HomeMy WebLinkAbout2025-01-15 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: January 15,2025 2
Council Chambers & Virtual 3
6:00 PM 4
5
Call to Order / Roll Call 6
6:03 PM 7
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Chair Chang: Do I need to wait for the on-the-air light? There we go. Okay. Good evening, 9
everyone. I’d like to call to meeting − this special meeting of Planning and Transportation 10
Commission for Wednesday, January 15. 11
12
ROLL CALL 13
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Chair Chang: Ms. Dao, could you please call the roll? 15
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Administrative Assistant Veronica Dao: Chair Chang? 17
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Chair Chang: Present. 19
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Veronica Dao: Commissioner Akin? 21
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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: Here. 1
2
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 3
4
Commissioner Hechtman: Here. 5
6
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Summa? 7
8
Commissioner Summa: Present on Zoom. 9
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Veronica Dao: Is there anyone over 18 in the room with you? 11
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Commissioner Summa: There is no one in the house except me and one cat. 13
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Veronica Dao: Thank you. Commissioner Templeton? 15
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Commissioner Templeton: Here. 17
18
Veronica Dao: We have a quorum. 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.
Oral Communications 1
The public may speak to any item not on the agenda. Three (3) minutes per speaker.1,2 2
3
Chair Chang: All right. Our first order of business tonight is public comments on items that are 4
not on the agenda. Ms. Dao, do we have any speaker cards or comments online? 5
6
Veronica Dao: [Inaudible 1:19]. 7
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Chair Chang: I don’t see anybody online. 9
10
Veronica Dao: Oh, I see one… 11
12
Chair Chang: Oh… 13
14
Veronica Dao: …raised hand. 15
16
Chair Chang: …one online. Okay, one raised hand online. 17
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Veronica Dao: From Zachary. 19
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Chair Chang: Go ahead, Zachary. Zachary… 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
Zachary: Hello. 2
3
Chair Chang: …are you there? 4
5
Zachary: Hi. 6
7
Chair Chang: [Inaudible 1:44]. 8
9
Zachary: Yes. 10
11
Chair Chang: [Inaudible 1:47] hear you now. 12
13
Zachary: All right. You can hear me now. I am representing or − one of the individuals who’s 14
representing Palo Alto Forward, and I know Amie Ashton is present but… 15
16
Chair Chang: Zachary, is this regarding 3265 El Camino? 17
18
Zachary: Yes. 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: Okay, so right now, we’re taking public comments on item – on non-agenda… 1
2
Zachary: Okay. 3
4
Chair Chang: …non-agendized items. 5
6
Zachary: I apologize. 7
8
Chair Chang: No problem. 9
10
Zachary: It cut off at the beginning of this when I – when you all started, so… 11
12
Chair Chang: Great. We’ll hear from you later. So Ms. Dao, are there any other public comment 13
cards for items not on the agenda? 14
15
Veronica Dao: I have none for oral communication. 16
17
Chair Chang: Great. Thank you. Okay. 18
19
Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions 20
The Chair or Commission majority may modify the agenda order to improve meeting management. 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
Chair Chang: Are there any Agenda Changes, Additions or Deletions? 2
3
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: No. 4
5
Chair Chang: Great. Thank you. 6
7
City Official Reports 8
1. Directors Report, Meeting Schedule and Assignments 9
10
Chair Chang: So then our next order of business is City Official Reports. Ms. Armer. 11
12
Jennifer Armer: Thank you. Jennifer Armer, Assistant Director. And we will pull up the quick 13
presentation here momentarily. Just a quick update on upcoming items that we have. So next 14
slide. So we do have your next meeting scheduled. We’ve got a couple of transportation items, 15
discussion of parking programs as well as the Safety Action Plan. We’ve also received a request 16
from the VTA to make a short presentation to share about their visionary network, and so we’re 17
going to be putting that on that agenda as well. There’s still some movement on what items will 18
be going to your different February meetings. So we – so I’m just including that second January 19
meeting for now. On the next slide then, some upcoming other meetings that we have. The City 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.
Council meeting next week is going to be on Tuesday instead of Monday because of the holiday. 1
And we are going to be talking about some of the Housing Element implementation items that 2
did come to you and were recommended for approval on November 13 of last year. We are 3
looking to bring the Lighting Ordinance forward to Council as well, though as I said some of our 4
February agenda items here on Council are also moving around a little bit, so that may get 5
shifted along with the Stream Corridor Protection Ordinance. 6
7
We have a community meeting scheduled in the evening here at City Hall on February 6, so we 8
invite anyone interested in that to come join us. In addition, I did want to share that we had the 9
first meeting of the Downtown Housing Plan Community Advisory Committee yesterday. Great 10
discussion and introductions to the members of that committee. Thank you. That’s the end of 11
my report. 12
13
Chair Chang: I have a question for you, Ms. Armer. There was a public comment that had asked 14
if we knew when the bird-friendly design item would be going to City Council. Do we have any 15
visibility into that? 16
17
Jennifer Armer: We don’t have a date for that yet; it is likely to be March. The meeting agendas 18
have filled up pretty thoroughly. But when we do have a sense of when that’s coming in the 19
next month or two, we will include it in the Director’s Report. 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
Chair Chang: Thank you so much. Does anybody else have questions for Staff? Maybe there’s 2
one more thing that I wanted to ask you to update everybody on. Is – if you know anything 3
about the status of the recruiting for the replacement for Director Kamhi. 4
5
Jennifer Armer: So I know that we do have an interim director for Transportation who has 6
joined the Staff this week to start. But we also do actually have Rafael Rius from our 7
Transportation team who is online to join us and give us some updates. I expect that our 8
interim director – I’m hopeful that they will be joining us at the next meeting, since we have 9
numerous transportation items at that time. 10
11
Chair Chang: Good evening, Mr. Rius. 12
13
Senior Engineer Rafael Rius: Hi. Thank you. I’m Rafael Rius, Senior Engineer with the Office of 14
Transportation. Yeah, I have a few updates. As Jennifer mentioned, we do have an interim to 15
transportation official; her name is Lily Lim-Tsao, She comes – she’s a recent retire-, somewhat 16
recent retiree from City of San Jose and has a lot of experience. And so far, we’re hitting the 17
ground running with her, so it’s − nothing’s slowing down. I will mention and kind of invite her 18
for the next meeting. As an additional follow-up, the – so she’s an interim position working part 19
time. The permanent position has as of yesterday been posted, so it’s open right now. We’re 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.
probably anticipating − possibly a 4-month recruitment period or process. So hopefully that all 1
goes smoothly. Then just also to follow up on the upcoming meeting, the 1 – January 29 2
meeting that Jennifer referred to, in addition to the parking programs, Nathan Baird is also 3
going to try to bring an update on the shuttle and transit programs along the VTA. The Safe 4
Street For All Safety Action Plan, which is coming on that night, the draft plan is posted on the 5
City’s website. It’s in the transportation section under Transportation Projects, but it – the draft 6
plan is posted just in case you wanted to get a head start before that meeting; it’s about a 180-7
page document, so just as a heads up. That’s the only other info, I think. We sent the collision 8
data for several months’ worth earlier this week. I’m available if you have any questions but 9
those are the main updates I have right now. 10
11
Chair Chang: Thank you for the heads up on the reading. Does anybody have any questions for 12
Mr. Rius? 13
14
Commissioner Hechtman: So, Mr. Rius, I want to follow up on the collision data. A question I’ve 15
asked before and I understand there was a discussion about this at a PTC meeting a couple 16
months ago that I missed. But I want an understanding of how we’re going to track the KSI, the 17
fatalities and significant injuries. I understand that there’s an issue with the Police Department 18
perhaps correlating and releasing that information on a monthly basis. And if that’s true, so be 19
it. But at some point, there has to be a plan for us to get the information, so that we can see if 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’re making progress. And so really all I want is – hopefully a meeting in the near future, to 1
get a report from the Transportation Department that this is how it’s going to work. In roughly 2
February or March every year, you will get the KSI information for the prior year or the year 3
before that or whatever it is. Just so that I can stop asking about this and wondering because I 4
know there has to be a plan because that is the deliverable from that program. So if you can 5
tackle that and we can hear what the plan is, then I’ll be happy to put that issue away. 6
7
Rafael Rius: Sure. I definitely understand your request and I’ll pass that along also. The Safe 8
Street For All Action Plan is coming in the next meeting – is kind of what the KSI metric that 9
we’ve been in discussion with is tied to that. I can say – I mean just kind of – I’ve noticed 10
separately our open data portal on the City’s websites, the collisions were kind of three years 11
behind with [inaudible 10:19] but was recently just in the last week or so updated to include all 12
of 2023. So 2024 is not in there yet but I can say that. And it has a little bit more info. I know it 13
has some injury info. I’m not sure to the extent that the details in KSI though. A great question. 14
But I’ll actually bring it to the project managers for the Safe Streets For All Action Plan and have 15
them bring that up at the next meeting also. 16
17
Chair Chang: Anybody else? Okay. Then onto our next order of business. Ms. Temp-, 18
Commissioner Templeton, did you have a light on? No? Okay. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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: I was told mine doesn’t work anymore. 1
2
Chair Chang: I think it’s a ghost light from testing. 3
4
Action Items 5
Public Comment is Permitted. Five (5) minutes per speaker. 6
7
2. Election of Vice Chair 8
9
Chair Chang: Okay. So our next order of business is the election of Vice Chair to the Planning 10
Commission because Commissioner – or Vice-Chair Reckdahl is now on the City Council. So do 11
we want to do a Staff Report with this first or do I just go ahead and… 12
13
Jennifer Armer: You can proceed. 14
15
Chair Chang: Okay. Fantastic. So Staff had said – suggested sort of the process in our Packet, 16
and so I think we’ll just go with that process. So first, we’re take nominations, then the 17
nominees state whether they want to accept the nomination. Then whoever moved and 18
seconded the nomination makes a brief statement on why they support the nomination, and 19
then the nominees can also speak to their candidacies. So – and then we can ask questions and 20
vote. So would anybody like to nominate one of us five for Vice-Chair? Yes, go ahead, 21
Commissioner Hechtman. 22
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.
Commissioner Hechtman: I nominate Commissioner Akin. 1
2
Jennifer Armer: Commissioner Summa has her hand raised. 3
4
Chair Chang: Commissioner Summa. 5
6
Commissioner Summa: I was going to do that too, so I’ll second. 7
8
Chair Chang: Fantastic. Commissioner Akin, would you accept the nomination? 9
10
Commissioner Akin: Thank you, I would be honored to accept. 11
12
Chair Chang: Okay. Would the nominator and the seconder like to speak to their nomination? 13
14
Commissioner Hechtman: Sure. 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: [Are there other 12:55] nominations? 17
18
Commissioner Hechtman: Oh, 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.
