HomeMy WebLinkAbout2024-11-13 Planning & Transportation Commission Verbatim Minutes_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Planning & Transportation Commission 1
Verbatim Minutes: November 13, 2024 2
Council Chambers & Virtual 3
6:00 PM 4
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Call to Order / Roll Call 6
6:00 PM 7
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Chair Chang: Good evening, everyone. I’d like to call to order this regular meeting of the 9
Planning and Transportation Commission for Wednesday, November 13. 10
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ROLL CALL 12
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Chair Chang: Ms. Dao, could you please call the roll? 14
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Administrative Associate Veronica Dao: Chair Chang? 16
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Chair Chang: Here. 18
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Veronica Dao: Commissioner Akin? 20
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Commissioner Akin: Here. 22
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
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Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 2
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Commissioner Hechtman: Here. 4
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Veronica Dao: Commissioner Lu? 6
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Commissioner Lu: Here. 8
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Veronica Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 10
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Commissioner Templeton: Here. 12
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Veronica Dao: We have a quorum. 14
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Chair Chang: Great. 16
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Oral Communications 18
The public may speak to any item not on the agenda. Three (3) minutes per speaker.1,2 19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Chang: Our first order of business is public comment on items that are not on the agenda 1
tonight. Do we have any comments? 2
3
Veronica Dao: I have no request to speak. 4
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Chair Chang: Okay. I don’t see anything on mine either. Great. Thank you. 6
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Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions 8
The Chair or Commission majority may modify the agenda order to improve meeting management. 9
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Chair Chang: Are there any agenda changes, additions or deletions? 11
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Veronica Dao: Nope. 13
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Chair Chang: Great. 15
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City Official Reports 17
1. Director’s Report, Meeting Schedule and Assignments 18
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Chair Chang: And Director or Assistant Director Armer, would you like to kick us off with City 20
Official Reports? 21
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Yes. Thank you and good evening. Next slide. Just a quick 2
summary of some of the upcoming items that we have looking toward December. I will note 3
that we had reserved a potential special meeting for next week but it looks like we will not be 4
using that; however, it is likely that we will be making use both of the first regular meeting on 5
December 11 and the tentative special meeting on December 18. As you can see, we’ve got 6
four or five potential items for discussion at that meeting: The HIP/AHIP Ordinance that you 7
saw before coming back to you, parking programs update and discussion, project at 4075 El 8
Camino Real, another at 3265 El Camino Real, and then the potential discussion of the El 9
Camino Real focus area as a study session. Next slide. 10
11
And then in terms of Council dates for targeted items that went to PTC previously, we do have 12
an item going next week that is interim and emergency ordinances for implementing the high-13
priority retail revitalization measures. 14
15
In addition to these items, I also did want to let the commissioners – give the commissioners an 16
update on some of the staffing changes that have been happening. In the prep meeting 17
yesterday, we realized that there are some retirements and movements of staff from one job to 18
another and new hires that we hadn’t specifically shared with the Commission. And so I know 19
that you all have met Coleman Frick, who is our Long-Range Planning Manager. He took that 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
position when Clare Campbell retired earlier this year. In addition to that, I know you have seen 1
Chitra Moitra come to you previously with some of our general plan or Comprehensive Plan 2
update projects, and she is retiring later this month. And Jodie Gerhardt, our current Planning 3
Manager, has been offered the opportunity to shift into the role of Development Center 4
Manager and so Claire Raybould is currently our interim current Planning Manager. And then 5
you’ll have three of our new members in Long-Range Planning presenting to you this evening. 6
They all were hired just about exactly six months ago, so wonderful additions to our team 7
including Julia Knight, Robert Feign and Vishnu Krishnan. Thank you. That’s it for my report. 8
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Chair Chang: Mr. Rius, do you have anything for us? 10
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Senior Engineer Rafael Rius: Hi. Thank you, Chair and commissioners. Just one minor comment 12
that I have, next week on the 19th is the Rail Committee meeting at City Hall. And actually, 13
that’s all I have. I don’t have any project updates. 14
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Chair Chang: Okay. Does anybody on the Commission have questions for either Ms. Armer or 16
Mr. Rius? All right. Then on to our first Action Item. 17
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Action Items 19
Public Comment is permitted. Five (5) minutes per speaker. 20
21 2. Review Draft 2024 Comprehensive Plan Implementation Annual Progress Report and 22
Draft 2023-2031 Housing Element Annual Progress Report and Recommend City 23
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Council Authorize Transmittal of the Reports to the Office of Planning and Research 1
and Department of Housing and Community Development, Respectively, by April 1, 2
2025. Environmental Assessment: Not a Project. 3
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Chair Chang: The first Action Item is to review the Draft 2024 Comprehensive Plan 5
Implementation Annual Progress Report and the Draft 2023-2031 Housing Element Annual 6
Progress Report and recommend City Council authorize the transmittal of these reports to the 7
Office of Planning and Research and the Department of Housing and Community Development. 8
All right. Staff report, please? 9
10
Principal Planner Julia Knight: Good evening. Thank you. Today, we’ll be covering both the 11
Comprehensive Plan and the Housing Element Annual Progress Reports. I’ll be speaking to the 12
Comprehensive Plan, Julia Knight, as we just discussed. And then my colleague, Robert Feign, 13
will be speaking to the Housing Element implementation. 14
15
Chair Chang: Excuse me. Let the record show that Vice-Chair Reckdahl is now present. Thank 16
you. 17
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Julia Knight: Great. Next slide, please. As most of you would be aware, we are required to 19
report our progress on our Comprehensive Plan annually to the Office of Planning and Research 20
and the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD). And that 21
reporting is generally due in April and we do it on an annual basis. We’re looking at our 22
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
calendar year 2024 progress today, so we have projected expected progress through the end of 1
this year. And we’ll be taking this report next to Council early in 2025 such that we can submit 2
to OPR and HCD by the spring. Next slide, please. 3
4
As you may recall – oh, sorry. Do you mind going back one? Thank you. Our Comp Plan was 5
adopted in 2017, so it’s a few years old now. It included 410 programs across the various 6
elements when it was adopted. And for each of these programs, it identifies the priority of 7
implementation as well as the level of effort required to implement that program. Next slide, 8
please. 9
10
We did adjust some of the terminology in our reporting this year, so I just wanted to note that. 11
We were hoping to achieve even greater clarity. In the past, we’ve talked about priority and 12
those are really references to target dates that were set at the time that the Comp Plan was 13
adopted in 2017. And obviously, lots of things can change in terms of community priorities over 14
that time, so we’ve just reframed that as target completion dates so you can now see back in 15
2017 when were we hoping to complete this by. You’ll just see that update. We’re using the 16
actual calendar years. And things that were previously labeled as routine or in progress, we are 17
labeling now as continuous and they’re not expected to be completed. They’re things that are 18
best practice, things you do continuously and so not a concern if those aren’t completed. It’s 19
actually a good thing that we’re still doing them. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
And then in terms of level of effort to complete, previously we were using dollar signs to 2
indicate a low, medium, high level of effort to complete. We thought it might be better to use 3
some more generic terms that represent resource intensity beyond just financial resources. 4
We’re talking about standard level of effort to complete, which is sort of something that can be 5
completed with our existing resources, existing staff; not a huge lift. If it hasn’t happened yet, it 6
can still happen. Significant is a more moderate level of effort, so you may need to seek some 7
additional resources and do a little more planning to achieve those programs. And then 8
substantial requires the most effort to complete and the most resources. Next slide, please. 9
10
I just have a few quick summary tables here for you today. Overall, you can see that we are 11
predominantly in the ongoing category. Most of our programs, 71 percent, are those kind of 12
continuous best practices that we continue to carry on across all the departments in the City. 13
We have increased slightly the number of programs that are completed. We completed four 14
additional programs this year. Last year, we had 13. Now, we have 17. And we also progressed 15
a number of programs into the partially complete category. Last year, we had 33 programs that 16
