to kind of carve out a few more areas. So that’s really important to me. In addition, when we 9
most recently looked at retail in Palo Alto, what we saw was that the retail that was doing the 10
best in the city was what – was those retail areas like on El Camino. Like we don’t have as many 11
vacancies there. That’s the lowest vacancy rate. So what I would hate is for us to inadvertently 12
destroy some of the most successful retail in our city that serves some of the areas that are 13
served least. So that’s my first thought regarding retail. Regarding parking, I thought that the 14
public comment that was made about ensuring that there is biking – bike parking to replace the 15
car parking, is something that we should include. So in other words, if we do put any parking 16
reductions in there, then we should put some bike parking increases to go along with it. That 17
makes a lot of sense and makes it to – ensures that there’s at least somewhat of a solution. I 18
also was a little bit confused about that discussion that took place around a CC-2 park-, parcel 19
that had a retail requirement. And was it the retail parking requirements that were also putting 20
a limitation on that parcel? Yes, Mr. Bretz, maybe he has an answer on that. 21
22
Tim Bretz: I’m going to jump in and say that FAR on the CC-2 proposed project is a typo. It 1
shouldn’t be one − it shouldn’t be .94. It should be – give me one second. 2
3
Chair Chang: Thank you. It’s probably going to make a lot more sense to us. 4
5
Tim Bretz: Yeah, it will make a lot more sense than of – good job finding the one typo in the 6
175-page report. 7
8
Chair Chang: We are good at that. 9
10
Tim Bretz: I know. That’s pretty good. It should be the 3.81, what I’m getting. Oh. Wait. 11
12
Chair Chang: That’s pretty…. 13
14
Tim Bretz: Oh. Wait. Hold – wait. Yeah, 3.81. There’s also a lot of scenarios in the background 15
on this model. 16
17
Chair Chang: Okay. So I think the parking problem may in some situations kind of resolve itself 1
because as we’ve seen the market rate development seem to come fully parked. So I’m not 2
going to talk too much about that one. But the reality is that people need their cars here, so if 3
there – if we reduce parking, there will be a spillover. And there may be something that we can 4
do to address that when there’s an RPP in the area to say that these folks then are not – like if 5
we’re going to have reduced parking, that’s fine. There are people who want to live in places 6
with reduced parking but then we need to ensure that those residents are the ones who 7
actually live there. So maybe we can exclude those developments from participating in the RPPs 8
or something like that. Regarding the daylight plane, I think that that one makes sense 9
potentially but then it needs to be done in – only when the rear setback is not affected. And I 10
understand that this is a package of recommendations and I believe in the current package for 11
the most part, the rear setback is not touched. Is that right? I’m trying to look at the chart on 12
Packet Page 21. No, not Packet Page 21. Oh. Packet Page 19. So where I get − the example on 13
Packet Page 19 was only for RM 30. Where I get really concerned about the setback is we saw 14
that 10 feet wasn’t sufficient for Palo Alto Commons in Wilkie like that’s something that we just 15
seen. And so again, I think the devil in the details with this − like theoretically, maintaining the 16
daylight plane starting at a higher level could be a reasonable thing to do but I don’t fully know 17
where – like where is it that we would have a reduced set-, rear setback. If we don’t, then 18
maybe it’s not a problem. I don’t want to keep going and going but I have a lot of other 19
comments. So maybe I’ll let other people go first and then we can come back to some of my 20
other comments. Go ahead. We have Commissioner Hechtman and then Akin. 21
22
Commissioner Hechtman: So I was – I’ve been particularly appreciative of Commissioner Akin’s 1
deep dive into a lot of this material. I think he has brought forth a lot of really interesting points 2
and seen a number of things that I hadn’t. And that’s been really useful to our discussion. I liked 3
his identifying when he called the big three of these building blocks to get a financially-feasible 4
project. The things that he saw consistent across the different models that really are going to 5
need some relief, reducing setback, reducing parking and increasing height. And I agree with 6
those. I also − based on the diagrams here, it seems like the daylight plane, increasing the 7
starting height for that measurement from 10 to 16, seems like a really important one because 8
it seems like if we don’t do that, then we lose a lot of top floors or portions of top floors. The 9
max density – losing the max density – and Vice-Chair Reckdahl also commented on this. 10