Chair Chang: Oh, yeah. Are there other nominations? Ms. Templeton, are there other 1
nominations? 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: [Not from here 13:03]. 4
5
Chair Chang: Okay. 6
7
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 8
9
Chair Chang: Go ahead. 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: All right. So I think Commissioner Akin is going to be very well suited 12
for this role. He has – when you just think about the characteristics of how he has comported 13
himself at the meetings since he joined the PTC, he is already taking the lead on numerous 14
issues. He comes prepared every time. And one of the real hallmarks I think of the way he 15
approaches this work is, he is very collaborative and he’s a great listener. So he will put some 16
ideas on the table and then hear what other people are thinking about those ideas and their 17
separate ideas and then work towards some consensus, and that is basically the description of 18
the Chair of the PTC. And as a bit of foreshadowing, when we get around to nominating the 19
Chair, which will be I think on April 9, that will be six meetings from now if my count is correct, I 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.
think that Vice-Chair Akin at that point will be ready to be the Chair. And I would note that if 1
that works out, he will be supported on the Commission by three former chairs who can help 2
out in any way that might be needed, although I don’t suspect he’ll need much help. So I’m 3
happy that he’s the only nominee and I’m looking for him to start this work immediately. 4
5
Chair Chang: Commissioner Summa, would you like to speak? 6
7
Commissioner Summa: Sure, I’ll just add a little bit because that was a very thorough comment 8
by Commissioner Hechtman. I’ll just add that I think Commissioner Akin is wonderfully suited to 9
the role of – in a role of leadership on this Commission and I have greatly enjoyed his 10
participation and I think he’ll be great. 11
12
Chair Chang: Would anybody else like to say anything? 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 15:35]. 15
16
Chair Chang: Well let me just… 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah, he’s the only one who hasn’t yet served in leadership position. 19
He’s great. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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: Right. And tremendous – I’ll just chime in and say tremendously, tremendously 2
prepared. I really like your attitude towards problem solving, right? Like there’s a problem that 3
we want to solve, we want to solve that problem, and we’re going to find a way to do it. And I 4
really appreciate that approach. So with that – oh. 5
6
Commissioner Hechtman: The nominee gets a chance to… 7
8
Chair Chang: Would you like to speak? Yes. 9
10
Commissioner Akin: Yes, certainly. That’s – I’m quite taken by the votes of confidence and I 11
hope to serve you well. Thank you. 12
13
Chair Chang: Okay. Ms. Dao, could you please call the vote, I guess. I don’t know if we need to. 14
Can we do… 15
16
Veronica Dao: Two things. You need to take public comment. 17
18
Chair Chang: Oh. 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: Second, you can’t… 1
2
Chair Chang: Right. Public comment. 3
4
Veronica Dao: And we cannot do a voice vote because Commissioner Summa is… 5
6
Chair Chang: Is remote. 7
8
Veronica Dao: …remote. 9
10
PUBLIC COMMENTS 11
12
Chair Chang: Okay. Do we have any public comments on this? I don’t see hands raised. Let me 13
check again. I do not see hands raised. 14
15
Veronica Dao: No. Yeah, I have no raised hands or speaker cards. 16
17
Chair Chang: Okay. Now could you please take the vote, please? 18
19
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 20
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.
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 1
2
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Summa? 3
4
Commissioner Summa: Yes. 5
6
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 7
8
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 9
10
Veronica Dao: Chair Chang? 11
12
Chair Chang: Yes. 13
14
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Akin? 15
16
Commissioner Akin: Yes. 17
18
Veronica Dao: Motion carries 5-0. 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
Commissioner Templeton: Congratulations. 3
4
Commissioner Hechtman: Congratulations. 5
6
Chair Chang: Fantastic. 7
8
Vice-Chair Akin: Thank you very much. 9
10
Chair Chang: Congratulations, Vice-Chair Akin. All right. That was – I love the efficiency here. 11
12
3. PUBLIC HEARING / QUASI-JUDICIAL. 3265 El Camino Real [24PLN-00012]: 13
Recommendation on Applicant’s Request to Rezone the Subject Site from 14
Commercial Service (CS) to Planned Community/Planned Home Zoning and to 15
Construct a 100% Affordable, Six-Story, 55-Unit Multi-family Rental Development. 16
Environmental Assessment: Initial Study/15183 Streamlined CEQA Review. Zoning 17
District: CS (Commercial Service). 18
19
Chair Chang: So we’re onto our mean item of business tonight. It’s our second action item. So 20
this is a public hearing, that’s quasi-judicial regarding 3265 El Camino Real and we need to make 21
a recommendation on the applicant’s request to rezone this site from commercial service to a 22
planned community zone into – in order to construct a 100 percent affordable six-story, 55-23
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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.
unit, multifamily rental development. So we will start with disclosures if any of us have 1
disclosures. Go − do you want to go on down the line quickly? 2
3
Vice-Chair Akin: No disclosures. 4
5
Chair Chang: No disclosures. 6
7
Commissioner Hechtman: None. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: What is included in disclosures? 10
11
Chair Chang: Conversations with any – if we have any information that is not publicly available. 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: I don’t have any information that’s not publicly available. 14
15
Chair Chang: Then, you’re good. Commissioner Summa, do you have any disclosures? 16
17
Commissioner Summa: None. 18
19
Chair Chang: Great. Okay. Then I think we can move on with the Staff Report. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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
Principal Planner Garrett Sauls: Good evening, Commissioners. My name is Garrett Sauls. I’m 2
the project planner for this application. As the Chair had noted this is a planned home zoning 3
application for 3265 El Camino Real. What you can see on the screen is sort of a walkthrough of 4
the process of what these Planned Home Zoning or PC, Planned Community, district 5
applications have to go through where they first start off as a prescreening application. This one 6
started in September of 2023, followed up by a formal submittal, which occurred in January of 7
last year. The PTC previously heard this item in April of last year. The ARB had it a week later in 8
April. And then November of last year, the ARB had their second hearing with the application 9
and recommended approval to the PTC, which is what the hearing is for tonight. And we have 10
tentatively scheduled this item to go to Council on February 10. So a couple of things to know 11
between what you’re seeing today in this application and what was previously brought to you 12
in April of last year, is the application has changed to introduce an additional level of units on 13
the project, which previously, the application was a five-story, 44-unit affordable housing 14
project. This project now is a six-story, 55-unit affordable housing project. There are 32 parking 15
spaces provided on site; 30 within the stacker and two, the lift system, and two within the 16
accessible stalls associated with – adjacent to those. 17
18
There are 55 bike lockers proposed at the back of the property for short-term bike spots 19
provided at the front on El Camino and five shared electric bikes, which would also be provided 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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.
within the bike locker room at the back. And out of the distribution of the units, from the 55, 1
fourteen of those units would be assigned as low-income units, 41 would be assigned as 2
moderate income. On the screen, what you can see is a dev-, where the project deviates from 3
our underlying commercial service zone district, in the bulb on the right-hand side. So you can 4
see that it deviates with the setback of – the rear yard setback requirement, our site coverage 5
requirements, floor area ratio requirements, our height, minimum open space per unit – opens 6
− requirements, our parking requirements, and the loading zone requirements based on the 7
number of units that are proposed in the project. To give a sense of where this project is in 8
concert with a number of other projects being built within the El Camino Real area, on this side 9
where you can see my cursor moving around, here’s 3150 El Camino Real, which is a 368-unit 10
project. You have over here a five-story, 3001 El Camino, which is 130 units; this is also a 100 11
percent affordable housing project. 12
13
You have 428 Acacia and down along the side you [inaudible 21:27] that’s cropped out is 3400 14
El Camino Real as well as a number of projects just off of Matadero further down 3606 and 15
3710 El Camino Real where there’s two – about 200 units split between both of those two 16
projects individually. The feedback that was provided in the April 10 meeting is summarized 17
here where the PTC had asked the applicant and Staff to study ways to expand the rooftop 18
open space, expand the initially proposed TDM plan to ensure that it is robust. And there were 19
concerns and conversations around the parking that’s provided on site as well as the on-site 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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.
circulation and also to clarify information about the affordability of the project in relation to the 1
Palo Alto Unified School District’s salary schedule. Here on the elevations, you can see sort of a 2
visual difference between what we had looked at in the April 10 meeting and the application 3
that’s provided to you today. From the front side on El Camino, previous this was going 4
northbound on El Camino. This view goes southbound on El Camino, what you see. So largely, 5
design-wise, basically the same just an additional level on top of the building. And this is what 6
you can see along the rear, which is a parking lot for the adjacent restaurant. 7
8
On this screen here you can see how the applicant has tried to expand and starting to try to 9
address some of the comments the PTC had. You can see on the screen here how the applicant 10
has been able to expand that rooftop deck to include additional amenity space for tenants as 11
well as additional tree canopy on the rooftop. And in talking about the TDM changes – the 12
changes to the TDM plan that have been provided within this submittal compared to the 13
previous one. One of the things that was provided, you can see bolded on the screen here 14
that’s a significant difference, is that the project now incorporates free VTA Smart Passes for all 15
tenants where previously it was limited to a handful of tenants as you see in the top bulleted 16
items. As it relates to circulation, as part of the CEQA document, the City’s Environmental 17
Consultant, Fehr and Peers evaluated the circulation to and within the site. They did identify in 18
accordance with our requirements for lifts, which requires – or analyzes projects – analyze 19
parking lifts to provide capacity for full-size or mid-size vehicles rather than the standard code 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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.
requirement. Fehr and Peers did analyze how vehicles would be able to access to the site to 1
ensure that vehicles would be able to have a few maneuvers into the – as few maneuvers as 2
possible into the vehicle lift stalls given that the drive aisle is slightly smaller than what the 3
zoning code technically requires for as well. 4
5
And for stalls 1 through 6, those stalls would be able to acc-, be accessed by either a full-size or 6
mid-size vehicle with three maneuvers. And for Stall 7 and 8, there were more limits for full-size 7
vehicles to be able to access that with [three or fewer 24:25] maneuvers but mid-size vehicles 8
would be able to. And as part of that conversation we had with the ARB and as well with Staff 9
about how that could be – how we could try to mitigate some of those potential concerns or 10
conflicts, you can see in your Packet and Condition of Approval, Number 18 identifies that the 11
Stall 7 and 8 would be limited to access only by mid-size vehicles where they would have that 12
three-turn maneuver. And that is something that the applicant is able to commit to as all of 13
these spaces are actually assigned parking spaces, so there is a way to be able to effectively 14
control which vehicles go into those further stalls, so that there isn’t a concern that potentially 15
a larger vehicle tries to access that instead. Now within the Packet, you can see generally on the 16
screen, we have sort of information about the Santa Clara County HCD area median income for 17
2024 and one change that you see on the bottom of the screen is a similar table that’s in the 18
Staff Report but we’re going to talk about it on the next slide. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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.