were considered partially complete. We now have 52. And we also reduced the number of 17
programs that we consider pending or not started at this time. Last year, we had 63 un-started 18
programs and now we only have 50, so all good news there. Next slide, please. 19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
This just groups that same information but by completion date. We can see here that in terms 1
of what’s supposed to be completed first, the things that were targeted for 2022 at the time of 2
the Comp Plan adoption, there were 97 programs and all but 7 of those are at least started or 3
complete or being carried out, so that’s really great. That means there are only 7 of 97 4
programs that weren’t completed “on time” and again, I think priorities do change over time 5
but good news there as well. 6
7
For our next category this is kind of where we’re sitting in right now in 2024, projects that were 8
targeted for medium-term completion between 2022 and 2027. There were 93 projects in that 9
category. About half of those are in that ongoing category as we talked about, so they have 10
been happening and will continue to happen, 3 are already complete, and we do have another 11
20 or so that are partially complete so that work has started on them. Then the remaining 27 12
are projects that so long as priorities still align with where they were in 2017, it would be great 13
for staff and departments to consider tackling in the next couple years to meet that initial 2027 14
target date. 15
16
Lastly, we have a number of programs, just 11, that were considered to be long-term priorities 17
at the time of Comp Plan adoption. A couple of those are already complete, yay on us. And then 18
we do still have about 5 of those pending and I’d say that’s not a huge concern at this point 19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
since we have a number of years to still consider pulling those off, so to speak. Next slide, 1
please. 2
3
And then I just wanted to show this last slide before we switch over to the Housing Element. 4
We do have the projects here grouped, programs grouped here by the level of effort required 5
to complete. And so I think you’ll see the total programs here is 393 because we took out the 6
17 programs that were already completed. And you can see that more than half are that 7
standard level, so very attainable, things that we think can be completed, and many of them 8
have already been started or ongoing and continue to be ongoing. We only have 50 programs 9
overall that are pending and the majority of those are standard or significant levels of effort to 10
complete and therefore likely attainable. And there are only a small handful, eight programs 11
that are considered substantial levels of effort to complete that are still pending. And with that, 12
I’m going to throw it over to Robert. 13
14
Housing Planner Robert Feign: Thank you. Turning to the Housing Element, the HCD certified 15
the City’s 2023-2031 Housing Element on August 20, 2024. The Housing Element included a 16
number of programs and implementing objectives designed to address housing preservation, 17
affordable housing, housing development, governmental barriers, housing diversity, and fair 18
housing. Among the 110 implementation objectives, 9 are categorized as complete, 40 are 19
classified as ongoing or standard operations, and 35 are actively in progress. It is worth noting 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
that approximately 30 objectives currently classified as in progress are expected to transition to 1
complete or standard operations by the end of 2024 or into 2025, including components of the 2
ordinance that you will hear in Item 3 later this evening. The remaining 26 objectives are 3
currently pending or not yet initiated. Next slide, please. 4
5
Examining RHNA progress, the City has been tasked with ensuring adequate capacity in the site 6
inventory for RHNA allocation of 6086 units in the 2023-2031 cycle. As of October 2024, 7
building permits have been issued for 417 units, representing approximately 6 percent of the 8
target. Please note that these numbers reflect building permits issued to date. Breaking this 9
down by income level, in the low-income category 89 buildings – 89 units, building permits 10
have been pulled for 89 units, meeting approximately 10 percent of the allocation. The 11
moderate-income category has seen 71 permits issued or approximately 7 percent. And lastly, 12
in the above-moderate income category, 257 permits have been issued, meeting approximately 13
10 percent of that allocation. In addition to these permitted units, the City has 483 entitled 14
units across these categories, which represent projects that have received approvals, planning 15
approvals, but have not yet pulled building permits. Specifically, 164 units are entitled for 16
extremely low, very low, and low-income categories; 31 units are entitled in the moderate-17
income category, and 288 units are entitled in the above-moderate income category. Next 18
slide. 19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Looking ahead, following tonight, staff will coordinate with relevant City departments to 1
address identified priorities. The next milestone will be City Council’s review and authorization 2
of the reports expected in early 2025. Following that Council approval, the reports will be 3
finalized and submitted to OPR and HCD by the statutory deadline of April 1, 2025. Next slide, 4
please. 5
6
And here you can see the recommended motion for this item, which is, one, to review the draft 7
2024 Comprehensive Plan Implementation Annual Progress Report and the ’23-‘31 Housing 8
Element Annual Progress Report, and to recommend that City Council authorize the transmittal 9
of these reports to OPR and HCD by April 1, 2025. Next slide. And for additional information or 10
follow-up, you can contact myself or Julia, and our contact details are displayed here. Thank 11
you. 12
13
Chair Chang: Great. Do – does anybody on the Commission have clarifying questions? None. 14
Okay. Are there any public – oh, some. Commissioner Hechtman? 15
16
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. The Comp Plan report, we used to deal with it annually 17
here, is due to the State April 1. And now this is our first year with the Housing Element Report 18
or actually first year in this cycle and I’m not actually remembering this from prior years coming 19
to the Planning Commission but it’s on the same timeline, it goes to HCD on April 1. We’re here 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
in early November and the reports of course are what did you accomplish during the whole of 1
the year 2024. The question I have and maybe it’s a staffing issue, I’m not sure, is why not bring 2
this to us in say late January? The slide we just looked at said that this is expected to go to 3
Council in March just in time to release it to get it to HCD by April 1. Why not – what is keeping 4
you from – I’m not suggesting doing it this year. It’s here now. Fine. But looking forward, why 5
not bring it to us in January when we can see the complete report rather than a report that we 6
reviewed and can see there’s some updating that’ll be necessary, depending upon what 7
happens between now and the last day of the year? That’s my question, my first question. 8
9
Jennifer Armer: Thank you for that question. The timing of this this year really is based on past 10
practice for the City of Palo Alto. This is kind of the standard timing that we’ve done in years 11
past but I think that is an excellent point and something that could be part of the direction or 12
even just as a general comment for staff to consider as we look at the schedule for future years’ 13
reporting. 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. Thank you for that answer. And when we get to the comment 16
portion, I’ll follow up a little bit on that. My other question relates to some information on 17
Packet Page 14. Again, we’re used to these tables for the Comp Plan. And historically, we had 18
the symbols $, $$, $$$ basically as a reflection of the level of effort required to accomplish it. 19
Now, we’ve converted those into words: Standard, significant and substantial. And my question 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
is in the table which is Attachment A where we now see those three words instead of dollar 1
signs, was that uniformly a straight translation, if you will? Every time there used to be a dollar 2
sign now it’s standard or were there also changes in the rankings? 3
4
Julia Knight: Thank you for that question. In terms of the level that was – so there’s usually two 5
columns in the spreadsheet staff work in to complete this. And so we have the level of 6
completion estimated or the level of effort to complete estimated at the time of Comp Plan 7
adoption and in that column we did a straight translation, so that we could see, yes, $ to 8
standard, $$ to significant, and $$$ to substantial. And then, I think we don’t give you guys that 9
particular column in your spreadsheet because there are just a lot of columns. But yes, one of 10
the things we do ask is for our staff to update what the current level of effort is to complete the 11
program because sometimes conditions have changed or whatnot. And so the rating you’re 12
seeing now is reviewed and updated annually. And so staff took a look at last year and they saw 13
where it was last year in terms of $, $$, $$$, before we gave it to them we converted that to 14
standard, significant, substantial and then we asked them to carry that terminology forward 15
into their column that was updated for this year. The terms you’re seeing today are reflective of 16
what staff considered the effort to be today in 2024. 17
18
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. Great. Thank you. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Chang: Additional clarifying questions? None? Okay. Seeing none, let’s go ahead and 1
move into Commissioner comment. Oh. Wait. Public Comment. 2
3
PUBLIC COMMENTS 4
5
Chair Chang: Is there public comment? I do not see any public comment online. 6
7
Veronica Dao: No. I have no raised hands or speaker cards. 8
9
Chair Chang: Okay. Great. Thanks. On to commissioner comments. Commissioner Akin? 10
11
Commissioner Akin: Thank you, Chair. These are all just suggestions for input. On Packet Page 12
23, Program C2.2.2, this is about measuring the effectiveness of City services. And I’m hearing a 13
lot of interest in the general public about the measures being made and being public, so if we 14
can solicit some staff comments on this item, I think it would be helpful to Council. 15
16
Next, Packet Page 28 on the, let’s see, this is Program L2.8.2 on the housing unit inventory. It’s 17
really good to see the rental registry program underway. That’s nice. It would be helpful if there 18