There’s logic to this concern that if we do that, then we’ll just get little boxes. But when I looked 11
at the analyses, the RM for example on Packet Page 46, the RM 20, no maximum density. But 12
we go from four to seven units and we reduce the unit size from 2500 to 2341. And similarly in 13
the RM 30 on the next packet page, we’re going from four units to seven, no maximum density 14
but we’re going from 1650 to 1457. So it seems like those are unit sizes that logically 15
accommodate three bedrooms or more in the RM 20. And so I wanted to test the hypothesis 16
that no maximum density will yield micro by asking our consultants about their observations in 17
the market place. Are there places that have no maximum density and are they seeing routinely 18
developers going as small as they can to get the biggest unit count they can or are they seeing 19
something different? 20
21
Jane Lin: I think, Jeannie, if you know more − but you’re – okay. So I’m just thinking about your 1
question some more. So you’re just wondering if it’s typical that we’re starting to see micro 2
units. I always feel like for smaller units versus larger units, I feel like developers really are 3
approaching it from like who they’re trying to serve and who their clients are, though I’m not – 4
well I don’t know. We’re all kind of wondering if developers will just maximize. But I think that 5
given the market, I always – my experience is that it’s based on some understanding of who 6
they’re trying to target as far as who they sell it to. So I guess theoretically you can imagine that 7
some of – well first of all, we wanted to provide average unit sizes that had some flexibility. 8
Often when we looked at how these units fit within the development envelope, we tried not to 9
make them too small. The idea is that there’s enough flexibility for variety. And so in some 10
cases, especially where the lots are really small, we knew that this is, in our mind, competing 11
with other buildings nearby that are about that size too. So just – there’s like a way of 12
approaching it that really is about… 13
14
Jonathan Lait: Absolutely. 15
16
Jane Lin: …if we can maximize based on conservative numbers. So I don’t know, Jeannie, if you 17
have other things to add… 18
19
Jonathan Lait: I’d like to weigh in actually and note that you’re highlighting an important 1
distinction I think in the prototype of construct-, the construction type that would be used in 2
the RM zones, in particular. Where our analysis found that apartment units are less likely to be 3
constructed in those zones from a developer’s perspective because they can get a better return 4
on the for-sale units. And so that’s the prototype that makes economic sense. And so you want 5
to have a larger for-sale unit than you might a rental unit, which can then be used for – which 6
could have smaller floor area associated with it. So your point, I think, is well taken in the RM 7
zones in particular and to the extent that in the commercial zones, we start seeing more 8
apartment units, I think it’s worth exploring this concept of again the housing type as being the 9
metric at which you might see a developer seeking to increase density versus square footage 10
and number of units based on that. 11
12
Commissioner Hechtman: So – thank you. Ms. Eisberg, did you have anything you wanted to 13
add? 14
15
Jean Eisberg: Only that, as Jane expressed, it is a lot of developer’s choice about the market 16
they’re trying to reach. We do see these micro unit projects in – certainly in the City of 17
Berkeley, next to the University, in San Francisco, maybe San Jose. It’s not impossible but a lot 18
of the house – the rental housing we see tends to be a mix of units. Not so many three 19
bedrooms and I’m hearing that’s certainly an interest. But it’s – typically, there’s a mix of 1
studios and ones and twos. And so on average, I think that’s what we could expect. 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. So that’s helpful. And maybe as this goes forward a lot of these 4
different zoning categories will be different from each other. The FAR, right? We’re going to 5
change the FAR in a number of these but it won’t be uniform. They’re not all going to be the 6
same because then they wouldn’t be different zoning districts. So maybe when we’re looking at 7
whether or not there’s no max density, we need to think about whether that’s appropriate for 8
each of the zoning districts and it might be that one or more of them we don’t want that. Or 9
maybe we don’t even need that in the RM 20 and RM 30 because nobody’s going to try to build 10
tiny, little, for-sale houses in those districts. So I think that’s just something to think about as 11
you move forward. Let’s see. In terms of the concept of developer profit, it’s always interesting 12
to me when that comes up in these Planning Commission discussions. And to me, the lowest 13
profit that would attract development is the profit I can make across the street. So if I have 14