But it provides anticipated rents for what the project is providing, which now with the distri-, 1
the higher density and units, the applicant is able to commit to a lower level of affordability for 2
– or higher level – excuse me, a higher level of affordability for lower – the lower-income units 3
where previously the proposal had the lower-income units tied to a 70 percent – a 80 percent 4
AMI. Now they’ll be able to provide them at a 70 percent AMI and the previous commitment of 5
110 percent AMI for the moderate-income units stays the same. But one thing to note and 6
we’ll bring this slide back up later when I’m sure we have a conversation about rents. The rents 7
that you see here didn’t – are slightly lower than what’s shown in the table in the Staff Report. 8
And part of that is because Staff had – we had forgotten to provide for the utility allowance 9
that’s a part of when we set those anticipated rents. So typically for studios or one-bedroom 10
apartments, they’re about $200 or so for that utility allowance. So it’s not the rents you saw on 11
the previous pa-, the rents you see on the – in the Staff Report plus this utility allowance. It 12
would actually be considering these lower rates instead that you see on this screen here. [But 13
26:43] in − some additional corrections from the Staff Report, we wanted to clarify some of the 14
assumptions shown in the Report when we talked about the low-income and moderate-income 15
units and which percentage or distribution of the Palo Alto Unified School District teachers 16
would be able to qualify for those types of units. 17
18
So in the first assumption, we’re looking at a one-person household with a studio where you’d 19
have about 9 percent of those salaries could qualify for that low-income unit. And about 81 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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.
percent could qualify for moderate-income unit. And again, looking at a one-person household 1
and the studio, there is actually a 10 percent – there’s 10 percent of the salaries that are 2
actually over-qualified and actually don’t qualify for a low-income unit. Or – sorry, for either. 3
Excuse me. And looking at Assumption 2, we’re looking at a two-person household with a one-4
bedroom unit and there – but then there are 22 percent of those salaries actually qualified for a 5
low-income unit; 78 percent qualified for moderate. Some additional considerations with this 6
project is that what is proposed within this PHC satisfies Option 2 of Council PHC requirements, 7
which is that we’re providing a minimum of 20 percent of the units that has [inaudible 28:03] 8
shifted to the affordable rates. This Option 2 provides a weighted value to those below-market 9
rates, which is actually more than three times the minimum that Council has requested 10
applicants to propose. The property is within the adopted NVCAP boundaries but it actually was 11
deemed as complete before the NVCAP standards were deemed effective, which effectively 12
means that the underlying district, the service commercial district’s standards still apply the 13
projects, so those are the baselines that we’re comparing this too rather than any upgraded or 14
modified NVCAP standards that are put in place now. 15
16
The existing property has a Valley Oak on site but that Valley Oak does contribute or impact a 17
significant portion of the buildable area, which the Urban Forestry Department evaluates as 18
being 25 percent or more, which would allow for that tree to be removed and proper 19
replacements would be provided either on site through some smaller replacements, which 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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.
would be shown as like trees on the rooftop, but additional in-lieu fees would be provided as 1
well and could be placed in other areas around the site or elsewhere in Palo Alto. And as we 2
noted before, the roof deck, you’ll be providing the majority of the open space requirements 3
for this project. Lastly, Staff’s recommendation to the Planning and Transportation Commission 4
would be take the following actions, which is to recommend approval of the project and the 5
CEQA document to the City Council. And that concludes my presentation. 6
7
Chair Chang: Thank you. So are we moving on to the applicant presentation now? 8
9
Jennifer Armer: Unless you have any clarifying questions for… 10
11
Chair Chang: I think… 12
13
Jennifer Armer: …Staff. 14
15
Chair Chang: I would suggest that let’s hear from the applicant first… 16
17
Jennifer Armer: Okay. 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.
Chair Chang: …and then we can ask the clarifying questions of both of them. Because maybe 1
the applicant is going to answer some of those questions for us. 2
3
Jennifer Armer: Sounds good. 4
5
Isaiah Stackhouse: [Inaudible 30:09]. 6
7
Jason Matlof: All right. Thank you, Chair Chang and Commissioners for hearing our revised 8
application tonight. As a reminder, I guess more for the community, a little background on 9
myself. My name is Jason Matlof and my wife and I have lived – I believe she’s here. She’s in the 10
back. Lived in Palo Alto for 30 years. We have raised three kids here; they were all born here. 11
They all went through 13 years of public school in the Palo Alto Public School system. And 12
through that process, we learned of the challenges of teachers trying to find affordable housing 13
to be able to live in Palo Alto, which unfortunately is very challenging. So we decided to try to 14
bring a project forward that would address affordable housing, specifically for teachers. We 15
have with us tonight, I think a number of teachers and educators also that are with us, I think 16
will speak to the needs and the challenges associated to that problem. I’m going to speak 17
specifically here in the beginning to − I think I lost the presentation. Isaiah, maybe if you could 18
do that. Speak specifically to the challenge that was brought up in the first hearing; the biggest 19
concern that was related to affordability. So you got that? Sorry. Give us a second here. Thank 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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.
you. Okay. So the feedback that we got was in two forms kind of a confluence of two different 1
forms of feedback. 2
3
The first one obviously was the explicit feedback from a number of Commissioners with a 4
strong desire to see deeper affordability, which was understandable but difficult in the existing 5
footprint that we had at the time. The other stream of feedback that we had kind of was 6
implicit around this s-, the early summer. By the way, the first PTC meeting was in April. Early 7
summer, the City Council and the Planning Commission both started approving upzoning for all 8
the parcels in our immediate zones. So specifically, across the street, the El Camino Real focus 9
area was upzoned to 85 feet. And our parcel is actually within the NVCAP District; it’s in the 10
high-density district and it itself, our proj-, our parcel was upzoned to 65 feet. So given those 11
two forms of feedback, we were able to come up with a revision that I hope meets your biggest 12
concern, which is around affordability. Specifically, we’re able to come up with it – this revised 13
application that now includes 25 percent low-income units as opposed to the 20 previously. 14
And we’ve decreased the income threshold that we’re calculating the rents at. So typically, the 15
City standard is to calculate them at the top of each HCD income band. So for example, low-16
income that would be 80 percent, we dropped that down to 70 percent for the low-income 17
units and we had already dropped the moderate-income units down from 120 percent down to 18
110 percent of AMI. And the way that we got there was by taking advantage of the – this bias 19
towards increased height. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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
We have increased the height of the building to add an additional residential floor, so now we 2
have 55 units. We’ve also added additional parking, so we have now 31 spots instead of 24 3
previously, and that increased the parking ratio as well. So this slide, it – there’s a lot of data 4
here. I’m not going to go into it. But what I – it’s − it basically summarizes or provides all the 5
detail to how we arrive at the affordable rents, which is an objective calculation that the City 6
provides. What I want to focus on here is where we ended up with rents, which are 7
substantially lower for the low-income units. So you can see here, there’s four squares. The 8
four squares represent the four permutations of different unit types by different affordability 9
categories. And in green, which you have is the low-income units at 70 percent of AMI. They 10
result in $2048 per month and 2360 per month for the studio and one-bedroom, and then the 11
analog in the moderate income is 3,338 and 3,834. So if there’s any questions on those, the 12
calculations of those, I’m happy to take that during the Q and A part. But moving forward, more 13
specific to the question around affordability, this represents the detail on related to teachers’ 14
salary grades and affordability bands as dictated by the State Law, the HCD Regulations. So 15
what we have here is the current year PAUSD teacher salary grades. The educators are on a 16
different schedule. 17
18
I mean – sorry, the classified employees are on a different schedule. This represents the teacher 19
salary grades overlaid with the HCD income bands. So what you see in green are the teachers’ 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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.
salary grades that would qualify for the low-income units, which is about 10 percent of the 1
total. The vast majority of them in the blue will rep-, will qualify for the moderate-income units; 2
that’s about 80 percent. And then there’s about 12 percent that would make too much. Their 3
salaries are too high and wouldn’t qualify for either the low income or the moderate income. 4
The last slide on this affordability question here is the same chart overlaid with kind of a critical 5
affordability metric called the rent-to- income ratio. So this is kind of the primary metric that a 6
landlord would use to assess an applicant’s capacity to pay rents. In other words, their ability to 7
afford the rent. And there are varying standards for this, and so I kind of want to provide a 8
range of perspectives because there is a range. And in the right middle here, you see, kind of in 9
small print – I apologize. There is several standards starting with the most conservative, which 10
is the federal HUD standard, which is applicable only in – by regulation to federal housing 11
projects and federal voucher programs. And that implies that the applicant should only spend 12
30 percent of their income on rent. 13
14
The more kind of broad commercial standard of a commercial landlord’s qualifying applicants 15
would be 33 percent or wanting to see an applicant having three times as much income as 16
opposed to the rent. And then we have the standard of our own − within Palo Alto, our own 17
housing authority for low-income housing, which is Alta housing, and they qualify all the way 18
down to 50 percent, meaning they only need to see two times the income. I included here an 19
important data point from the recent use, the U.S. Bureau – Census Bureau data that illustrates 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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 56 percent of California low-income tenants, renters − 56 percent spend more than 50 1
percent of their income on rent. And obviously, that’s a terrible number. I don’t suggest that 2
that’s a benchmark but just there’s a lot of data here and I wanted to provide a full perspective 3
objectively of all the different standards. But using the more conservative standards, we can 4
see in this table that the purple − the numbers in purple font represent the most restrictive or 5
the most conservative measure of affordability, the HUD standard. And you can see that 6
[inaudible 37:55] only 65 percent of teacher salary grades will be able to afford by that standard 7
these studios either in the moderate-income or the low-income category. And another 19 8
percent of – represented in blue, of salary grades would be able to afford according to the more 9
commercial standard of three X or 33 percent. 10
11
So depending on your perspective, it’s either a large majority or the vast majority, you have 84 12
percent that, including both categories, would be able to “afford” according to the standards. 13
So I’m going to stop there and allow the rest of the time for Isaiah Stackhouse, who’s our 14
architect, to go over the rest of the revisions that were made in design as a response to your 15
comments in the last meeting. Go ahead. 16
17
Isaiah Stackhouse: Good evening. Nice to be here with you all tonight. I’ll keep this very brief. 18
So this is a PHC project that planned home zoning allows the projects to deviate from the local 19
zoning standards to promote housing production. It was started in 2020. It was intended 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.
inform local land use policies, and ultimately to potentially result in changes to the zoning. So in 1
exchange for deviating from the base zoning standards, developers can provide only a 2
requirement of 20 percent affordable units and they must also create less demand for housing 3
than jobs to help improve the City’s overall housing to jobs in balance. So this is a 100 percent 4
affordable project prioritized to local educators and has many community benefits. Again, while 5
the PHC requires only 20 percent, this project is fully 100 percent affordable. Now that it’s 6
gotten taller, it then will create 55 units of affordable housing to help meet RHNA goals, 7
minimal impact to residential. It’s over 500 feet from the closest residential district. It will 8
improve jobs and commutes; currently, 87 percent of teachers live outside the city. The 9
strength in schools. It’s transit-friendly housing. And it’s got a long list of endorsements. Here is 10
the map showing 500 feet to the nearest residential and also showing that the – across the 11
street was upzoned to 85 feet. It’s a very trend-, transit-friendly project. It’s right on multiple 12
bus routes with a bus stop on the block and it’s within short transit to seven Palo Alto schools. 13
14
Our last time at the PTC last year – here’s a summary of the comments and how we responded. 15
For affordability, we added a floor of below-market rate units. We increased the percentage of 16
low-income units to 25 percent; it decreases the threshold to 70 percent AMI. The open space 17
roof deck was increased by 50 percent and added more usable open space. The parking, again 18
we added an additional floor – level of parking machines; it creates the 32 spaces. There were 19
comments about trash pick-up. We had several meetings with the City to coordinate the staging 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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.