is anything to report on the status of measuring non-rental housing too, just as a thing that 19
would be useful to Council. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Packet Page 38, Program N4.10.3, I wondered if you wanted to include a few words about the 2
response to the recent spill from Tesla just because it’s topical. 3
4
And finally for this first segment, Packet Page 52, this is Transportation T1.2.3. The bicycle 5
safety and micromobility programs are really good things, we’re glad to have them but I really 6
don’t see how they’re related to the goal of the program, which is formalizing TDM 7
requirements. And this one I feel pretty strongly about because we are reviewing projects this 8
year where we’re really depending on TDM to manage impacts, so anything that the Office of 9
Transportation is willing to say about this to give people a sense of where things stand on 10
formalizing those requirements I think would be very valuable. And do you want to continue on 11
to Housing Element as well? 12
13
Chair Chang: Let’s maybe do one then the other. Let’s do the Comp Plan first just so that we 14
keep our brains in the same headspace. 15
16
Commissioner Akin: Great. That’s all I have on Comp Plan. Thank you very much. 17
18
Chair Chang: Okay. Thanks. Would anybody else like to comment? Commissioner Hechtman? 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you, Chair. These are both related to the questions I asked. 1
The first is really the timing issue. I would like staff to consider going forward whether it’s 2
manageable to bring this to us in January. It would be toward the end of January because again 3
you’re reporting through the end of the year, so I’d like you to think about that. As I read 4
through the staff report and the comments on the Comp Plan and Housing Element, what I 5
noticed is there are a number of them that are going to need to change. When you get to the 6
end of the year and there’s some language, we expect to do something by the end of 2024, 7
once you get to the end of the year you’ll have done it I’m sure and then you‘ll change that 8
language. And so doing it this way I think requires maybe more effort by staff because you got 9
to write it and then revise it after the 1st of the year, so I think there is some logic to bringing it 10
to us later if your schedules will allow. I don’t feel strongly about this. It’s hard to buck tradition 11
but sometimes it’s good to shine a light on it and see if maybe there’s a better, more efficient 12
way to use staff’s time. That’s the first item. 13
14
The second item is that so this is my, I think my fifth go-around with this agenda item, five years 15
on the Commission. And a couple years ago, Ms. Moitra used to handle this report and we had 16
asked her, we were only talking about the Comp Plan 410, is when you bring this to us annually, 17
because it’s the same 410 programs, they don’t change and typically it’s the same ranking, tell 18
us what’s changed, basically. When you bring us this report, have a column or a table that tells 19
us what’s changed because I don’t need to read all 410 programs again. What I am really 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
looking for is what’s changed because that’s our progress. And it’s actually mentioned in the 1
staff report that that’s part of the table and I’m wondering if it is part of the table but that part 2
of the table got pushed off because I didn’t see it in any kind of recognizable way and so maybe 3
it is in here and it’s just... 4
5
Julia Knight: It’s part of the Staff Comments column on the far right. We asked staff in that 6
column, Staff Comments 2024, to address specifically any changes in level of effort to complete, 7
target completion date, or completion status. 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. I was wondering if that was maybe the case. Because again, I 10
couldn’t tell if all these comments were fresh for ’24 but as a sort of a microstudy I looked at 11
the complete items because I know there were 17 total and only 4 of them were completed in 12
the last year, so I looked to see, well, are there comments on those that would tell me that. And 13
what I found is 6 of the 17 had comments, so then I couldn’t tell which of those six include the 14
four that were just completed this year or not. In any event, again, going forward, it helps us. 15
And I guess what I was thinking of is I guess we were focused before on when status changes, 16
when it goes from pending to ongoing or ongoing to complete, whatever, we wanted that 17
flagged. Moving forward, next year when we do this, I appreciate that staff has to deal with 18
each one of these 410 and it’s remarkable just to organize them. It’s mind blowing that you’re 19
actually moving 410 programs forward but recognize that it’s useful to us if we can succinctly 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
see what we should be focusing on from last year to this year. All right. And my comments on 1
the Housing Element are going to be pretty similar. Thanks. 2
3
Chair Chang: Commissioner Reckdahl? 4
5
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Let me... 6
7
Chair Chang: Vice-Chair Reckdahl. 8
9
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Let me follow up on Commissioner Hechtman’s points. Historically, did it 10
come to us because then modifications we made before went to Council or is this just an 11
arbitrary schedule? 12
13
Julia Knight: I’m happy to speak a little bit to the schedule. I apologize. It’s a lot of internal City 14
business practices that drive the schedule and the HCD deadline of April 1 is not flexible, as you 15
might imagine. 16
17
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Yeah. 18
19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Julia Knight: And so staff reports that go to Council are due from staff to the City Manager’s 1
team – it’s like an eight-week process. If you’re bringing something, and those are internal 2
requirements, and so if something is due to HCD let’s say at the end of March, that means that I 3
need my Council staff report buttoned up by the end of January. And so if I were just bringing 4
this to PTC at the end of January, unfortunately I wouldn’t be able to fold in any input I got from 5
you at that time, so that’s why this is phased that way. But I’m totally with you because it does 6
mean we have to go back and check our work at the turn of the year. It’s just because of those 7
internal reporting deadlines that are kind of tricky. 8
9
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Okay. Albert, did you want to say something? 10
11
Assistant City Attorney Albert Yang: Yeah. I can just also speak to some of the history. We used 12
to bring this in January or February. And the Commission at that time expressed frustration that 13
they were just being asked to rubber stamp because there wasn’t any time before this needed 14
to go to the Council in April for staff to make any changes, so we pushed it up to this 15
November-December timeframe in response to that request. 16
17
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: On a similar vein, you’re kind of asking Council to rubber stamp it if you’re 18
bringing it in March, aren’t you? Should we be bringing it to Council earlier so that they have 19
feedback and you have time to modify it? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Julia Knight: We generally bring it as a consent item and the idea is that it has gone through 2
detailed review here with PTC, as Council is delicate for the detailed review. 3
4
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Okay. Council just says if PTC approved it, we’re happy then? 5
6
Julia Knight: Yes. 7
8
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Because we have no choice but to be happy. Okay. 9
10
Julia Knight: And they know you guys are really qualified. 11
12
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Okay. Oh. Butter me up. Yeah. You mentioned that there’s this big 13
spreadsheet that’s not included here. When I look at this, and I mentioned this in pre-meeting, 14
the standard/significant, I don’t think there’s enough because it’s not a one-dimensional 15
problem. It really is you have both, what is – how much staffing, how much work is it going to 16
be, what is the priority, and also perhaps even a schedule issue, so there’s really three big 17
players in here. Is there any way that we could put more information? Instead of having 18
significant/standard, I like 1/2/3 better than significant/standard because I have to think, let’s 19
see, standard is the lowest. Significant, is that 2 or 3? Having a number there would be... 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Julia Knight: Significant is 2. 2
3
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: And then substantial is... 4
5
Julia Knight: Substantial would be 3, highest. 6
7
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: ...3. Yeah. To me 1/2/3 because I know that 3 is always bigger than 2 and I 8
don’t know that is substantial more than significant, so I would find a number better. But in 9
that column if we have limited space, could you have multiple things like both what is the level 10
of effort and what is the priority and perhaps what is the duration if that’s easy to describe? 11
And just have 3/1. Because that, priority is really important because I think some of the low-12
priority things are never going to be done and so we really want to say how are we doing on the 13
high priority and when I look through there, is there something that I consider to be high 14
priority that is given a low priority. And so just managing – this is a really big task and I find it 15
hard to believe that we can give equal attention to all 410, so we are really going to be giving 16
more attention to higher rated ones and I really want to make sure that we have the right ones 17
rated highly, so that’s why having priority in there would be good. But overall, I think you’ve 18
done a very good job. There’s a lot to wrangle here and you’ve done a good job wrangling but 19
okay, thank you. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Chang: I’m going to jump in here because I don’t see other lights and also my comments 2
dovetail a bit with what Vice-Chair Reckdahl has said. A couple observations, so when I went 3
through this, I was like, so what hasn’t been done? What are the pending items? And so it really 4
would have been helpful to have, because there aren’t that many of the pending items, so 5
similarly to what Commissioner Hechtman said about it’s useful to see what’s changed, it’s also 6
like what do we still have to do. And so then I went through the table and found things that 7
were pending. And then I did a second cut, which was finding things that have a target 8
completion date of 2022, which means now they’re overdue and still we haven’t touched them. 9