$20M and I want to build a housing project and I can make 12 percent in Mountain View or 10 15
percent in Palo Alto, I’m going to Mountain View because that’s where I’ll make more money. 16
So I think it’s − the developer profit concept is necessary in the financial feasibility. You have to 17
plug something in there but ultimately that’s not one of our regs. Right? It’s not that you have – 18
your setbacks are this, your floor area ratio is this, and your profit is this. We are going to create 19
an envelope and if it’s attractive to developers, they’ll come and fill it with housing. So I try not 20
to get too hung up on that, recognizing that this is the business, that they are profit driven and 21
if we don’t allow them the profits that they want and somebody else will, then we just won’t 1
get the housing. So then I’m going to conclude with kind of a big picture. Our goal here in what 2
we’re talking about tonight is to try to incentivize developers to use the HIP and AHIP instead of 3
the State law tools that they have available. And so we can either do that by truly incentivizing 4
them or we can kind of pay lip service to the concept and not provide enough incentive to them 5
to use HIP and AHIP, in which case, they’ll just use the State vehicles that really aggravate us 6
because we get no or next to no say. And so I’m supportive of taking steps to maintain modest 7
local control by robust incentives that would actually get developers to do things according to 8
our programs rather than a State law. So when I look at those nine bullets, I guess I don’t feel 9
competent to say we should do less of this and more of that because I don’t understand. And I 10
don’t think I can be made to understand how these all interrelate and if we reduce one, how 11
much we have to increase another one and which ones to increase. And I’m sure there are 12
many ways to do these models but I really can’t offer any – other than my general support for a 13
package that gets us where we want to go, I can’t really micro comment on the individual 14
points. But I do appreciate the micro work that this group has done , the consultants and our 15
staff, to make this really pretty comprehensible for us in all of its detail. So thank you. 16
17
Chair Chang: Commissioner Akin. 18
19
Commissioner Akin: Thank you, Chair. All right. I want to pop up to a few more general 1
concerns now. One of the reasons that we are pursuing this is we would hope to convince 2
developers to build stacked flats instead of townhouses and I decided to ask, do the prototypes 3
give us any clue as to whether we would be successful at that. And that’s a concern because, of 4
course, we’re all unhappy with what happened at the Fry site and that seems to be − something 5
similar seems to be happening again at new projects now. So in the prototypes, the closest 6
match I could find is Site D, that’s the RM 20, and Site F with the 10,000 square foot lot. That’s 7
RM 40. So the townhouses – the townhomes on Site D are more profitable than the apartments 8
on Site F even though Site D includes affordable units and Site F went with the in-lieu fees, 9
which cost a lot less to the developer. So I think what this is telling us is if you had a developer 10
who wanted to go for an RM 40, 10,000 square foot lot, they would build townhomes. So the 11
incentives that we’re providing here are still not enough to solve that problem. And I’m not 12
clear that we can solve that problem with zoning. But at any rate… 13
14
Female: Sixty-six. 15
16
Commissioner Akin: …based on what I’m seeing here, I think we still have an issue that we 17
might not have hit that target. So… 18
19
Jonathan Lait: Can I comment maybe on that? Just… 20
1
Commissioner Akin: Please. Yeah. 2
3
Jonathan Lait: So – and I would ask Jean Eisberg to join in on that but I think you’re right. I mean 4
that’s kind of how we see the Housing Incentive program playing out. That in the multifamily 5
zones and the residential districts that are near it − also nearest some of our R1 zoning or low -6
density zoning, the standards tend to support more townhome-style development. And that’s 7
somewhat intentional here because to get to apartment-sized units on these lots would require 8
greater development concessions in order to make that financially feasible. And operationally, 9
it’s my understanding that individuals developing lots with few units, it’s harder to manage a 10
smaller number of apartment units than a larger apartment building. That there’s some 11
element of scale there as to why somebody wouldn’t go down that path. So that is feedback 12
that would be helpful to learn from the PTC if there is an interest in creating an opportunity in 13
the RM zones, in particular, for stacked flats. I’m not sure this plan of this package lends itself to 14
that but if that is the interest, that’s feedback that would be helpful to us. Ms. Eisberg, anything 15