location there. And then TDM, we strengthened TDM to address parking concerns and we 1
agree to provide free VTA passes to all tenants. So that’s a summary of the changes we made. 2
We do a full drawing set available. If you have questions, we’re here to – we can walk through 3
the drawings or answer any architectural questions you might have as well. Thank you. 4
5
Chair Chang: Great. Thank you so much. Okay, so we’re going to take clarifying questions from 6
the Commission and then we’ll go to public comment. So as a reminder, because I think there’s 7
a lot of interested folks here, we are only going to take public comment from those who submit 8
a comment card or raise their hand within five minutes after the Staff presentation. So that’s 9
already happened, so hopefully those of you who want to speak have already submitted your 10
questions. And, Ms. Dao, could you just quickly give me a sense before we take – go into 11
clarifying questions, of how many we have. I don’t actually see anybody online. And I don’t – oh 12
nope. I see Zachary popped himself back up now. But… 13
14
Veronica Dao: I have thirteen cards. I don’t see any raised hands on Zoom but… 15
16
Chair Chang: Okay. 17
18
Veronica Dao: …Zachary. Since he raised… 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: So just to give the members of the public a heads-up, I’m going to reduce the time 1
per speaker to two minutes. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: [From five 42:54]? 4
5
Chair Chang: Yeah, from five to two just to keep it to – yeah. Oh. All right. Do we have clarifying 6
questions? 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: Is there any discussion about that or you’re just… 9
10
Chair Chang: We can discuss, sure. If you’d like to discuss. 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: I think most people − I would encourage most people not to take the 13
whole five minutes but if somebody – we don’t have that many speakers. So I would love to 14
hear a little bit more if people have something longer to say. That’s just me, so it’s up to your 15
discretion. 16
17
Chair Chang: It’s – I mean I’d like to hear from the other members of the Commission. I have a 18
suggestion for three minutes from off-mic. 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: Yeah, I think that where in the past, we’ve reduced from five, three is 1
often the next step. And where we’ve gone to two, sometimes it’s been quite a few more 2
people, so I’d be comfortable with three. 3
4
Chair Chang: I’m fine with three minutes. Okay. We’ll do that. So just a heads-up to the 5
members of the public, so you can plan accordingly. All right. So let’s take some – go ahead, Ms. 6
Armer. 7
8
Jennifer Armer: Just to − as a reminder also for the Commissioners as we move into clarifying 9
questions that after the public comments, there will be an opportunity for the applicant to 10
rebut, and therefore, additional clarifications and questions for the applicant will be – there will 11
be an opportunity at that point as well. 12
13
Chair Chang: Okay. Great. So are there any clarifying questions that the Commissioners want to 14
ask at this point or do you want to save them for later on? I have a lot of questions but I’m 15
going to save them for later on, I think. Anybody else? Oh. 16
17
Commissioner Hechtman: [She had her hand up 44:35]. 18
19
Chair Chang: [Inaudible 44:35]. I can’t see her hand. Ms. – Commissioner Summa. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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 Summa: Thank you. I did have a question for Staff about the… 2
3
Chair Chang: [Inaudible 44:45]. 4
5
Commissioner Summa: …length of the deed restriction. I didn’t find it listed in the ordinance 6
and I was wondering if you – if I missed it or if you could clarify that. 7
8
Garrett Sauls: Thank you. Yeah, so there are two standards in our zoning code that discuss the 9
length of affordability; one that is tied to whether a project has federal grants rather sort of 10
time limits associated with other public grants, which is typically 55 years. And the other which 11
says that all projects or all units built as affordable would be restricted to 99 years. Given that 12
this is a PHZ project, in some ways there’s a lot more flexibility in how that can be applied. But 13
typically when it comes to establishing the timeframe for when those are identified – when 14
those are restricted for – how long they’re restricted for, that’s done through the development 15
agreement with Alta housing and within – from Staff. But if there’s any specific interests on 16
identifying or having a certain timeframe for these units to be restricted, that’s something that 17
the PTC can consider and also make a recommendation or add an additional condition to say – 18
if there’s a support for a motion, for example, have X amount of [years 46:00] − you have these 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.
[inaudible 46:02] restricted for X amount of years. That could be a condition added into the 1
draft record of land use action. 2
3
Commissioner Summa: Okay. So it’s not 99 years at this point, is that my – is that correct that 4
it’s going to be negotiated through a different device and not stated in the ordinance? 5
6
Garrett Sauls: Yeah, typ-, currently, there’s not an explicit timeframe stated in the draft record 7
of land use action. Our zoning code, like I said before, has those two standards but it’s also 8
commonly negotiated between Staff and the applicant through that agreement process. The 9
regulatory agreement process is what I should have said, not development agreement. 10
11
Commissioner Summa: Okay. So – but my reading – just to confirm what you said, my reading in 12
Title 1655 − I think it’s C2 actually, says 99 years unless it’s re-, unless there are federal funds 13
involved, which with this one there won’t be. So I would assume it would be 99 years. 14
15
Garrett Sauls: That’s correct. That’s what I said before. 16
17
Commissioner Summa: Okay. All 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.
Chair Chang: Can I just interject with a follow-on question? Is that something that the applicant 1
is expecting, the 99 years then? I − maybe we could ask the applicant. 2
3
Garrett Sauls: Yeah. They – they’re welcome to answer that question too. Staff and the 4
applicant have had discussions to talk between those already, and initially, their response and 5
concern is to have it be restricted to a 99-year period would be very difficult for them just in 6
terms of how long it would be tied to. I think their – Jason, you could probably speak to this a 7
little bit better than I could but… 8
9
Jason Matlof: Honestly, we have so much going on. But the prior discussions we’ve had with 10
Director Lait is that it would be negotiated. So this is something obviously that’s going to outlive 11
me. Our plan is to hold this property and be part of the community and make an investment. 12
This is a for-profit investment. I’d prefer to continue with the assumption that it will be 13
negotiated based on Director Lait’s comments, but honestly, it’s not something we’ve factored. 14
It's not a super-high priority, so I welcome feedback and thoughts if you – it’s not something 15
I’ve really thought about seriously other than that it will be eventually negotiated as part of the 16
regulatory agreement. 17
18
Chair Chang: Thank you. Commissioner Summa, did you have more questions? 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 Summa: No. I guess I’m just a little confused if it’s required to be 99 years as Mr. 1
Sauls said or if it’s – there’s an expectation of negotiating it. I’m still a little confused in which it 2
is. So – [inaudible 48:57]. 3
4
Garrett Sauls: Just to clarify that then is there is an expectation that it would be negotiated but 5
Mr. Yang is also – it looks like he wants to say something. 6
7
Assistant City Attorney Albert Yang: Yeah, I guess I just wanted to clarify that the standard for 8
99 years is in our inclusionary ordinance and it applies to BMR units that are provided under the 9
inclusionary ordinance. And this project obviously goes well beyond what’s required in that part 10
of our code. And so it’s a guideline that we would look to for − of 99 years but that’s not a 11
binding requirement for this project. 12
13
Commissioner Summa: Okay. I thought it was part of the affordable housing portion of the 14
code. But I… 15
16
Albert Yang: Yes, it’s part of the code that requires inclusionary units for ownership projects. 17
18
Commissioner Summa: Okay. 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.
Albert Yang: But this is not an ownership project and it’s also… 1
2
Commissioner Summa: Okay. 3
4
Albert Yang: Yeah. 5
6
Commissioner Summa: All right. Thank you for that answer. And I guess that will be negotiated. 7
I didn’t realize it was negotiated outside of being recorded in the ordinance itself. Thank you. 8
9
Chair Chang: I do realize – I have one question. It is regarding the parking spaces, so the 10
presentations mentioned that the parking spaces are going to be decoupled. And so I was 11
wondering, question of the applicant, if you know how – what you’re going to be charging for 12
the parking spaces and how – whether there would be any difference in terms of what like – 13
how are those parking spaces allocated and priced with respect to the affordability or is it just 14
completely decoupled? 15
16
Jason Matlof: Yeah, so the parking is unbundled as you can I guess surmise given that there’s 17
not one to one. And prior discussions, I believe, with Council – so the m-, our model, our 18
financial model to make this pencil out is that the parking spots will lease for $150 a month, 19
which I think – well anyway. I think it’s slightly below market, but that’s not pertinent to your 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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.
question. We had discussions previously. Garrett, I’m not sure if you can help me on – I think it 1
was with Council about trying to figure out a way to maybe have a – bifurcate the leases, so 2
that there was a lower lease for the parking for the lower-income units versus the tenants in 3
the moderate-income units. That gets very complicated for a lot of different reasons. I’d prefer 4
not to do that but I’m open to discussion on that. So for example, theoretically, it could be like 5
100 and 175 for low-income versus moderate-income units. We could potentially model that 6
and have a discussion around that but that – the current plan, to answer your question, is $150 7
a unit – a space. 8
9
Chair Chang: Okay. And then they would be open kind of like first come, first serve to all units, 10
correct? 11
12
Jason Matlof: Correct, for – yes. 13
14
Chair Chang: Thanks. That’s it from me. I don’t see other – oh, I see lights. Okay. Commissioner 15
Akin, then Hechtman. Or Vice-Chair – oh, okay. Commissioner Hechtman. Then Vice-Chair Akin. 16
17
Commissioner Hechtman: Ghost light. 18
19
Chair Chang: Oh, it’s a ghost light. Okay. Then Commissioner – Vice-Chair Akin. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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 Akin: I’ll accept either. So my question is to get some clarifications on the HUD 2
standards and how that applies to the numbers we’ve seen in both the Staff Report and the 3
presentation. So as I understand the HUD standards, they include not only rent but also utilities 4
and some other incidentals like insurance. So I think what I’m seeing in your presentation on, I 5
believe, Page 13 – all right. So if we look at the anticipated rents down at the bottom – whoops. 6
We were there. All right. For the – let’s just say the 70 percent AMI studio, the rent that you 7
quoted here, if I understood the clarification on the next page, is the rent not including the 8
utilities allowance, is that correct? 9
10
Garrett Sauls: The rents that were provided − the anticipated rents that were provided in the 11
Staff Report didn’t have this utility allowance as a part of them, so what I was trying to co-, 12
clarify was that from the amount you saw in the Staff Report, including this allowance – this 13
utility allowance showed on the top of this screen here, this is actually the numbers that you 14
see on this screen what you would be – what we’d be seeing as the anticipated rents. 15
16
Vice-Chair Akin: Yeah, so the rent for the particular case I’m asking about would be $2049 a 17
month and we anticipate the utilities would be in the ballpark of 210, 220 a month. Is that the 18
way to interpret this? 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.
Garrett Sauls: Yeah, that’s what the Santa Clara County sort of − Housing Authority assumes is 1
that utility allowance. 2
3
Vice-Chair Akin: Okay. So the HUD standard requires that the utility allowance be included 4
when performing affordability computations. And that’s as you did it for the Staff Report, 5
correct? 6
7
Garrett Sauls: We also have – I’ll actually ask our housing planner; he’s also attending the 8
meeting too − just to maybe stepping in, clarify or answer that question. So we have Robert 9
Feign with us as well. 10
11
Vice-Chair Akin: All right. And… 12
13
Male: [Inaudible 55:03]. 14
15
Vice-Chair Akin: Good. 16
17
Housing Planner Robert Feign Robert Feign: Yes, so the – I mean essentially the purpose of the 18
utility allowance is to ensure that the tenant is paying – this is calculated on approximately 30 19
percent of the income going towards rent and utilities. So the rents – if a tenant is paying their 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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.
own utilities, that allowance is deducted from the rent that they would be charged to ensure 1
that they’re not exceeding a payment of greater than 30 percent for both the housing – the 2
rent costs and utilities costs as a whole of their income. 3
4
Vice-Chair Akin: Okay, so I’m still not sure I’m understanding it correctly. If you work the 5
numbers − if you look at this chart where the affordable to annual income of $90,370, then that 6
works backward to an expenditure of, if I remember correctly, 2259, which is the number you 7
have in the original Staff Report. That’s if you assume that the rent is all that’s factored into the 8
HUD standard, then you would get a number less than 90,370. So there’s still an inconsistency 9
here that I don’t understand. And the reason it’s important is it affects the bands of 10
affordability that the applicant showed to us earlier. Is this – I guess I’m not making myself 11
completely clear. 12
13
Jason Matlof: [Can I 56:39]? 14
15
Vice-Chair Akin: Yeah, please do. 16
17
Jason Matlof: So, Robert, I’ll just briefly comment. So there’s two different things going on. First 18
of all is the affordable rents as calculated are state and county regulation, and so the 2049 is, I 19
think you all just clarified, is for the low-income category, which is a huge range, right? It’s from 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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.