And so I looked at those things and thought, well, I just wanted to sanity check to see are these 10
things that raise any red flags for me and there were a few. And so when I look at – I mean it 11
may be worth kind of walking the whole Commission through these because I’m not sure that 12
we’ve all – that we’re all aware of them. Unless you went through the mark-up exercise that I 13
did, you wouldn’t know. 14
15
But the ones that are kind of immediate safety related are a red flag for me because here on 16
the Planning and Transportation Commission we have talked a number of times about safety 17
issues. And I know that there are projects in the works for addressing serious injuries and 18
fatalities but we have known problems that we knew about in 2017 that still remain pending. If 19
you look at Packet Page 59, the first item T6.1.3, address pedestrian safety along Alma Street 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
between Embarcadero Road and Lytton Street. That must have been something that in 2017 1
was an issue and it was supposed to be done two years ago, remains pending, and the 2
Department says work has not commenced, so there’s not a lot of visibility as to why that is. 3
Maybe it’s not a problem anymore. Maybe it’s been rolled into another process. Maybe it’s just 4
been deprioritized. Although if it’s a known problem and it was deprioritized, I sure would like 5
to know why. 6
7
And similarly, further down the page there are ones that are pending with a completion date 8
that’s after 2027 but I know the pace at which some of these things proceed if they require a lot 9
of planning and then Public Works and budgeting. It’s T6.6.5 and T6.6.7, for example, identify 10
and construct safety improvements for pedestrian underpasses including on Embarcadero 11
Road. And so reading these things, some of them seem pretty important and because there’s 12
no – there’s a target completion date but that may or may not be prioritization and so this is 13
where I think the prioritization is probably something that may be valuable to do. Again, if that 14
wasn’t done during the Comp Plan process, we certainly should do it for our new one. 15
16
And then that goes right into the next suggestion I have. In pre-meeting, I had asked staff 17
whether this list of pending or/and partially complete items is brought to City Council as an 18
input into their annual planning process and the answer was not explicitly. Council certainly 19
receives a copy of this at some time but they’re not prompted to, hey, take a look at our old 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
priorities list, our old laundry list of things as they start thinking about their big goals for the 1
year and I do think that it’s pretty important to use it as an input. Not that Council needs to, this 2
is a living document, so Council doesn’t need to be changed to these priorities or these projects 3
by any – for any reason but if they know that the councils and the citizen advisory groups and 4
whatever for the many years before have thought that these were important priorities, it 5
certainly is good to remind Council of these things because some of them do require some 6
amount of long-range planning. And I think that what becomes prioritized is what is urgent and 7
right in front of somebody. And so if we aren’t there reminding them of this list or they’re not 8
cognizant of this list, then when they make their goals and their priorities for the year, they’re 9
inadvertently deprioritizing these. And deprioritization is not a problem but accidental 10
deprioritization or not explicit deprioritization is. Those are my big comments. Okay. We’ve got 11
Commissioner Lu. 12
13
Commissioner Lu: Thank you. And I appreciate the clarity and formatting upgrades. It is 14
definitely more readable than last year. And I am probably just going – I’m going to make a 15
couple points in the spirit of what’s already been said, just trying to make this more and more 16
useful each year. I think what could have given me more clarity and seems like a significant 17
source of ambiguity is the ongoing status. Whereas projects with ongoing status you would 18
expect would presumably stay ongoing, there were actually fewer ongoing projects this year. A 19
few ongoing projects got upgraded to partially complete for example, and I think that’s 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
something we wouldn’t necessarily expect to see. It just kind of points how ongoing is really 1
overloaded and makes it hard to see what work is actually still happening or what work we 2
actually still expect. I think as a general best practice, we should try to get as many projects as 3
possible from ongoing to something with an actual specific deliverable output or a deadline 4
because I think reading these programs you can find deliverables in a bunch of these that are 5
marked ongoing. 6
7
I also echo Commissioner Hechtman’s point in general just about wanting to really see the 8
changes more clearly. And I would also go a little bit further and would appreciate some 9
qualitative commentary as well. I think it would be better if there were clear owners for the 10
specific goals or specific groups of programs, and if we could actually get a comment on what 11
actually went well this year or what has fallen behind or is under-resourced or is at risk for just 12
overall completion. In general, when I evaluate programs at work and things like that, that level 13
of just executive clarity is really useful and it seems like it’s hopefully not a huge incremental lift 14
on top of all of the exhaustive data that you’ve already collected. Those were my comments for 15
this section. Thank you. 16
17
Chair Chang: Does anyone have anything else? I’m just going to take up a little time. I’m sorry to 18
my fellow commissioners but I did want to point out some of these other things that I noticed. 19
If we look at Packet Page 45, the first item there, NA.4.1, which is about preparing strategies to 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
address sea level rise, that one has a pretty good explanation. Okay. That one makes sense. It 1
looks – other departments might have said in progress. 2
3
If you look at Packet Page 48, though, this one seems pretty important given the amount of 4
construction that may happen in Palo Alto in the short term. Packet Page 48, last item, S2.11.2, 5
study appropriate restrictions on underground construction in areas outside of flood zones. 6
And so it was supposed to be a standard level of work done by 2022 and it’s pending with no 7
information really on why it hasn’t been. And so if we go ahead and recommend, I would 8
suggest that we also recommend that we put an asterisk by all of those items for City Council 9
like to – in the report it should be brought up to the surface because maybe it’s fine that we 10
deprioritized them but some of them seem like it could be kind of problematic. 11
12
Then the next one was on the bottom of Packet Page 55, and these are similar to Commissioner 13
Akin’s, so all right, it’s T2.3.1. I’m sorry. I confused items. This one is about VMT compliance for 14
CEQA. And we’ve looked at VMT and CEQA in numerous items that we’ve heard, most recently I 15
believe NVCAP maybe and Fry’s as well as the Housing Element. Again, we haven’t done 16
anything about these things and so it concerns me because it was identified as kind of a big deal 17
and to be done by 2022. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
I think those were the main ones that I wanted to – oh, no. There’s another one that’s maybe 1
less concerning on Packet Page 58, 5.4.1, second item down about exploring incentives to 2
encourage people to share parking. That discussion has actually come up here on the 3
Commission at some point this year as well as – yeah, I think that wraps it up. But the fact that 4
these items are somewhat relevant to things that we’ve actually heard and we don’t hear all 5
that many things each year, I think it underscores the need to sanity check the prioritization on 6
them. Commissioner Templeton and then Commissioner Hechtman. 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. I’m wondering if you can remind me and I apologize if 9
we’ve already gone over those but I don’t think we have. We have who’s doing it, what kind of 10
categorization the project is, when it’s due, how much effort it will take and what the status is. 11
Where are we saying which ones are important and which ones are not? 12
13
Julia Knight: It’s a wonderful question. Thank you. And it sort of gets to a court issue with the 14
way this was framed when it was adopted in 2017. In 2017, they translated priority as to how 15
quickly it needed to be done at that time. And there wasn’t really a tracking tool added in to 16
track priorities over time, so we only have... 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: Who is they? 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Julia Knight: Ultimately, City Council that would have adopted and certified the Comp Plan. 1
2
Commissioner Templeton: City Council changed the format of this to say priority is now date? 3
4
Julia Knight: Apologies. I didn’t mean to indicate that. I was saying that when this, when the 5
Comp Plan was adopted, they had a category that said priority and it was high, medium, low 6
but their definition of that was a target date for completion. High-priority items had the target 7
date completion of 2022, and then 2022 to 2027 for medium priority, and then beyond 2027 for 8
longer-term priority. 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: How is that working out for staff? Is that helpful to have the dates 11
instead of the priorities? Because it doesn’t still work, it doesn’t still translate to say it’s a high 12
priority if it’s got a date of 2022. Now to me it looks like it’s not done. Same with what Chair 13
Chang said. If it’s not done and it’s two years overdue, that makes it a low priority. How does 14
that work out for our staff as you’re interpreting this chart? 15
16
Jennifer Armer: I can jump in on this one. When preparing an update to a general plan, a 17
Comprehensive Plan, there are a lot of implementation programs included. And usually since it 18
is a 10 or 20-year plan, there is a timeframe associated with when items are going to move 19
forward and so that is actually very common. That then can be used in the yearly process that 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
the Council goes through to prioritize because as we’ve mentioned, some things shift over time 1
and so... 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: I totally understand. I’m a... 4
5
Jennifer Armer: Yeah. 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: ...career project manager, so I totally understand... 8
9