else you want to add to that? 16
17
Jean Eisberg: Yeah, I think some of this relates to the size of the sites. So on those smaller sites, 18
it is difficult to switch to the stacked flats and it’s especially about fitting the parking. So when 19
we were looking at that example of the ramp to get to underground parking, you use so much 20
space in terms of drive aisles for parking. And so the small sites, getting them to park is very, 1
very difficult. And that’s why we did some sensitivity testing in those RM 40 examples of a 2
limited-parking scenario or the no-parking scenario because suddenly you eliminate that 3
driveway and that drive aisle. I think there could be a place for moving from townhomes to 4
stacked flats in some of the larger RM sites but on the smaller ones, it is challenging. 5
6
Commissioner Akin: Right. I – now you’ve tweaked my curiosity. So why did we see the unit 7
yield on the RM 45,000 square foot site being higher for the limited-parking case than for the 8
no-parking case? 9
10
Jean Eisberg: I’ll have to look at it but we did look at a 5,000 square foot lot and a 10,000 square 11
foot lot, so I want to make sure we’re not comparing the two. 12
13
Commissioner Akin: It’s the two 5,000 foot options. 14
15
Jane Lin: Yeah. I see it now and what – okay. So what it’s showing for the 10,000 square foot lot 16
– both of them show a podium. And for the 5,000 square foot lot, it shows four stories above 17
that. It’s like ideal for wood construction. And actually what we tested – and now I’m having a 18
hard time remembering it – why – remembering why. But it only has three stories above the 19
podium for the 10,000 square foot lot. I have a feeling when we were looking at this, we may 1
have been considering something else about that. Oh. You know what it was? It’s because on 2
the ground floor, there’s only so much space and in order to meet the parking ratio, we actually 3
used mechanical lifts to stack it and that is just the maximum you could get for the units for 4
that. So it really is – while there seems like there’s – the parking – there is more parking. 5
They’re just in different configurations. So I hope that makes sense. 6
7
Commissioner Akin: Oh. It’s not the parking quantity that’s the odd thing. It’s the residential 8
unit quantity that’s the odd thing. You have both more parking and more residential units, so 9
why doesn’t the other option have less parking and more residential units? 10
11
Jean Eisberg: Can you clarify which packet page you’re looking at? 12
13
Commissioner Akin: Sure. I believe it’s 66. 14
15
Chair Chang: Sixty-six. 16
17
Commissioner Akin: I’d have to check. 18
1
Chair Chang: Sixty-six. 2
3
Male: Yeah. 4
5
Jean Eisberg: Sixty-six on the pro forma. You’re looking at the pro forma model. 6
7
Commissioner Akin: I’m looking at Packet Page 66, the Site F, on the right-hand side. 8
9
Jean Eisberg: Okay. 10
11
Commissioner Akin: No parking, 5,000 square feet, eight units. Limited parking, 5,000 square 12
feet, twelve units, and they’re bigger. 13
14
Commissioner Lu: And just to confirm does this also correspond to Packet Page 50 and 49 in 15
terms of the actual designs? Because the numbers there actually appear to be different. 16
1
Jean Eisberg: I think that’s – no. Okay. Sorry. Just going to have to look a little bit longer. 2
3
Commissioner Akin: Okay. I believe that there is a design for Site F, 5,000 square feet, no 4
parking that yields eight units. But this is the point that I was making earlier – was that the 5
combination of modifications that you apply is not systematic enough to derive the rationale 6
for these numbers. So I don’t want to go back to that. I’ve already made that point. But the last 7
point I wanted to make in this round is about what we’re getting for this. And I guess this ties 8
into what I didn’t understand previously about townhomes being okay in RM zones. So I 9
checked apartments.com for current Palo Alto lease rates and unit sizes. So I’m only looking at 10
rentals here. Not looking at for-sale units. So all of the prototypes, all of them, are getting us 11
units that are more expensive than current Palo Alto averages. And the sizes of the units are 12
not all documented as far as I could tell in our packet. But for the ones that are, they’re also 13
smaller than the average. So what we’re getting out of this is smaller, more expensive units 14
than the average that already exists in Palo Alto. Furthermore, thanks to the really excellent 15
KMA report, you can look at comparables nearby and same is true in Mountain View, for 16
example. So it’s consistent. The numbers are believable. But to get this sort of disappointing 17
result, we also have to give up some quality of life, that the people in these new units have less 18
daylight, they have less easily-accessible green space, maybe less green space all together, but 19