51 percent to 80 percent. Using the 9 – the 70 percentile of AMI and using the algorithm of the 1
targeted income divided by 12 times .3, then you subtract that $208, whatever it was, the 2
utilities allowance. That’s how you come up with the Palo Alto approved rent. So there’s no – 3
this is correct. I think your question is − in my analysis – so – and by the way, my analysis that 4
shows each salary grade by affordability category is 100 percent consistent with that. What I 5
think you’re potentially bringing up, which may be a fair point, is the HUD standard for 6
determining affordability; the 30 percent that they use is – I think you’re saying includes the 7
utility allowance, meaning the rent and the utilities needs to be less than 30 – 30 percent or 8
less. That’s not − that might be true but it’s not the same way that other standards are used for 9
– and by the way, that’s not the way the city or the state or the county – the H − the HUD is not 10
relevant. It’s just a comparison point that I was using in my presentation. 11
12
But it’s also the way that like a commercial landlord or Alta Housing, who is our low-income 13
housing administrator, they use just a straight gross income to rent comparison. So you’re right, 14
the HUD has this additional, this kind of anomaly that they also include utilities. That is relevant 15
to my analysis if that is correct but it’s not relevant to the rents or the affordability categories, 16
meaning which salary grades of teacher would be able to afford. But your point about HUD’s 17
calculation of affordability, I believe, is correct. So sorry, Robert. 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.
Vice-Chair Akin: That’s − yeah, we’re getting close now. All right. So what we’re – what I’m 1
hearing is that − simply that the HUD standard is not being used, so any conclusions drawn from 2
that would be incorrect. 3
4
Garrett Sauls: That’s correct. 5
6
Robert Feign: I guess… 7
8
Vice-Chair Akin: Okay. 9
10
Garrett Sauls: [Inaudible 59:31]. Robert, you can add additional clarification to that. 11
12
Robert Feign: Just briefly, in the Palo Alto Municipal Code 16.65020, the – we do define 13
affordable rent and that includes – states that affordable rent shall include the total of monthly 14
payments by the tenant for rent in addition to utilities and any separately charged fee − and 15
allowance for utilities and any separately charged fees. [Inaudible 60:04]. 16
17
Vice-Chair Akin: All right. So now I’m not sure once again how to interpret that. But – so walk 18
me through the calculation how a rent of $2,049 results in affordable to annual income of 19
90,370. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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
Albert Yang: So you have to add in the utility anal-, allowance… 2
3
Vice-Chair Akin: Yes. 4
5
Albert Yang: …to 2049. And then… 6
7
Vice-Chair Akin: Yeah. 8
9
Albert Yang: …it calculates to 90,370. 10
11
Vice-Chair Akin: Good. That’s exactly the number that I got. So I’m happy to hear that 12
confirmation. So I understand what’s going on there now. 13
14
Albert Yang: Okay. 15
16
Vice-Chair Akin: So – and this is affordable, according to which standard? Because it matches 17
the HUD standard. So if you’re using a different standard for this number, then it’s important to 18
understand what that is. 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.
Albert Yang: So it matches the standard that Robert just spoke to, which was rent plus utilities 1
allowance should not exceed 30 percent of the income. 2
3
Vice-Chair Akin: Okay. Great. So that happens to be identical to the HUD standard. It’s just ours 4
happens to be identical. 5
6
Albert Yang: Yes. 7
8
Vice-Chair Akin: Okay. Good. That’s all I needed from this. Thank you very much. 9
10
Chair Chang: Okay. Seeing no other lights right now, let’s move to public comment. 11
12
PUBLIC COMMENTS 13
14
Chair Chang: So, Ms. Dao, if you could [help 61:40] call the first speaker. 15
16
Veronica Dao: Yes, first is… 17
18
Chair Chang: Oh, let me just add that in the – because as Commissioner Templeton said 19
because we have three minutes, we’re not saying please speak for three minutes. If you want 20
to just say that you agree with prior speakers, it’s helpful if you just tell us that. Thank you. 21
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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
Veronica Dao: So our first speaker is Adam Schwartz, followed by Matthew. 2
3
Adam Schwartz: Good evening. My name is Adam Schwartz. I have lived in Palo Alto for 9½ 4
years. My kids went to junior high school, the high school here. I’m strongly in support of 5
approving these new homes. My kids – one of them wants to grow up and be a school teacher 6
and they would jump for joy if they could come and live in a one-bedroom apartment at this 7
price level based on how hard it is to find housing in this area. My number one issue as a voter 8
in Palo Alto is construction of more homes for more people and this development is a very good 9
step in the right direction. And so I urge everybody to vote in favor of letting this development 10
go forward. Thank you very much. 11
12
Chair Chang: Thank you. 13
14
Veronica Dao: Next is Matthew Pauly, followed by Ashley. 15
16
Matthew Pauly: Good evening, Commissioners. My name is Matthew Pauly. I’ve been a 17
resident of Palo Alto for 17 years. I want to express my support for this project. We need to 18
increase our housing supply to meet demand if we’re going to address our housing affordability 19
crisis. This project is a good step in that direction. It’s in a great location with access to lots of 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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.
amenities. It’s putting a vacant parcel to a productive use and it’s going to benefit teachers who 1
in turn will benefit our entire community. I urge you to approve the project as is with all 2
modifications, rezonings, and deviations. Thank you very much. 3
4
Chair Chang: Thank you very much. 5
6
Veronica Dao: Next is Ashley Cheechoo, followed by Amie. 7
8
Ashley Cheechoo: Hi. My name is Ashley Cheechoo and I’ve been a special education teacher in 9
Palo Alto Unified School District since 2004. I live in San Jose, so I will not benefit from this 10
housing at all and I strongly urge you to move this project forward. I’ll retire from San Jose 11
Unified in about four years − San Jose Unified – from Palo Alto Unified in about four years. And 12
I’m a moderate-to-severe special education teacher and I’ve been doing it since 2001. There’s 13
some institutional knowledge that you will lose from having special education teachers leave 14
this district because they cannot afford to live here. So they do not stay here. They do not 15
continue to serve our students in the capacity that we need. We need good quality special 16
education teachers in this district. You need them to stay here and to be able to do that, they 17
need to be able to live here, stay here, teach here, and keep our students with the best quality 18
teachers that you can. I urge you to please move this housing forward, so you can get special 19
education teachers here and get them to stay. 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: Thank you. 2
3
Veronica Dao: Next is Amie Ashton, followed by Meb. 4
5
Amie Ashton: Good evening. Amie Ashton, Executive Director of Palo Alto Forward. We 6
submitted a letter. I won’t go into it but this is a perfect site for housing; it’s near Cal. Ave. I 7
mean I would be excited to live here. You can walk everywhere. Transit’s nearby. You’re within 8
three miles of just about every single school in the city, so it’s really a perfect location. Over 45 9
pages of support letters were submitted. We’ve got people here all excited for this project. Two 10
years is a very long time for an affordable housing project. So I hope you’ll move this to Council 11
with a recommendation for approval. And just a really quick personal story. A friend is a young 12
teacher here and she lives downtown in a very old studio apartment. This summer during our 13
heat waves, her studio was over 100 degrees. She slept on my couch. Housing’s – new housing 14
is also a climate resiliency strategy and let’s not forget that most of our rental stock in Palo Alto 15
is over 50 years old. I’m 50 years old. I guess that’s getting pretty old. So for all these reasons, 16
please recommend approval to Council tonight. Thank you. 17
18
Chair Chang: Thank 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.
Veronica Dao: Next is Mel or Meb Steiner, followed by Teri. 1
2
Meb Steiner: Good evening. My name is Meb Steiner. I am the President of the California 3
School Employees Association, Palo Alto Chapter 301. I personally have been a part of the Palo 4
Alto community since 1967, when my family moved here from India. I have worked in the 5
district since about 2001. I’ve gone there. My kids have gone there. But the important factor 6
that I want to bring up tonight is our classified school employees. These are all of the folks who 7
are a critical part of our school district, supporting our students, supporting our staff, 8
supporting our community. It’s all the jobs other than teachers and administrators. So it’s 9
everyone from food service, bus drivers, tech support, mental health therapists, behaviorist 10
aides, clerical support, everybody. Our salary ranges are really wide. So we have our food 11
service workers at the lowest end of the scale and we have our full-time folks, 12-month 12
employees with some of their professional degrees up at the upper end. We have a lot of part-13
time employees. I would say the vast majority of our membership will qualify both for that low 14
income – a lot in the low income and almost everyone in that moderate range. I cannot say 15
thank you enough to Mr. Matlof and his company. To have someone from the community 16
recognize the need and to step up with a model that can be sustainable. It’s a win, win, win. 17
Win for the City, for the housing. A win for our school employees and teachers. A win for his 18
company to do something that is a sustainable, positive income and still does good. 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.
So I really urge the Commission to move this forward to City Council with a yes 1
recommendation. We have folks who commute in from the Central Valley. We have bus drivers 2
who come in. They arrive at 6:30 to drive a bus, then they’re here all day, they end their shift, 3
drive home, basically to sleep, and come back again. A custodian of ours comes early so she’s 4
never late and sleeps in her car for another hour or two before starting her shift. These are 5
some of the stories we have. We have maintenance people who are far away and if there’s an 6
emergency, we then end up having to call a contractor instead of being able to utilize the 7
employees who know our schools because they live three hours away. So there’s a lot of need. 8
We have a lot of interest from our membership. They are very excited about this project and its 9
central location is just ideal for public transportation and for getting everywhere. So thank you 10
so much and please approve this. 11
12
Female: [Inaudible 69:42]. 13
14
Veronica Dao: Next is Teri Baldwin, followed by Korynne. 15
16
Teri Baldwin: Hi. Thank you. Good evening. I’m Teri Baldwin. I’m the President of the Palo Alto 17
Educators Association, PAEA. I’m here tonight to voice my enthusiastic support of this vital 18
educator housing project in collaboration with PAEA, CSEA, and Mr. Matlof, and Half Dome 19
Capital. Educator housing has been a passion of mine since I moved to California to work in this 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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.