Jennifer Armer: Right. 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: ...how this works. But what I’m saying is I don’t think date translates 12
to priority anymore and I’m asking if that’s something that you would want us to include as 13
feedback if it would be helpful to staff to know which items are more important and which 14
items are less or if you feel like that’s already covered in your current process. 15
16
Jennifer Armer: Thank you for the clarification of your question. Yes. I think part of what 17
Planning and Transportation Commission’s responsibility is in this review is to let staff know if 18
there are items that you would like us to look into. The final say in terms of prioritizing staff 19
work of course has to do with budget and the priorities set by Council but that is part of the 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
direction that is specified to this review. This is why it is coming to Planning and Transportation 1
Commission. In other agencies where I have worked in the past, it just went straight to Council. 2
And so that is – that kind of feedback to staff about things that seem important is very valuable 3
in this discussion tonight. 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: To reflect back what I think I’m hearing is you would like us to take 6
this 50-something-page document and stack rank it for you? That seems like a hard ask for us to 7
do in the 20 minutes we were allotted tonight. 8
9
Jennifer Armer: I would not ask that, though we appreciate any feedback you provide as you 10
are reviewing the materials in advance. But I think we have already heard tonight some of these 11
policies identified as ones that commissioners have noticed as a concern that they aren’t yet 12
completed and so it’s something that we can then bring back feedback, we can bring back to 13
the department responsible and that is helpful in our process. 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: Sure. I’m going to add a process feedback here because I hear we’ve 16
gotten a few pieces of process feedback; we’ve also got some content feedback. The process 17
feedback is echoing what Chair Chang has said. It’s really difficult to tell from this chart what 18
our current priorities are. And then given that, we’re going to spend a lot of time trying to 19
decipher that in order to give you feedback on changing those priorities. If we’re just going to 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
iterate on what we have now, that’s something I would ask is to think about ways to map this 1
to what Council’s understood priorities of the current year are so we can say, okay, there are 2
these 20 items, Council has said prioritize or deprioritize these. I think that’s the feedback I’m 3
hearing from my colleagues, hearing it’s a process feedback for you guys just to improve the 4
clarity of what you’re operating on as your priority because it’s not possible from this to 5
understand that. Thank you. 6
7
Chair Chang: Commissioner Hechtman? 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: Just a question and then a suggestion. The last column in the table 10
we have, the staff comments, are all of those comments fresh for 2024? 11
12
Julia Knight: Yes. We’ve... 13
14
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 15
16
Julia Knight: There are a couple places where we wrote no comment was provided. 17
18
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Julia Knight: In that case, it’s not fresh. There’s no comment. 1
2
Commissioner Hechtman: Right. Okay. 3
4
Julia Knight: But anything that is in there, someone took a look at and added and made sure it 5
was still accurate for this year. 6
7
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. All right. I don’t think we got this in years past and so it’s 8
excellent that we’re getting this more detailed level of information. But because we haven’t 9
gotten it in years past, but what we did get was in the last year and maybe the year before that 10
just a change, just an indication of change, which I could easily focus on. I didn’t focus enough 11
on these. I think it’s great that you did it and now that I know that these will be fresh, because 12
my assumption, if you will, was that a lot of these were carryover comments because there was 13
not anything there that said this is new but now I understand your methodology this year. And I 14
appreciate the effort to provide us more information and I promise next year I will focus more 15
on that whether it comes to us in November or January. 16
17
I guess when we’re talking about priorities, my thinking is, and it’s as staff stated, back in 2017 18
our Council declared the priorities. This cluster, high priority or short-term priority, whichever, 19
which translated numerically to 2022. And then you got this big block that we’re in the middle 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
of right now, 2022 to 2027. I think that’s Council’s prerogative. I think what we could do next 1
year is, any commissioners that want to, if – we’re in this big block of 2022 to 2027, so any 2
priority we have is in this block and so I suppose we could tell staff we’re interested in this one 3
happening sooner rather than later within this middle block and that can be transmitted to 4
Council and that’s one way we can be helpful in our feedback. And because it’s hard for us to 5
remember this stuff year over year, if in the staff report one thing you often do is state that 6
staff is looking for input on X. And so if you remind us that this is one place where we could 7
provide input, if we think certain things that are in the big cluster should be moved toward the 8
top, now is the time for us to tell you, I think that’ll be a good queue for us. 9
10
Chair Chang kind of brought this up. I’m looking at Table 2 on Packet Page 14, we’ve got seven 11
short-term priority 2022 projects that are pending, meaning they haven’t started. And I do 12
think that, and if I understood Chair Chang I think this is consistent with what she was saying, I 13
think it’s worth in your staff report to the Council to just provide a short blurb on each of these 14
to highlight for them that something they thought back in 2017 should be done by 2022 hasn’t 15
been started yet and here’s why, and they can react or not react. They may find for all seven of 16
them that’s fine, it makes sense, or they can pick one or two of them and say, oh, we didn’t 17
realize, of the 410. Anyway, I think just a little addition to their staff report that may address 18
some of the concerns you’ve heard from commissioners. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Templeton: It’s a consent item. 1
2
Commissioner Hechtman: Hm? 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 55:11] consent. 5
6
Commissioner Hechtman: Oh. It is a consent item. Well, but it’ll be in the staff report and so if 7
any Council Member wants to pull it to do something, they will. Those are my comments. 8
Thanks. 9
10
Chair Chang: Okay. Why don’t we move on to the Housing Element implementation? Light them 11
up, please. Commissioner Hechtman then Templeton. 12
13
Commissioner Hechtman: All right. These are pretty quick. On Packet Page, again, I’m 14
recognizing that at the end of the year you’re going to need to refresh this document with 15
current tabulations but I just wanted to make sure you catch on Packet Page 66 the status 16
column second, third, and fourth boxes where it says it’s anticipated to go to Council in early 17
2024 that should be 2025. That was just a typo for those three boxes in a row. I want to make 18
sure you catch that because I don’t think those are going to change when you update this at the 19
end of the year. All right. And then the only other comment I wanted to make, this is our first 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
time with this table as far as I can remember, so next year the concept of letting us know 1
what’s changed. At least for this Housing Element anyway, next year when you bring us this 2
table, the same kind of notions of help us identify what’s different will be useful to us. 3
4
Robert Feign: Sorry. If it’s helpful context, so this is the second year of reporting on the Housing 5
Element but... 6
7
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. 8
9
Robert Feign: ...when it came last year it didn’t have this level of detail... 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: Right. 12
13
Robert Feign: ...about the statuses, if that’s helpful... 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. 16
17
Robert Feign: ...context. You didn’t see something like this but you did see a table. 18
19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. And that’s my memory because we didn’t have our Housing 1
Element yet, we had what we thought was our Housing Element a year ago but it turned out to 2
not quite be our Housing Element. Right. 3
4
Robert Feign: Right. The adopted Housing Element but not the... 5
6
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. 7
8
Robert Feign: ...certified. 9
10
Commissioner Hechtman: Right. But now going forward with this more detailed version, next 11
year if you can highlight for us what’s updated, that’ll be really useful to us. Thanks. 12
13
Chair Chang: Commissioner Templeton? 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: Thanks. I was just hoping you could refresh my memory on Packet 16
Page 15, the table says extremely low and very low are the same number. Is that just 17
coincidence or they have the same percentage of the overall amount? Or they represent – I 18
assume they represent different types of housing by being in different rows, they just happen 19
to be the same number? 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Robert Feign: I think Albert Yang might be able to provide a bit more context but yes, they 2
provide different levels of affordability. Extremely low encompass 30 percent of area median 3
income, while very low is 30 to 50 percent of area median income. That category is essentially 4
there’s one number that’s then halved essentially to create those two different categories but 5
Albert, maybe if you could jump in. 6
7
Albert Yang: Sorry. Yeah. I don’t have anything to add to that explanation unless you have a 8
question. 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. I was just trying to figure out what the percent was, so it’s the 11
same percent is cut in half for these two and that’s why they’re the same number. Okay. Got it. 12
Thanks. 13
14
Chair Chang: Commissioner Lu? 15
16
Commissioner Lu: I just want to confirm what we might expect from HCD or what HCD is hoping 17
to see. Do we expect to get comments back from HCD going line by line, discussing the 18
objectives here that are behind or not accomplished? Do we expect any strong feedback, any 19
consequences? Can you give that background? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Robert Feign: Thanks for that question. I don’t think we would say we would expect any 2