certainly not on the ground floor. And if front setbacks go to zero, then we have less public 20
space on the streetside too. Parking, who knows? My guess is that we will have some number 21
of people who want to park in nearby streets and neighborhoods and so we’ll have intrusion 1
that we’ll have to deal with. And that means an enforcement problem long term. So – yeah. We 2
can use residential preferential parking programs and we should. It’s a shame that SB 834 died 3
this year because it would have prevented AB 2097 areas from using RPPs. But as I’ve said 4
previously, we should still do that sort of thing locally to make sure that we’re achieving the 5
sustainability goal we’re setting with reduced parking. And that is to make absolutely sure 6
people are not using cars. Yeah, I guess that’s the end of the cautionary tale there. That we just 7
need to be aware of what we’re getting as we relax the standards. Thank you. 8
9
Chair Chang: Okay. Since there’s no other lights right now, I will go. So I had some questions 10
about the heights. So when I look at Packet Page − I think it’s 19. Nope, it’s not 19. Twenty-one. 11
There’s a table there. So most of the – I could sort of understand the rationale for the height 12
changes in most cases. But I was a little bit confused why we wouldn’t have a height increase 13
for ROLM because it seems like it would be just strange to have − some places have a 35 foot 14
height and then right next to it, potentially like a 60 foot – well maybe not right next to it 15
because there’s a focus area but then right next to it, the 35, so – just because it’s an 16
opportunity site. So that seemed a little bit strange to me. It seems like an opportunity 17
potentially. Then I was a little bit more concerned about increasing the height for RM 20. And 18
again, the reason why I’m interested – I’m concerned for RM 20 is because of the potentially 19
low-density housing right next to it. So I think we just need to think about that particularly – like 20
I just – having seen the impact of the Palo Alto – of the potential impact of the Palo Alto 21
Commons project on the Wilkie Way neighbors, that’s like a very concrete example of where 1
setbacks, height, and daylight plane had a pretty – have a pretty negative impact on those 2
houses. I think that for many areas, it’s probably absolutely fine. I’m just trying to avoid that 3
scenario, so that’s my feedback. Similarly, with respect to the front side setbacks, I think that 4
it’s hard to tell like what the front side setback is right now and when we propose reducing it, 5
how much we would be reducing it − so I think I just don’t really understand the implications 6
necessarily. And in particular my concern for the setbacks is really from a planning perspective. 7
So I would hope that our – any of the special setbacks that we have throughout the city would 8
not be changed because of this. Those special setbacks are there for planning reasons because 9
we might need a bike lane or might need – we might want to widen the sidewalk. So for 10
example, I think about University, and how it looks right now and how it could be pretty 11
amazing if we fixed things up. I was just in downtown Burlinggame and – I mean it’s – 12
downtown Burlinggame is amazing. They have very few retail vacancies. It’s all vibrant. But they 13
have this really wide walkway. And so what I would hate is for any of our HIP plans to prevent 14
something like that from happening on a major thoroughfare. On kind of average streets, 15
maybe it’s no problem but where we have special setbacks or maybe in certain sections of El 16
Camino, on a node, or maybe – I don’t know where all these are but we don’t want to just have 17
a concrete jungle. And I don’t want to inadvertently remove the potential for walkability. So I 18
think that’s about it for my comments. Are there other Commissioners who have thoughts? 19
Other than that, I mean I really thought that Commissioner Hechtman’s point about we need to 20
make this attractive enough so that the development goes where we want it to go and it’s not – 21
if we can nudge people towards things that we want as opposed to using Density Bonus, that’s 1
a good thing. So – Commissioner Summa. 2
3
Commissioner Summa: Yeah. I don’t want to repeat everything that my colleagues have just 4
said but I would associate my concerns with the things that the Chair just mentioned and 5
Commissioner Akin and – a particular concern to me is the nodes along El Camino. 6
Commissioner – Chair Chang already mentioned that that was one of our – that was our lowest 7
vacancy rate along retail in the city, so – but what we do have – anecdotally, I have observed 8
vacant in – on El Camino, south of Page Mill is office. And that sort of sprung up there or was 9
grandfathered in there where it was supposed to be retail. So that may be – we may want to 10
look at that existing natural pattern of where we have vacancy now in office there and see if 11