district 24 years ago. Like many educators, I couldn’t afford rent in Palo Alto or the surrounding 1
area even back then. I’ve witnessed firsthand how this challenge has impacted our teachers and 2
ultimately our students. This project is a gamechanger. By providing more below-market 3
housing for educators, we can better attract and retain the high-quality teachers our students 4
deserve. Today many educators [inaudible 70:45] commutes of two hours or more each day 5
just to reach their classrooms. Several teachers wanted to attend tonight but couldn’t due to 6
their long commutes. Imagine the difference it would make if our teachers could live in the 7
communities where they work. Instead of spending hours in traffic, they could dedicate their 8
time to meeting with students, preparing lessons, grading assignments, or simply engaging with 9
our community. Teachers would have the flexibility to attend school events, like sporting 10
games, concerts and plays, activities that will enrich their lives and their students’ lives. 11
12
Moreover, having the option to bike or use public transportation to work rather than driving 13
long distances would help educators reduce their carbon footprint, which is an issue that 14
resonates deeply with all of us. This project is more about just housing; it’s about strengthening 15
our schools, our students, and our community. I urge you to approve this initiative for the 16
benefit of all. I want to thank you for listening and thank Mr. Matlof for this innovative project. 17
Thank you. 18
19
Veronica Dao: Next is Korynne Headley, followed by Kimberly. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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
Korynne Headley: Good evening. My name is Korynne Headley. I’ve been an educator for over 2
20 years. Both my parents are educators down the street in Los Altos and they urged me not to 3
come into this profession because they thought I would have to live far away from them. And in 4
some regards, that’s very true. I’m incredibly lucky to have housing. It is in Oakland. My 5
daughter and I make sure that we leave the house by 7 AM every morning, and looking at the 6
time now, it’ll be about another hour before we are able to walk across into our room. And I 7
will be putting her late to bed tonight, so that I can have this opportunity to make my plea in 8
front of everyone that all people deserve housing. And especially the people, the janitors, our 9
custodians, the aides, who I would not survive without in my classroom. We are a team and we 10
are a team with the desire to serve young people, to grow their minds, to let them illuminate 11
us, and what the future can hold. And so I hope that this is a very quick and swift vote that 12
makes this to Council, so this project can get underway. Thank you for your time. 13
14
Chair Chang: Thank you. 15
16
Veronica Dao: Next is Kimberly Kwon, followed by Jennifer. 17
18
Kimberly Kwon: Hi there. My name is Kimberly Kwon. I actually was not prepared to speak 19
tonight, so I’m going to speak off the cuff and not as eloquently as everyone who preceded me. 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.
But I wanted to echo their thoughts and their pointing out of what an incredible project this 1
would be. I am one of the teachers that Teri spoke of who commutes a very long distance; 2
sometimes it takes me two hours to go home. So it’s actually kind of nice to be here because 3
hopefully the traffic will not be so bad. I actually went to the meeting of the other housing 4
development that’s being proposed for teachers. That also is a very exciting and welcome 5
project. There are only 29 units available to Palo Alto teachers. There were at least 60 people in 6
that room and I assume they don’t live together, so the need is very high. The interest is very 7
great. And I also join everybody here in asking you to push this project forward, and I thank you 8
so much for the opportunity. 9
10
Chair Chang: Thank you. 11
12
Veronica Dao: Next is Jennifer DiBrienza, followed by Bryan. 13
14
Jennifer DiBrienza: Hi. Jennifer DiBrienza, educator, former school board member. I also urge 15
you to support this. I’m very grateful to Mr. Matlof for coming up with this idea, for sticking it 16
through all of this. I was board president when he first told me about this. That was more than 17
a year ago. I am now no longer on the board. And I understand the concerns about affordability 18
and yet, it’s really a formula, and you’ve got your union heads of both bodies here saying we 19
want this, our Staff wants this. So if − they know what they’re paying for rent now, they know 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.
what’s out there and this is something they really want and something they really need. For 1
anyone who remembers when we all went to school and our teachers lived in our 2
neighborhoods and we saw them at the supermarket and at the restaurant, this is something 3
that our students benefit from, our teachers benefit from, and our staff. It’s just not teacher 4
housing; it’s educator housing, it’s staff housing. There are so many as Meb mentioned. So 5
many employees of PAUSD that are not teachers and are not on that teacher scale that are – 6
probably could benefit from this even more than our teachers would. As you saw from the 7
numbers, 90 percent of staff would qualify for one of these two levels. 8
9
It is – at first, I was really surprised at the pushback about affordability but I’m a little bit 10
grateful now because now it’s taller and bigger and has more units and is more affordable. So 11
yay! That’s a win overall. I hope that you move this forward as quickly as possible, so that more 12
money and time isn’t lost in waiting for this and that we have more staff that can stay in our 13
community and bike to work. Thank you so much. 14
15
Veronica Dao: Next is Bryan Baker, followed by Michael. 16
17
Bryan Baker: Good evening, Commissioners. My name is Bryan Baker. I’m a proud resident of 18
14 years of Palo Alto and a parent with one – two children that have gone – one child that’s 19
gone through the Palo Alto Education system and I have a daughter that is currently a senior at 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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.
Palo. I concur with all the positive comments that have already come before me regarding the 1
value of this particular project. And I will emphasize, from my own perspective as being a 2
parent of a child with special needs, that my family has been directly impacted by the 3
challenges and difficulty for recruiting and retaining quality individuals within the school district 4
and I see the inabil-, the lack of available housing in Palo Alto as being a critical element that is 5
– makes that as a challenge. So as a voter, as a parent of a child with special needs, the 6
questions that I want to hear from this Council are not why should we not do this program but 7
why we shouldn’t be doing more of these programs. Thank you. 8
9
Veronica Dao: Next is Michael Regula, followed by Rika. 10
11
Michael Regula: Hi. Michael Regula, University South resident. I strongly support this project as 12
well. I’m kind of the newbie here, I guess, compared to everyone else. I’ve only lived in Palo 13
Alto for less than a year. I’ve lived in various communities in Pennsylvania and Georgia during 14
my life and my experience here in Palo Alto has been my favorite place to live. One of the 15
aspects that I particularly enjoyed – or have enjoyed living in Palo Alto is seeing school kids bike 16
to school every day. This reflects a lot of the hard work that I think this city has done to 17
promote safety, health, and environmental sustainability. Like all communities though, we have 18
our [inaudible 78:11] and we have some things that we need to work on. I think it’s pretty clear 19
that one of those things that we need to work on here in Palo Alto is housing affordability. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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.
Much of the housing in Palo Alto is out of the price range for many of the vital members of our 1
community, including teachers and staff that support them. It was noted earlier that 87 2
percent of the teachers in the Palo Alto Unified School District live outside of the city, which 3
obviously has negative impacts on community building as well as environmental impacts with 4
the CO2 emissions. This project demonstrates a clear commitment to our educators that we 5
want them living here in Palo Alto and that we value the service they provide our children every 6
day. 7
8
I’m not a teacher nor do I have any children of my own, but this is the kind of project I want my 9
city to support. If I were the sole body making decisions, would I make changes to this project? I 10
would. I would love to see the benefits of the transportation flexibility that living directly on El 11
Camino Real provides. I’d learn though to not let perfect be the enemy of good. Based on the 12
clear considerations of priorities of Jason and his team, I would say that this project is not only 13
good but great. Since I’ve moved here, I met so many great people working on making this city 14
a community for all. Thank you to all those that have laid the groundwork for making Palo Alto 15
feel like home. I look forward to seeing more of our teachers biking side by side with their 16
students on the way to school. Thank you. 17
18
Veronica Dao: Next is Rika Yamamoto, followed by Herb. 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.
Rika Yamamoto: Good evening, everyone. Thank you for this opportunity. I’m here to voice my 1
strong support for the [inaudible 80:04] project. This innovative development represents a 2
brighter solution to the housing challenges faced by Palo Alto in providing 100 percent 3
affordable housing prioritizing teachers and classified staff in our district by offering 55 units, 4
renter-aligned with low and lower-income thresholds. This project directly addresses the reality 5
that 87 percent of the Palo Alto teachers live outside the city due to the high housing costs. The 6
proximity to schools and transit-friendly design will not only reduce long commute but also 7
strengthen the community ties and enhance their retention. The project transforms an 8
underutilized site into a community asset by eliminating blight, reducing the greenhouse gas, 9
and aligning with the City’s Comprehensive Plan for affordable housing. Approving this project 10
is more than a housing solution; it’s a commitment to the future of our school, students, and 11
the city. So I urge you to move forward with this initiative. Thank you. 12
13
Veronica Dao: Next is Herb Borock, followed by Zachary. 14
15
Herb Borock: Hello, Chair Chang and Vice-Chair Akin, and Commissioners. This project is coming 16
before you on something called planned home zoning, which according to the Staff Report, 17
deviates from certain standards to allow the project. Unfortunately, the city has never adopted 18
an amendment to the zoning code as required in Chapter 18.80 of the Munic-, Palo Alto 19
Municipal Code to permit planned home zoning. And they had a longtime opportunity to do 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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. And so I don’t see how you can approve a project simply because a lot of people think it 1
will benefiting them or it’s a good thing for the city, if you don’t follow the law. This particular 2
project charges extra for parking. It’s typical when people are renting a unit throughout the 3
community that there is no charge for parking. By doing that, they’re pretending that that cost 4
should not be added to the rental unit cost to determine whether the project is affordable. I 5
believe that you should set as a condition for the project something that was done at the 6
project at Page Mill and El Camino. And that is to prohibit anybody in this project from being 7
able to participate in the – any residential preference parking program that you have in the 8
neighborhood. Because essentially what they’re saying is the project would not provide parking 9
for the residents if they can get it for free someplace else but they have to pay money in the 10
project. 11
12
I believe this project – correct me if I’m wrong, would have a lift situation for the parking. You 13
may want to include in the administrative record a letter that’s in the current City Council 14
Packet about the lift parking mechanism at Mayfield Apartments and the problems with that. 15
Thank you. 16
17
Chair Chang: Thank you very much. And then… 18
19
Veronica Dao: Next is our last speaker, on Zoom, from Zachary. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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
Zachary Anglemyer.: Hello. My name is Zachary Anglemyer. I am here on behalf of − like Amie 2
Ashton, on behalf of Palo Alto Forward but I’m also here on behalf of my grandmother. She 3
was a 50-year high school English teacher; 37 of those were with the SoCal High School in SoCal, 4
California and the other 13 years were in Coral Gables, Florida. Now it’s in both cases, she lived 5
within three miles − or in some – in one case, within ½ mile of the school that she taught and 6
she was able to like, many of her colleagues, provide a very high level of education just given 7
the fact that she became sort of a pillar or member of the community. So it is vital that we have 8
our teachers, particularly the teachers, as certainly the rest of the faculty that supports them, 9
to be a part of the community. But particularly the teachers. They’re not only an asset in the 10
classroom and tutoring and such but the families that they tend to create or raise are also an 11
asset to the community. So that is how important this project is. It is key. Now setting that 12
aside, I do want a second to what Herb mentioned in regards to the – and I – but by the way, I 13
am a resident of Barron Park for the last 1½ years, and before that, the Town of Woodside, 14
which I sort of consider an extension of Palo Alto. 15
16
I know it’s a part of Redwood City but – for three years − is that there needs to be a change in 17
the legislation because I fe-, it is certain that projects have been stalled for multiple years as a 18
result of it. Also, I work in climate tech and sustainability, particularly the circular economy, and 19
what is missing from this project – and I do believe this project has to go through but is – this 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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.
needs to be the first of many projects that does three things. One, it needs to inspire out-of-1
the-box thinking; two – what I mean by that is out-of-the-box thinking for types of projects and 2
the way in which they look and feel and interact. Two, building materials. I do not understand 3
why this is built in a traditional way. We should be using hybrid architecture; for example, using 4
things like straw construction that costs much less that would allow you to have greater 5
affordability. And then three, this needs to be – this type of housing needs to be integrated into 6
every project that is brought forward from here forth. So I appreciate your time and I do hope 7
this project instigates more. Thank you. 8
9
Chair Chang: Thank you. Okay. So let’s bring it back to the Commission for – I’m sorry. Oh, 10
rebuttal. I always forget about rebuttal. The applicant has three minutes, is it, for rebuttal? So if 11
the applicant would like to rebut any of the comments in support of the project… 12
13
Jennifer Armer: Or if they have anything in addition to add. 14
15
Chair Chang: Yes, or if you have anything in addition to add. 16
17
Jason Matlof: I’m going to respectfully defer to you. [Inaudible 87:44]. 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.