feedback. If – HCD when they did certify the Housing Element, they mentioned a few specific 3
programs that they said, hey, we’ll be looking at those closely to track that they’re in progress. 4
And some of those programs the Planning Commission has seen in the form of study sessions, 5
like for example the HIP/AHIP program. In terms of the status for these programs as a whole as 6
documented in this attachment, I think that we are on track for the most part. And if we did 7
receive feedback from HCD, then we would address that accordingly but there’s nothing that I 8
think we anticipate at this time in terms of specific feedback. And by point of sort of context, 9
although our Housing Element wasn’t certified last time we sent this report in, we didn’t 10
receive any feedback specifically on program statuses at that time. In terms of where we are in 11
the deadlines of the various programs, we are a bit further into when things are due this time 12
around, so it’s slightly different context but the only comments we had were about sort of 13
maybe specific cells that were in the larger table that’s submitted as part of specific 14
development project statuses that are part of the larger table that this accompanies that goes 15
to HCD. 16
17
Commissioner Lu: Thank you. And so just for my context, I guess there will be a midpoint or 18
mid-cycle review that is much more in depth where they will actually look at our numbers and 19
maybe more critically examine our programs. But here if there are some programs that we said 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
we would do in 2024 but we actually said early ’25 in the comments or if there’s something that 1
– there are just a few examples of this, like it’s not something we need to sweat? It’s not like we 2
need to communicate new timelines for them in all of these cases or anything like that? 3
4
Robert Feign: Yeah. In the event that we’re behind schedule on implementing a program, then 5
we would sort of provide the current context of the status in the report that goes to HCD. And 6
sort of as reference in the earlier comments, there is some additional time between this 7
meeting and when this report is going to HCD that we will continue to tweak this table before it 8
is submitted to HCD, so some things in fact that maybe would be going to Council for example 9
in January could be reflected in this table when it’s submitted to HCD in April. 10
11
Chair Chang: Vice-Chair Reckdahl? 12
13
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Yeah. One of my concerns is that we have a lot of data here. And when 14
you have a lot of data, quite as often you can lose the big picture. And so I think in the staff 15
report adding something to Council saying are we on track, big thumbs up, big thumbs down; 16
and particularly, do we have to do any hiring. And that’s, if there’s hiring needed, we want to 17
get that in the pipeline as soon as possible. And so just a big status of where we are and are we 18
where we expect to be and also are there risks. Maybe we’re on track right now but we have 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
three or four risks that could push us off track. Really identify that just as big-picture takeaway 1
for the Council. Thank you. 2
3
Chair Chang: Okay. I’ll jump in there really quickly because in our pre-meeting I had asked the 4
question, okay, so what does this actually mean in terms of any consequences that might come 5
back to us if we don’t do – meet certain targets. And so staff had said that it’s mainly at the 6
halfway checkpoint and that there’s SB 35. And I think it might be useful in the staff report to 7
remind Council of what those consequences are, what those triggers are. And then I definitely 8
really like Commissioner Reckdahl’s point or Vice-Chair Reckdahl’s point about the big thumbs 9
up or – because I think it is a big thumbs up and I just want to thank staff for shepherding us 10
along in this process where even though the actual certification was hung up, we continued to 11
make progress on implementation of programs that we knew we would have to implement. 12
And because of that hard work, we’re looking good on a lot of these things and have completed 13
so many things already even though our Housing Element was just officially certified two 14
months ago, so good job staff and thank you. 15
16
Other comments? I don’t see any lights, so I think we need a motion to recommend these to 17
Council and to recommend to Council that they are forwarded on to their appropriate agencies 18
by the appropriate deadline. And I think we might have had a few suggestions to include in the 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
report to Council but I don’t know if we need those in the motion. Anybody want to hazard a 1
motion? Thank you, Commissioner Hechtman. 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: I’ll move the staff recommendation. 4
5
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Second. 6
7
Chair Chang: Is there any discussion? Okay. Oh. 8
9
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Does staff want us to add any detail? We had some suggestions but does – 10
okay. 11
12
Chair Chang: Okay. Ms. Dao, could you please call the vote? 13
14
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Lu? 15
16
Commissioner Lu: Yes. 17
18
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Akin? 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Akin: Yes. 1
2
Veronica Dao: Chair Chang? 3
4
Chair Chang: Yes. 5
6
Veronica Dao: Vice-Chair Reckdahl? 7
8
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Yes. 9
10
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 11
12
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 13
14
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 17
18
Veronica Dao: Motion carries 6-0. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Chang: Wonderful. 1
2
3. Review Amendments to Title 18: Zoning Ordinance of the Palo Alto Municipal Code 3
(PAMC) to Implement Programs 1.5 (Stanford University Lands), 3.6 (Expedited 4
Project Review), 4.1 (Replacement Housing), and 6.5 (Alternate Housing) of the 5
Housing Element 2023-2031, and Title 21: Subdivision and Other Divisions of Land to 6
Incorporate Changes as Directed by Housing and Community Development (HCD). 7
8
Chair Chang: On to our second Action Item of the evening, which is to look at amendments to 9
Title 18, which is Palo Alto’s Zoning Ordinance, to implement several different programs that 10
are part – several different programs in the Housing Element Programs 1.5 regarding Stanford 11
University Land, 3.6 which is Expedited Project Review, 4.1 which is Replacement Housing, and 12
6.5 which is Alternate Housing. And also amendments to Title 21, the Subdivision and Other 13
Divisions of Land, to incorporate changes as directed by HCD. Could we have the staff report, 14
please? And please introduce yourself again. 15
16
Senior Planner Vishnu Krishnan: Hello, Commission. My name is Vishnu Krishnan, Senior 17
Planner with the Long-Range Planning Division. Good evening to commissioners, staff and 18
residents. I’m here to present the draft changes to the Ordinance Title 18 Zoning and 21 19
General Requirements of the Palo Alto Municipal Code as required to facilitate the 20
implementation of the Housing Element Programs 1.5A, 3.6D, 4.1A, 6.5C-G. Next slide, please. 21
22
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
The Housing Element Program 1.5A (Stanford University Lands), 3.6D (Expedited Project 1
Review), 4.1A (Replacement Housing), 6.5D-G (Alternate Housing) were all Council priorities for 2
the current year, and the deadline to implement them for the adopted Housing Element 2023-3
2031 is the 31st of January 2025. Program 6.5C (Alternate Housing) has an implementation 4
deadline in June 2025. Since 6.5C is the only program with an implementation deadline in June 5
of next year that requires an ordinance update, we thought it would be beneficial to expedite 6
this implementation with the other programs that are due early next year. Next slide, please. 7
8
We’ve amended PAMC Section 18.20.030 to permit residential multifamily in Stanford Research 9
Park RP Zones. I want to note that there was an error in the staff report sent to the 10
Commission. The proposed change to the ordinance excludes sites subject to or impacted by 11
the City’s Hazardous Materials Ordinance 18.42.200. This will be an added footnote to the 12
Industrial Manufacturing District Land Uses table in Section 18.20.030. Next slide, please. 13
14
For Program 3.6D (Expedited Project Review), the proposed change is to Section 18.77.070, 15
Subsection C, this is to limit ARB review to two meetings unless otherwise requested by the 16
applicant. Next slide, please. 17
18
Program 4.1A (Replacement Housing), PAMC Section 18.40.160 was amended to include new 19
Subsections (a)(3)(A) and (a)(3)(B). (a)(3)(A) is if the proposed development is not a residential 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
development, replacement units may be located on a different site but within the city and be 1
developed prior to or concurrently with the proposed development. (a)(3)(B) reads: 2
Replacement of protected units as defined by Government Code Section 66300.5 shall be 3
subject to additional requirements of Government Code Section 66300.6. This limits number of 4
public hearings on a housing project, complying with the applicable objective general plan and 5
zoning standards that is deemed complete. Next slide, please. 6
7
Program 6.5C (Alternate Housing), Section 18.14.060 has been amended to allow group homes 8
to be treated as by-right use in all residential zones, provided the development complies with 9
the City’s objective design standards. Next slide, please. 10
11
PAMC Section 18.14.060 has been amended to allow supportive housing meeting State law 12
requirements to be treated as a by-use right, I’m sorry, by-right use where multifamily and 13
mixed use are permitted, including nonresidential zones permitting multifamily. Next slide, 14
please. 15
16
Section 18.14.060 was modified to allow low-barrier navigation centers to be treated as by-17
right use in zones where multifamily and mixed uses are permitted, including nonresidential 18
zones permitting multifamily uses, provided the project satisfies the requirements of the state 19
law. Next slide, please. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
PAMC Section 18.14.060 was amended to allow emergency shelter for homeless to be reviewed 2
ministerially. Section 18.20.040 Site Development Standards was amended per requirements of 3
the Government Code Section 65583 and this includes text (a)(4)(A). Next slide, please. 4
5
PAMC Section 18.28.040 has been modified to allow Farmworker Housing as a permitted use in 6