that corresponds to where the nodes were placed. I kind of – I worry about that. So – and I 12
really worry about the setbacks and daylight plane being adequate only on that first block 13
where we have zones abutting. So interior to the zone, I don’t think it’s necessarily as dramatic 14
a problem but I think it really will be for people right on the – where the zones abut. And I sort 15
of agree with that the market will want to provide both larger units that are very expensive and 16
small units that are very expensive for [inaudible 186:34] square foot. So I think I’ll leave it 17
there. Thank you. 18
19
Chair Chang: Commissioner Lu. 20
1
Commissioner Lu: Yeah. I want to generally echo Commissioner Hechtman’s comments that I 2
personally don’t feel qualified to pick between the specific options presented in that final slide 3
but that I do care about getting something that’s workable. I’ll also note that I understand 4
arguments about quality of life but I think in most cases, these units would kind of be an 5
evolution on what is already here and not necessarily so different from the kinds of projects 6
that have been previously approved in like PC, PHC, or just otherwise planned within the city. 7
And while new construction is expensive, we do get affordable housing or in-lieu fees out of 8
this as well. I guess I wanted to step back a little bit also. For the purposes of this study session, 9
do we need clear steers in terms of which of the potential options we should specifically avoid 10
or would prefer or – I just want to make sure like if you’re getting enough feedback and what 11
direction we should take this conversation. 12
13
Jean Eisberg: From… 14
15
Jennifer Armer: Go ahead. 16
17
Jean Eisberg: Okay. From my perspective, we’re going to take all of this feedback, including − 18
and especially your comments about the specific types of development standards. For example, 19
shared-lot lines, interior setbacks, daylight planes, those adjacencies as important factors. And 1
so we’re going to craft an ordinance and a set of standards that I hope aligns with what you’ve 2
expressed here. I don’t need specific numbers if that’s what you’re getting after. It’s more the 3
spirit of the types of standards that we’re going to toggle. 4
5
Commissioner Lu: Yeah, definitely not specific numbers. But – yeah. I just was not so clear 6
myself like the spirit of all of the things that we care about was really cleanly summarized. So I 7
just want to see what else you needed. 8
9
Jennifer Armer: I think that the – what I would add to that is that anytime we do have 10
consensus on a point, having that clear direction is extremely helpful but we recognize that 11
because this is so complex and it’s got so many factors, that it may be that what we get out of 12
today’s meeting really is the identification of the things that you have commented on that are 13
of concern and kind of the general direction that the Commission is going. So we’ve had a good 14
discussion tonight. We can try and, based on this discussion, pull out some of the things that 15
seemed to be of particular interest or concern as has been described. And if that gets us to a 16
place where we can put together an ordinance for you, then we will do that. If it means that we 17
need to come back for further discussion, then that may delay moving forward with an 18
ordinance on this. That may just need to be the process. 19
20
Chair Chang: Commissioner Reckdahl. 1
2
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Yeah. What’s tricky here is that we have to make this attractive to the 3
builders but we also have to make it attractive to us. And if it’s – if we go too far either way, it’s 4
not going to be useful. So when I look through this, there’s some things that I’m not in love with 5
but I’m afraid that if we change too much, it won’t be attractive to the builders. But let me walk 6
through the things… 7
8
Chair Chang: Staff, could you pull up the slide of… 9
10
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Yeah. Twenty… 11
12
Chair Chang: …discussion points. 13
14
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Slide 29. And last meeting, we looked at a townhome project that had no 15
trees on it. And that’s not good. And my daughter lives up in San Francisco in a very dense unit. 16
They have a small backyard and that backyard makes quality of life of that unit so much better. 17
So I would much rather give up height and have a little more setback and then we have some 18
trees that helps the canopy, helps environment. There’s a lot of advantage to that. And having 1
an extra floor, which means if you can trade an extra floor for backyard, that is a really good 2
trade in my mind. And so I think that tradeoff wouldn’t necessarily make it less attractive for 3
the builder, provided that they still can do the wood-frame construction. At some point, you – 4