Chair Chang: Thank you. We will be asking questions, I think. So – thank you. Okay. So let’s 1
bring it back to the Commission for questions and comments. I have a lot of questions, so I was 2
going to suggest that perhaps we start with a round of questions and then comments, if that’s 3
okay. So light it up. Maybe nobody has questions. Commissioner Hechtman. 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. I think this is probably best directed to the project 6
architect. So there’s no pick-up/drop-off spot on site, and so there’s a discussion in the Staff 7
Report about where that might happen on Lambert because it’s going to be unworkable on El 8
Camino. But I was wondering if you could just help the Commission understand what you’d 9
have to lose from this proposed structure to accommodate an on-site pick-up/drop-off spot. 10
11
Isaiah Stackhouse: I think this is a very unusual circumstance here with Caltrans coming in and 12
eliminating all the parking, so even things like bus stops are hard to coordinate, like the buses 13
will have to cross the bike lane. I’ve never seen anything like this in my career – the condition 14
that it is resulting. But literally, in order to have a drop-off, you would have to block the 15
driveway, and so you essentially would have to give up all the parking. If there were no parking 16
in this project, we could – a couple of deliveries could pull into a driveway that was – that 17
would be fully blocking anything behind it. But so that’s – and I would say of the dozens and 18
dozens and dozens of projects I’ve worked on over the last 20 years in my career, I’ve never 19
seen on-site parking in – sorry, on-site like loading and unloading inside a building. Really 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.
always happens out on the curb. And when we started this project, there was parking there. It 1
simply would have been striped out and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But Caltrans 2
created a very unusual circumstance here and we worked with City Staff. We had many 3
meetings with Transportation, trash pick-up. They did a wonderful job of facilitating meetings 4
but the City Staff as well kind of came to the conclusion that Lambert is the best solution under 5
the circumstances that were really outside of the city’s control and ours. 6
7
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. Thank you. 8
9
Isaiah Stackhouse: Yeah. 10
11
Jason Matlof: [Inaudible 90:56] one comment. Lambert, for those who don’t know, it’s like, I 12
think less than 50 feet away from their – our parcel, so it’s very convenient. Fortunately, we’re 13
not in the middle of the block; we’re toward the end. The other thing that Isaiah didn’t mention 14
that’s − I think is noteworthy is we agreed through this discussion with the ARB and with Staff 15
to put in a high-speed door that can open in three seconds and to leave the door open during 16
the peak hours in the morning and in the afternoon that would allow for someone to pull in and 17
temporarily be in this spot or to accommodate a lot of different things that might happen when 18
it’s in rush hour and there’s potentially problems. So I think the combination of the Lambert 19
kind of loading zone, for lack of a better word, and that hopefully will mitigate the concerns. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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 just want to jump in with a piggyback question. If you could talk a little bit more – 2
I just remember trash pick-up being a question when this came to us before. 3
4
Isaiah Stackhouse: Yeah. 5
6
Chair Chang: And so we’re not privy to the discussions that – so could you talk about what the 7
solution was arrived upon for – what solution was arrived upon for trash? I understand that for 8
loading, like the package delivery and stuff, the vehicle will stop on Lambert but what about 9
for… 10
11
Isaiah Stackhouse: Yeah, that’s true with trash as well. So Staff identified a curbside location 12
towards the corner on Lambert and where the trash bins will be staged early morning. I think 13
it’s – I forget if it’s once or twice a week. So that was fully resolved. 14
15
Garrett Sauls: Yeah, so to add on a little bit to that like Isaiah and like what Jason is mentioning, 16
we had a lot of conversations with the recycling team, the zero waste team, to talk about how 17
the orientation of the bins would be on the site. If you can remember, the organization and the 18
layout, actually what you’re seeing on the screen, went through a couple of iterations where 19
there was a double stacker at the backside of where you have now this loading-zone area. My 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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.
cursor’s trying to move around very slowly. And it was a double stacker on this side over here. I 1
apologize, it’s moving slow. 2
3
Female: [To the left 93:32]? 4
5
Garrett Sauls: Yeah. There’s a double stacker on – up on the top right-hand side of the screen 6
where the cursor is, pre-, in previous designs. And the trash collection area was actually along 7
this shared parcel line, where the cursor is, previously. So it was a different organization and 8
this one is a lot more efficient where there isn’t a need to do basically sort of like an S turn into 9
that double-stacker system that was previously considered. Instead it’s just a left-hand, 90 10
degree, sort of left-hand turn into them. And for the bins, they’re able to just be pulled straight 11
out. Previously, they were sort of aligned parallel to the property line, and so you’d have to be 12
able to pull one out first sort of in order or sequence. Where now you’d be able to pull them 13
out more forward, which was, for zero waste, a lot more convenient. 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: Are you referring to either of these pictures on the left? The 16
photos… 17
18
Garrett Sauls: No. 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 Templeton: …with the red blocks? 1
2
Garrett Sauls: I’m talking about the images on the right-hand side. That’s where I was trying to 3
talk about the – I apologize. I should clarify. What I was talking about was the layout for the 4
garage of the interior where they had a double-parking lift stacker system, where it was 5
tandem, you’d have to drive through. That was a previous design that was shown to the PTC 6
last time. And what I was just trying to note was that that organization has changed and now 7
it’s just one line of stackers that you see on the screen at the top of that parking garage that has 8
helped to alleviate some of the con-, the circulation issues that were considered a problem in 9
the last conversation for vehicles as well as for trash collection. But as a part of that, the 10
conversation was always around storing – potentially storing trash temporarily on the Lambert 11
side. In the left-hand side images that you see, those were the two locations that we had talked 12
about in the April 10 PTC meeting. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah, that were concerning. So those are no longer happening? 15
16
Garrett Sauls: No, these would be the potential locations. And we did talk with the neighbor, 17
which I know is another point that was… 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 Templeton: [Inaudible 95:37]. So that’s where we’re confused. Because looking 1
at this slide, we’re trying to figure out what you’re showing us that has changed about the 2
Lambert position and you’re talking about the garage. So it’s just hard to understand. 3
4
Garrett Sauls: The Lambert position has stayed basically the same… 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. So… 7
8
Garrett Sauls: …from the previous discussion. 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: …these red blocks are still showing the current state of the trash 11
collection? 12
13
Garrett Sauls: Yes. 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. 16
17
Garrett Sauls: Yeah, and… 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.
Chair Chang: Follow-on question about the trash. So I think, if I remember correctly, one of our 1
concerns was about visibility for cars as they’re – with the trash containers there. With the new 2
daylighting rules in California, are trash containers prohibited from being in the first 20 feet? 3
4
Garrett Sauls: When I spoke with the Transportation Staff, they didn’t indicate that would be 5
considered within that or that would be an issue. It was just specific to vehicles being parked in 6
that sort of – from the stop line at that stop sign intersection, there’s that 20-foot distance that 7
you’re talking about that you’re saying… 8
9
Chair Chang: So this is within the 20-feet area that’s normally kept open and that way since no 10
vehicles would be allowed to park there, it would definitely… 11
12
Garrett Sauls: Yeah. 13
14
Chair Chang: …be available for trash cans if we approved the project? 15
16
Garrett Sauls: Correct. 17
18
Chair Chang: Okay. 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.
Male: [Inaudible 96:56]. 1
2
Chair Chang: Go ahead. 3
4
Isaiah Stackhouse: I would just add that this sort of – again, with the Caltrans change here, this 5
is now essentially − the City Staff Policy is that all projects will have to happen on the side 6
streets now. The trash loading. 7
8
Chair Chang: Yeah. 9
10
Isaiah Stackhouse: Where again previously there would have been red zones on either side of 11
the curb, trash would have been picked up right there typically prior. But now with the 12
restriping, this is how, as we understand it, all projects will happen going forward. 13
14
Chair Chang: Okay. Great. I think Commissioner Hechtman said he was done with his question. 15
So does somebody else have other – yeah, Commissioner Templeton. 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: I just want to follow up. I – you’re more close working with this day-18
to-day of this project than I am, so that’s why I’m asking to clarify things that might be clearly 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.
understood to you already. But how – what is the size of the bin that is in this red box? And you 1
were saying how it gets there earlier; can you say more about that? 2
3
Garrett Sauls: Yeah, the bins would be 3 to 4 cubic yard-sized bins, which are pretty standard- 4
sized bins at the end of the day. 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: Standard for a unit or standard for a building? 7
8
Garrett Sauls: For residential projects. Yes, it would be a standard-sized bin. The service level 9
was where sort of the frequency can change. 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: Fifty-five standard… 12
13
Garrett Sauls: Three – it was a 3 to 4 cubic yard-sized bin. 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: Is it – are you saying it’s the same size bin as in front of a single-16
family home or is it more for the size of a u-, building? That’s what I was asking. 17
18
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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.
Garrett Sauls: No, it’s a standard – it’s not a – it’s not the size for a res-, like a single-family 1
home. So it’s not that. Three to four cubic yard bins are typical for commercial or resident-, 2
multifamily residential projects. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: That makes more sense. Okay. Thank you. And how does it get 5
there? 6
7
Garrett Sauls: So what would be the case is that the applicant’s maintenance staff would at 8
night pull those bins out from the trash staging area inside the garage at the backside of the 9
drive aisle that you see on the screen. They would pull it out and then move it to the side 10
street. 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: And not – yeah. I mean that’s – what I mean is how? Is that – is it 13
manually or is there a vehicle or… 14
15
Garrett Sauls: It would be manual but they would be assist-, they have like pulley assists, right? 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: Is it on… 18
19
Garrett Sauls: So it’s not… 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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 Templeton: …the sidewalk or in the street? 2
3
Garrett Sauls: The pulley assist? Or… 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: I need you to tell me how it’s going to be… 6
7
Garrett Sauls: No, I’m just trying to understand the que-, the nature of the question. So… 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: I want to know… 10
11
Garrett Sauls: …they would have a… 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: …where at all times these bins are going to be. So that we can just 14
understand that we’re comfortable with this plan. Because it hasn’t been explained yet. So… 15
16
Garrett Sauls: Yeah, the bins would be stored inside the garage. 17
18
Chair Chang: And they’re being pushed down the sidewalk or – that’s what she’s asking. Are 19
they going to be pushed down the sidewalk? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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
Garrett Sauls: Yes. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: But not the bike lane? Not the bus lane? 4
5
Garrett Sauls: No, they would not be pushed in the bike lane. 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: And there’s no vehicle involved that’s going the wrong way on 8
traffic… 9
10
Garrett Sauls: No. 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: …or anything? 13
14
Garrett Sauls: Yeah. 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. So these are all questions that should be easy for you to 17
answer. I’m trying to make sure that we all understand that this has been thought through, 18
there’s no problems with the plan, we all understand how it’s going to get to the curb, all those 19
things. So I apologize but this is my process, so we go through, we make sure there’s not any 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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.
problems and we don’t have to spend an hour talking about it. So thank you for clarifying and I 1
think I’m done with that line of question. 2
3
Chair Chang: One last question. So how far – okay. You told me the size – the volume size of the 4
bins. How far away from the sidewalk would they jut out? 5
6
Isaiah Stackhouse: They’re typically only about 3 feet wide. 7
8
Chair Chang: Three feet deep. Thank you. 9
10
Isaiah Stackhouse: Three feet deep. They’re quite small. 11
12
Chair Chang: Okay. Commissioner Summa has questions. 13
14
Commissioner Summa: I have another question about the ever-popular – I guess I’d call them 15
dumpsters but you’re calling them bins; how tall are they? I can picture 4 cubic yards kind of 16
but how tall are the bins? 17
18
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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.