the Additional Open Space and Agricultural Conservation Zones. 18.28.070 has been amended 7
to ensure no discretionary permit would be required for farmworker housing of up to 36 beds 8
or 12 units in the AC Zone. And 18.28.080 has been amended to ensure farmworker housing 9
with six or fewer people in OS zones is treated as a single-family use and does not require a 10
discretionary permit. Next slide, please. 11
12
The changes have been made to Title 21 as directed by HCD as a condition of certification of the 13
2023-2031 Housing Element. Next slide, please. 14
15
PAMC Section 21.11.040(d) the text that you see on your screen has been removed to comply 16
with the state requirements of Senate Bill 9. 17
18
And this is everything that we’ve done as an ordinance update change, so to the next slide. 19
Upon recommendation by the Commission, staff will take the changes to the City Council early 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
next year for adoption. Next slide, please. The recommended motion is the Planning 1
Commission, Planning and Transportation Commission forward its recommendation to the City 2
Council to adopt the Draft Ordinance amending Sections of PAMC Title 18 (Zoning) with the 3
amended footnote to PAMC Section 18.20.030 regarding hazardous materials, and Title 21 4
(General Requirements). This concludes my presentation and I’m available to answer any 5
questions that you have. 6
7
Chair Chang: All right. Clarifying questions first, please. Commissioner Reckdahl then Akin. 8
9
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Yeah. The 6.5C. 10
11
Chair Chang: Vice-Chair. 12
13
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: The Alternate Housing group homes, what’s the definition of group home? 14
Is that a dormitory or is that – so it’s, well, Slide 3 but there’s multiple Slide 3’s. It is on Page 6. 15
16
Chair Chang: Mr. Yang, would you like to answer the question? 17
18
Albert Yang: Yes. Group home is defined as a facility that has like a shared kitchen and other 19
facilities that often provides kind of wrap-around services as well. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Okay. Would that be considered the same as a dormitory or is dormitory 2
different? 3
4
Albert Yang: For the purposes of this by-right provision, it is different from just a dormitory. 5
There are specific populations that need to be served. 6
7
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Oh. Okay. Dormitories are associated with students or something like 8
that? 9
10
Albert Yang: No. It’s just that I think a dormitory could, the sort of structural, like the building, 11
the same definition, it would look same or similar but like the actual use is different, is more 12
specific for what we consider a group home. 13
14
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: What would be the difference between a group home and just renting out 15
rooms in a house? 16
17
Albert Yang: Here, I just need a moment and I’ll pull up the specific definition then I’ll have a 18
better answer for you. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Okay. 1
2
Commissioner Akin: Just to interject, Packet Page 88 I believe has the definition you’re looking 3
for down at the next to the last paragraph. 4
5
Vishnu Krishnan: We have the definition in the zoning ordinance that we provided as an 6
attachment, so it says: Housing shared by unrelated persons with disabilities that provide peer 7
or other support for their residents’... 8
9
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Oh. 10
11
Vishnu Krishnan: ...disability-related needs in which residents share cooking, dining, and living 12
areas. 13
14
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Okay. Got you. That answers my question. Thank you. 15
16
Chair Chang: All right. Commissioner Akin? 17
18
Commissioner Akin: Thank you, Chair. My question is on Packet Page 89. This is 18.40.160 19
(a)(3)(A) and this refers to the shall be developed prior to or concurrently with the proposed 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
development project. The question I have is how – let me know when you’re ready. The 1
question is: How is that requirement met? For example, the other project receives an 2
entitlement or does it need a building permit or is there some other condition that has to be 3
met to meet the requirement of concurrent development? 4
5
Albert Yang: Yeah. We would be looking for building permits to be issued concurrently and then 6
we wouldn’t final the commercial development until the residential units had received their 7
occupancy. 8
9
Commissioner Akin: That’s perfectly reasonable. Does it need to be stated explicitly? 10
11
Albert Yang: I don’t believe it does. This is the language taken out of the state law. Yeah. This is 12
how staff would have wanted it. 13
14
Commissioner Akin: Yeah. Just so long as it’s clear to the applicants what’s intended there. All 15
right. Thank you. That’s the only question I had. 16
17
Chair Chang: Commissioner Hechtman? 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. The term Housing Development Project is used a number 1
of times in the Draft Ordinance, Packet Pages 87, 88, and 89. There’s not a definition in the 2
ordinance fragments we have here. I just wanted to confirm that it’s defined some other place 3
in the ordinance that in 18 that’s just not part of the ordinance fragments we have. 4
5
Vishnu Krishnan: Yes. It is. 6
7
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 8
9
Chair Chang: Okay. I had a question about the AC Zone. Where in Palo Alto is there AC Zone? I 10
have tried to look at the zoning map but I couldn’t – it’s probably not hugely obvious maybe. 11
12
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: The only spot I know of is just south of Page Mill where the horses are 13
there. 14
15
Chair Chang: Could staff tell us more, if that’s where it is? 16
17
Vishnu Krishnan: That’s the only place I found too. I had the same question. Then, I looked it up. 18
Yes. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Chang: Okay. We could have stablehands. Got it. Okay. Thank you. I don’t see any other 1
clarifying questions, so are there any public comments? I don’t see any online. 2
3
Veronica Dao: Yes. I have one speaker card from Amie Ashton. 4
5
PUBLIC COMMENTS 6
Amie Ashton: All right. I’ll be very quick. Amie Ashton, Executive Director of Palo Alto Forward. 7
I’m here on behalf of the organization and our all-volunteer Housing Element Working Group 8
who advocated really hard to make sure our Housing Element would be as aggressive, as 9
effective and aggressive, I guess, as possible. The proposed code amendments are just what we 10
hoped for and we look forward to supporting the projects that will result as well. Special thanks 11
to the Planning Department for bringing this forward today and for the very clear and 12
informative staff report. It was really helpful for our membership and hence I’m the only one 13
here. Everyone was supportive. Thank you very much. 14
15
Chair Chang: Thank you. All right. Bringing it back to the Commission for comments. 16
Commissioner Lu? 17
18
Commissioner Lu: Yeah. I had a question thread about the emergency shelters for homeless, so 19
that’s referenced in Packet Page 81 but there’s also the actual ordinance in Packet Page 86. I 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
want to confirm I guess a few questions at once. I read this as specific to the ROLM Zone. And I 1
see that several site development standards are kind of rewritten in Packet Page 85 and kind of 2
updated in Packet Page 86. I just want to confirm, are all these changes specifically required by 3
state law? I think that was the reference on Packet Page 81 or the implication on Packet Page 4
81. 5
6
Vishnu Krishnan: Yes. I can take that. 7
8
Commissioner Lu: Yeah. 9
10
Vishnu Krishnan: Yes. That is true. Supportive housing the way it is written is you have to abide 11
by the Government Code Section 65050 all the way to 65056. There are different requirements, 12
which is why it is – we’ve made all the changes that is mentioned here. 13
14
Commissioner Lu: Okay. The State is requiring us to change how we calculate some of our 15
parking and other things like that? 16
17
Vishnu Krishnan: Yes. That’s right. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Lu: Okay. Do we know if there would be any practical impact to some of our 1
existing shelters, like Hotel de Zink or the Heart and Home, yeah, Heart and Home 2
Collaborative? I don’t know, for example, of those shelters that rotate through faith-based sites 3
and are not generally in the ROLM Zone if there’s any impact expected here. 4
5
Vishnu Krishnan: None that I can think of. Albert, do you have any? 6
7
Albert Yang: No. There wouldn’t be any impacts because this only sets forth the rules for 8
shelters in the ROLM Zone if they want to be treated as uses by right. The existing shelters 9
already have everything they need to operate and this wouldn’t change that. 10
11
Commissioner Lu: Okay. Got it. Thank you. 12
13
Chair Chang: Commissioner Hechtman? 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. I want to drill down on the replacement units issue, which 16
is on Packet Page 79 and 80, something that staff had specifically asked for our feedback on and 17
so I want to understand it a little bit better. From the staff report what I understand is that 18
under state law if I am doing a housing development project on a parcel with housing units, I 19
have to replace those housing units. And if I’m under AB 1218 if I’m doing a non-housing 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
development, like a commercial development, and there are BMRs on that site, I have to 1
replace the BMRs. But if there was on that site a BMR and a market-rate housing unit, I don’t 2
have to replace the market-rate housing unit, and so staff just drafted the ordinance to go a 3
little farther than state law as I understand it. 4
5
And in that hypothetical I gave, the developer of the commercial project would have to not only 6
replace the BMR but also the market-rate housing unit. And under the language of 18.40.160 7
(a)(3)(A), which is the provision that Commissioner Akin was pointing to moments ago on 8
Packet Page 89, as the developer of the commercial project, I can provide that unit onsite or I 9
can elect to provide it at a different location in Palo Alto. And as I understood Mr. Yang, the 10
timing is going to be such that you’re not going to get your certificate of occupancy on the 11
commercial project until the replacement housing on the same or on a different site gets its 12
certificate of occupancy, and so that part I understand. I guess my first question is does any of 13
our commercial zoning not allow housing so that if I do have a house on that commercial zone 14
parcel it’s necessarily legal nonconforming because it’s not an allowed use in that zoning 15