adding floors becomes very expensive. Reduced parking. Reducing the parking – if we build too 5
much parking, it’s a waste, right? I’d much rather have an extra bedroom than unused parking. 6
So reducing parking, as Commissioner Akin mentioned, makes it much more attractive but 7
there are impacts. And so making it − just because a small decrease in parking is good, doesn’t 8
mean a bigger one is better. There’s some point where you hit the optimal and you actually 9
start making things worse. And we have to be careful of that. The [inaudible 192:25] study tried 10
to look at that and when I look at that data, it seems to say that we’re a little heavy but not that 11
much heavy where − there certainly was data in there that shows that we’re in the ballpark of 12
what it should be. So I’d be very cautious about doing some wholesale decrease in parking 13
unless we can have either new data that – to back that up or if you have some TMA or some 14
other way that you can really attract people who don’t have cars. That’s the big win. If you can 15
attract the people who don’t need the parking, then don’t build the parking. And then finally, 16
lot consolidation. Commissioner Akin mentioned this. We know the bigger the lot or bigger the 17
parcel, the more efficient it is to make flats and to build housing is going to be much more 18
efficient. Is there anything we can do to encourage lot consolidation? Because I think that really 19
solves a lot of problems or makes our problems less daunting maybe. So – okay. That’s it. Thank 20
you. 21
22
Chair Chang: All right. I’m not seeing any lights. So I think that might have – we may have 1
exhausted our comments. So no vote needed, right? Because we’ve just – perfect. So let’s move 2
on to the next agenda item, which is approval of minutes. We need to approve minutes on the 3
29 , June 26, and April 24. So I’m wondering if we can do all these at once. 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: Were we all present for all of them? 6
7
Chair Chang: I think so but I’m going to double check that really quickly. I don’t see anything 8
glaring. 9
10
APPROVAL OF MINUTES 11
Public Comment is Permitted. Three (3) minutes per speaker. 12 13
3. Approval of Planning & Transportation Commission Draft Summary Minutes of May 14
29, 2024 15
16
4. Approval of Planning & Transportation Commission Draft Verbatim & Summary 17
Minutes of June 26, 2024 18
19
5. Approval of Planning & Transportation Commission Draft Summary Minutes of April 20
24, 2024 21
22
Commissioner Hechtman: Oh. Any Commissioners present here know they were absent on any 23
of those three days? Okay. Then if I may make a motion to approve the Summary Minutes of 24
May 29, the Verbatim and Summary Minutes of June 26 as revised, and the Summary Minutes 1
of April 24 as revised. 2
3
Commissioner Summa: Second. 4
5
Chair Chang: Great. Let’s take a voice vote on this. So all in favor? 6
7
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Aye. 8
9
Chair Chang: Aye. 10
11
Commissioner Akin: Aye. 12
13
Commissioner Hechtman: Aye. 14
15
Commissioner Lu: Aye. 16
1
Commissoner Summa: Aye. 2
3
Albert Yang: I’m sorry. We need to do a roll call vote because… 4
5
Chair Chang: Okay. ‘ 6
7
Albert Yang: …Commissioner Lu is remote. 8
9
Chair Chang: Oh. Right. 10
11
Commissioner Lu: Sorry. 12
13
Chair Chang: Darn it, Commissioner Lu. Just kidding. Okay. Ms. Dao, could you please do the roll 14
call vote? 15
16
Veronica Dao: Yes. Commissioner Akin? 1
2
Commissioner Akin: Yes. 3
4
Veronica Dao: Chair Chang? 5
6
Chair Chang: Yes. 7
8
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 9
10
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 11
12
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Lu? 13
14
Commissioner Lu: Yes. 15
16
Veronica Dao: Vice-Chair Reckdahl? 1
2
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Yes. 3
4
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Summa? 5
6
Commissioner Summa: Yes. 7
8
Veronica Dao: Motion carries, 6-0. 9
10
Chair Chang: Wonderful. Okay. Now we’re onto Commissioner Questions, Comments, 11
Announcements, or future meetings and agendas. Anybody? 12
13
COMMISSIONER COMMENTS 14
15
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: One comment. Was it last night? The transportation open house was very 16
nice. They put together – it was like a – you could just stroll around and ask people about 17
different transportation projects. So I thought they did a really good job. Kudos to them. 18
1
Chair Chang: Great. 2
3
Jonathan Lait: Can I – I’m not eligible really to speak during this point but I… 4
5
Chair Chang: Yeah. 6
7
Jonathan Lait: …wanted to at least remind you that there’s the Board Commissions Recognition 8
event tomorrow and want to encourage you all to be there if possible and we’ll see you there if 9
you are. 10
11
Chair Chang: Thank you. Okay. With that, this meeting is adjourned. 12
13
ADJOURNMENT 14
9:20 PM 15
16
/ls 17