category? I don’t know the answer to that. I know we’ve expanded a lot of our zoning codes to 16
allow housing in pursuit of our RHNA numbers. And so that’s my first question is – are there 17
commercial zones that don’t allow housing? 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Vishnu Krishnan: Neighborhood commercial, community commercial, service commercial, and 1
downtown commercial allow residential, so yes, they do. 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 4
5
Vishnu Krishnan: All of our commercial zones allow residential. Yes. 6
7
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. All right. And so because my concern was if we would be 8
perpetuating a legal nonconforming use by requiring housing in an area that didn’t allow 9
housing, the only reason the housing unit is there is that it preexisted the commercial zoning 10
but it doesn’t sound like that’s going to be the case. 11
12
Vishnu Krishnan: In addition to that, we also have our Research Office and Limited 13
Manufacturing, Research Park and General Manufacturing Districts that allow multifamily. 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 16
17
Vishnu Krishnan: That’s the other option. And then the other one is Public Facilities allow 18
multifamily residential and Housing Element Opportunity sites. And then we have the PTOD 19
that allows multifamily residential. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. I’m sorry you weren’t prepared to answer that question. You 2
fielded that beautifully. Okay. I guess sort of narrowing the concern, if I’ve got any of these 3
properties that’s not zoned residential, it’s zoned one of these other designations that allows 4
multifamily but for whatever reason there’s a single family home on it, can I replace that single 5
family home on site? It’s not multifamily. Or am I going to be forced to go buy some other site 6
to replicate that? And I’m thinking of if there’s a parcel here with an old house on it that 7
somebody is living in in one of these other designations, maybe they’re using it as a partial 8
office and they’re living upstairs, whatever. I just want to make sure that if we do this, we’re 9
not going to give somebody an option to construct something on this non-residentially zoned 10
property that is inconsistent with our zoning code. 11
12
Vishnu Krishnan: That’s definitely an Albert question. 13
14
Albert Yang: Okay. I think that’s something that we could address more specifically and make 15
the rule for that to say, if we wanted we could say that that would be allowed as a mixed use 16
where there would be fewer than three dwelling units, which is where we – how we define 17
multifamily or we could say you’ve got to build three even if there’s only one existing there 18
right now. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. I don’t want to thwart nonresidential development. We need 1
that too. And I’m also mindful that this I think is – would apply to public property, right? If the 2
City, for example, wants to buy a piece of land to make a park or a parking lot or some other 3
municipal facility, this is going to apply to them. And so I don’t want to increase the burden 4
beyond the perceived harm that we’re trying to address. And I don’t think we need to design 5
that from the dais tonight but having identified the issue, I’m hoping that staff will look at that 6
and if there is a hole in that part of the ordinance that they fill it on its way to Council. Thanks. 7
8
Chair Chang: Commissioner Lu? Any other comments? I have a quick one. I’m guessing it’s a 9
typo on Packet Page 20 – no, Packet Page 78, second paragraph under analysis where it says 10
others will come before the PTC near the end of the year or in 2025. It’s the end of the year 11
already, so I’m assuming that’s just a typo. 12
13
Vishnu Krishnan: That is a typo. Sorry. 14
15
Chair Chang: Awesome. Thank you. 16
17
Robert Feign: Actually, sorry, if I can correct that. There are some implementation programs 18
that are coming before the end of the year. One was referenced. Correct? It’s regarding 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
whether there’s additional priorities that are coming to the PTC before the end of the year, the 1
section that you referenced, is that correct? 2
3
Chair Chang: It says... 4
5
Robert Feign: Different housing implementation programs? 6
7
Chair Chang: Yes. I guess we might hear from HIP and AHIP? 8
9
Robert Feign: Yeah. 10
11
Chair Chang: Got it. 12
13
Robert Feign: That’s what that’s a reference to. And then there’s also the El Camino focus area 14
which isn’t going to be an ordinance recommendation but it is an item that’s anticipated to 15
come to the PTC before the end of the year. 16
17
Chair Chang: Got it. Makes sense. Thank you. Okay. If there are no other comments, does 18
anybody want to make a motion? More comments? Oh. Okay. Would somebody like to make a 19
motion? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Akin: Sure. I’ll move the staff recommendation. 2
3
Chair Chang: Okay. [Inaudible 91:20]. 4
5
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Second. 6
7
Chair Chang: Discussion? Commissioner Hechtman? 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. I think it’s understood in the motion that staff is going to look 10
at this issue and if they feel an adjustment is warranted they’ll make it but we’re not directing 11
them to definitely make an adjustment, just to look at the issue. 12
13
Chair Chang: Great. I don’t see any other lights for discussion, so Ms. Dao, could you please take 14
the vote? 15
16
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 1
2
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 3
4
Veronica Dao: Vice-Chair Reckdahl? 5
6
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Yes. 7
8
Veronica Dao: Chair Chang? 9
10
Chair Chang: Yes. 11
12
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Akin? 13
14
Commissioner Akin: Yes. 15
16
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Lu? 17
18
Commissioner Lu: Yes. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Veronica Dao: Motion carries 6-0. 1
2
APPROVAL OF MINUTES 3
4
4. Approval of Planning & Transportation Commission Draft Verbatim & Summary 5
Minutes of September 25, 2024 6
7
5. Approval of Planning & Transportation Commission Draft Verbatim & Summary 8
Minutes of October 9, 2024 9
10
Chair Chang: Okay. Our next order of business is the Approval of Minutes. We’ve got two sets of 11
verbatim and summary minutes. Mr. Yang, are we allowed to do a voice vote with this, and can 12
we roll them all into one? 13
14
Albert Yang: Yes to both. 15
16
Chair Chang: Okay. Discussion? Does anyone want to make a motion? 17
18
Commissioner Akin: Move that we approve the minutes as revised for verbatim and summary 19
of, let’s see, what were the dates, 9/25 and... 20
21
Chair Chang: 10/9. 22
23
Male: 10/9. 24
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Akin: ...10/9. 2
3
Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Second. 4
5
Chair Chang: Great. Any discussion on this motion? All right. All in favor? 6
7
Group Vote: Aye. 8
9
Chair Chang: Any opposed or abstentions? It passes, the motion passed unanimously. 10
11
Commissioner Questions, Comments or Announcements or Future Meetings and 12
Agendas 13
14
Chair Chang: Next order of business is Commissioner Questions, Comments, Announcements or 15
Future Meetings and Agendas. Commissioner Lu first and then I’ve got Commissioner 16
Hechtman and Templeton. And Commissioner Akin, is this a ghost light? 17
18
Commissioner Akin: [Inaudible 93:38]. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Chang: Okay. Commissioner Lu then Hechtman and Templeton. 1
2
Commissioner Lu: I wanted to make a quick comment as the Council Liaison last night where AB 3
2097, the relaxed parking or elimination of parking requirements within a ½ mile of a major 4
transit stop was discussed. The Council chose along the lines what we were discussing to 5
protect ADA and EV charging spaces but chose to also just really maximize those protections 6
insofar that we would require what we would otherwise have normally required in our code for 7
both ADA and EV without discussion or at least expansive discussion of providing on-street ADA 8
spaces or allowing flexibility for offsite EV charging spaces. That was the perspective of the 9
Council along the lines of what we discussed and, yeah, just really maximally protective of ADA 10
and EV charging, so that’s the update from Council from last night. There was one last pending 11
discussion of if a developer chooses to voluntarily provide a certain amount of parking, whether 12
there could be extra flexibility or incentives, and that is for legal review and will come back to 13
Council and potentially, yeah, change Council’s decision from there. 14
15
Chair Chang: Thank you. Okay. Commissioner Hechtman? 16
17
Commissioner Hechtman: I think congratulations are in order tonight to this body and the 18
quality of our commissioners because two among us will be ascending to the City Council. It 19
seems that it’s clear that Commissioner Lu is going to be a Council Member shortly with actually 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
more votes than an incumbent, which is very difficult to do and is really a testament not only I 1
think to his platform but really to the organization of his campaign. It was a terrific result. And 2
then two of our commissioners, Vice-Chair Reckdahl and Commissioner Summa, are locked in a 3
very tight contest that is too close to call but the numbers are such that it’s clear that one of the 4
two of them is going to be a Council Member very shortly. And so I’m very excited. And it is my 5
personal belief that there is no better training ground for any City Council than to participate in 6
that City’s Planning Commission. And I think with Mr. Lauing who has already sort of plowed 7
that ground a couple years ago, I’m expecting great things from our commissioners who 8
become Council Members. And I’m really pleased that with legitimately two spots open, 9
Planning Commissioners grabbed both of them, so congratulations. 10
11
Chair Chang: Commissioner Templeton? 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: Thanks. I think you forgot the honorable mention. 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: Oh. 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: Anyway, I was going to say that I noticed you guys have updated the 18
slide templates with beautiful new pictures and I just wanted to say thank you. After six years 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
of enjoying the previous template, I’m looking forward to the surprising new slides and 1
whatnot, so thank you and kudos to whoever implemented that. 2
3
Chair Chang: All right. Thank you all. Are there any more comments? All right. We are 4
adjourned. 5
6
Adjournment 7
7:37 PM 8
9
/mlc 10