Isaiah Stackhouse: They’re a little bit higher than waist high and the plan, just to clarify, they’ll 1
be staged on the south side of Lambert there. So there where cars are turning in, not where 2
cars are going out in terms of the direction. 3
4
Commissioner Summa: So they’ll – the – and I read somewhere that it’ll take two people to 5
operate it. So there will be two maintenance people the night before presumably whenever 6
they’re getting the garbage picked up that will roll it down the sidewalk with the assist of the 7
pulley thing and across − down the ramp, across the street, and then they’ll turn it 90 degrees, I 8
guess, to fit along Lambert on the south side. 9
10
Isaiah Stackhouse: Yeah, that’s correct. And it actually – aside from not being able to stage out 11
there directly by the curb, a lot of that is very typical of all of these projects. For instance, it’s 12
typical for the trash to be sort of in the center of the – of garages because that’s where the 13
building cores tend to be. We tend to stage bins there. We have lots of projects where the 14
parking, for instance, is down 4 feet, like half a floor and the electric bin pullers will pull it up 15
the driveway ramp. So a short, 50-foot trip along the sidewalk with a 3-foot wide bin is very 16
ordinary to go down in a crosswalk ramp − is very minor compared to a lot of our projects that 17
have bin pullers that are coming up a sloped driveway. So this is, in terms of the function, very 18
ordinary. The only thing that’s out of the ordinary here is that, unfortunately, Caltrans took 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.
away the obvious place to put it and we’ve worked with City Staff to do what all projects are 1
going to have to do from now on, which is use the side street here. 2
3
Commissioner Summa: Okay. And I believe there’s no overnight parking on Lambert, but this 4
would not be considered parking, so it can be there overnight? 5
6
Garrett Sauls: That’s correct. 7
8
Commissioner Summa: Okay. [Inaudible 103:46]. 9
10
Garrett Sauls: The expectation would be that that is picked up in the morning and then 11
obviously moved from that location, so it doesn’t sit there during the day. 12
13
Commissioner Summa: Yeah, that would sort of be ideal I would think for the tenants of the 14
other places. And then I couldn’t tell from the plans but I’m assuming it has – I think you 15
touched on this, Mr. Sauls, but I was a little confused. I’m assuming it has a designated place in 16
the basement where it’s not impeding bicycle traffic or vehicle traffic? 17
18
Garrett Sauls: Sorry. Just to clarify, there’s no basement in the project but you mean where the 19
bins are stored 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
Commissioner Summa: I mean the… 2
3
Garrett Sauls: …[inaudible 104:25]. 4
5
Commissioner Summa: …garage. [Inaudible 104:26]. 6
7
Garrett Sauls: Okay. Thank you. Yeah, so the – it’s placed in the back. It’s not going to impact 8
the vehicles as they’re exiting from their stalls and the bikes actually exit along the side 9
corridor. 10
11
Commissioner Summa: Okay. 12
13
Garrett Sauls: So there’s no direct interaction between a bicyclist, for example, and someone 14
pulling the bins out – the trash bins out. 15
16
Commissioner Summa: Okay, thanks. And since it’s on the south side of Lambert, it won’t really 17
be a hazard for bicycles maybe turning on at El Camino. While I have you, perhaps you can 18
answer another question. I remember back in April, there was a letter wi-, from a nearby 19
property owner, and I believe two sides of this project abut it and this property owner was 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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.
imagining that because there’s no setback, that they would need to be on their property for the 1
construction purposes. And I suppose maybe there would be what are typically referred to as 2
an underpinnings that would need to go under their property and that they were not willing to 3
agree to that. Has that situation been resolved or is it unnecessary to have a concern about it? 4
5
Isaiah Stackhouse: It… 6
7
Garrett Sauls: So we did talk about that in the Staff Report. 8
9
Commissioner Summa: Okay. 10
11
Garrett Sauls: We noted that we did have a meeting with the applicant’s representative and in 12
that conversation that we had with them, from the letter that was initially raised that was 13
talking to the points that you were raising, they actually really just narrowed it down to say 14
we’re really just concerned about your latter point about is there going to be any foundation 15
need across our property line. And as Isaiah was probably about to speak to it, the design is 16
intended so it doesn’t require any underpinnings on adjacent properties, and therefore… 17
18
Commissioner Summa: Okay. 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.
Garrett Sauls: …no sort of maintenance agreements associated with that. But go ahead and add 1
if you want… 2
3
Isaiah Stackhouse: Yeah… 4
5
Garrett Sauls: …a little bit more. 6
7
Isaiah Stackhouse: …I would agree with that. We looked at alternatives and the parking is 8
exactly where it is in order to pull the parking pits out away from the property line. So there’s 9
no requirement whatsoever for any underpinning of the adjacent properties. 10
11
Commissioner Summa: Okay. That’s good to know. Should I – I guess that’s all about that. Can I 12
go on to ask questions on other topics, Chair? 13
14
Chair Chang: Certainly. 15
16
Commissioner Summa: Yeah, so I was surprised in the public comment period to hear that this 17
was − the preference would also be for school employees that are not teachers. I had 18
understood all along that it was for teachers and I’m – I think the PAUSD school salary schedule 19
was just for teachers, so perhaps you can help clarify 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.
1
Jason Matlof: Yeah. And for – I think maybe an apology first if I didn’t make it clear. I want to be 2
very clear that this partnership is both with the PAEA, which is [PAUSD 107:23] teachers and the 3
Classified Employees Union that Meb represents in the form of the CSEA. So the reason why all 4
the analysis is done relative to the teachers was not because of a bias towards them but 5
because they have a standard 12-month annual salary and it’s – there’s fairly – they’re full-time 6
employees for the most part. Whereas the classified employees, as Meb I think was referring to 7
in her presentation, are oftentimes hourly, oftentimes have two different jobs, so the analysis 8
there is not clean and I didn’t want to get into the craziness of trying to draw that clear 9
objective analysis. But it is meant for both, to answer your question. 10
11
Commissioner Summa: Okay. Thanks. 12
13
Chair Chang: Can I ask a quick follow-on question about that? 14
15
Jason Matlof: Yeah. 16
17
Chair Chang: So I just pulled up – because as when the public commentor [inaudible 108:20] 18
Ms. Steiner, was saying that the CS – that almost all the – or all the CSEA staff would qualify for 19
it, I was surprised. Like I know that their – all their salaries are lower but in terms of it being 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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.
affordable for them, I looked at the salary charts and was – less than half, I think, is my 1
eyeballing of it, for the most affordable unit, which would be the studio at 70 percent. Do you 2
have charts, Mr. Matlof, that show that? 3
4
Jason Matlof: So – yeah, that’s a good question. It’s a fair question, but it doesn’t have an easy 5
answer because like I said some of these employees in the CSEA group are – most of them are 6
hourly. Some of them have multiple jobs, so they could have multiple different incomes that 7
qualify into their gross income. They could have partner income. So that’s not relevant because 8
I guess the teachers could also have partner income. But in general – by the way, there are 9
some full-time members of the classified employees that do – that have, as Meb − or Ms. 10
Steiner mentioned, have professional degrees and are up in the 150 range. But the vast 11
majority of them are in the lower end of – well below that. So those teachers would qualify for 12
the low income. Now there’s two different things; there’s qualify and then there’s affordability. 13
14
Chair Chang: Correct. Yeah. 15
16
Jason Matlof: So affordability is not – and this is the reason why I said a can of worms – I mean 17
we could be here for an hour talking about this. But there’s no clean way to discuss or assess 18
affordability for them because are you talking about the person who’s only working 4 hours a 19
week and that’s their exclusive job or are you talking about the person that works 40 hours a 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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.
week? Are you talking about the person that works 15 hours a week and has a 25 an hour – 1
hour week other job. It’s totally amorphous. You can’t do that and I don’t believe you can fairly 2
do that analysis. Whereas with the teachers, they’re full time, it’s a full-time job, and it’s very 3
straightforward. So I don’t think in this forum, we want to go into that discussion but I’m happy 4
to have it and if Meb wants to try to come up here as well − it’s a very difficult analysis because 5
every single situation is going to be different. 6
7
Chair Chang: Okay. Thank you. I think I was looking at the classified monthly 12-month, so those 8
would be the full-time folks. 9
10
Jason Matlof: Right. 11
12
Chair Chang: And it’s probably less than half that can – that would – it would be considered 13
affordable by HUD or for the – or by the city. Ms. – I think Commissioner Summa might have 14
more questions or are you following on? Okay. Sorry. No. Wait, Commissoner Summa. 15
Commissioner Templeton has a follow-on question like on the same topic, if that’s okay. 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah, I was just thinking about like it is a can of worms and I’m not 18
sure that it’s going to be worth getting into because I feel like there’s going to be more 19
applicants anyway. Even looking at everybody who qualifies or is close to it, it’s going to 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.
oversubscribed as much as possible anyway, so I’m not sure that we need to worry if we’re 1
going to have enough members qualifying from the different organizations. I think there’s going 2
to be a lot of interest. Is that where that question was coming from? 3
4
Chair Chang: No, I think the question – my question was can they afford this? But I think that 5
was the issue. 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: I think yes, very strongly according to their leadership. 8
9
Chair Chang: Well… 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. 12
13
Chair Chang: Okay. Go ahead, Commissioner Summa. 14
15
Commissioner Summa: Yeah, this is just an observation. Not so much a question. But it would 16
have been good to have an analysis of – a more complete analysis of the preferred applicants, 17
I’ll call them. And forgive me if I didn’t – if I missed something earlier about the CSA – CSEA 18
employees. But I would assume that there is data on those employees and there would be – 19
one could, if it’s not already there – one could find sort of pretty easily a median income 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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.
because the – of the budget and it’s just kind of important to know. And I will make the other 1
observation that as Mr. Matlof said, of course, the teachers – we don’t have any demographic 2
information on who’s in every box. Are there more teachers? Are there more single teachers? 3
Are there more – and I realize it gets complicated but it is – and how many are two-person 4
partners and are – how many of our – both of our school populations, the teachers and the 5
other employees, that this is really going to serve. That’s the ques-, and I know it will only serve 6
people at these income levels but it’s kind of hard to know how many of our educators and 7
their – and other employees at PAUSD it will serve. That’s an observation, so sorry. 8
9
Jason Matlof: If I could – [Inaudible 113:42]. Is this on? I’ll just respond by saying there are 1600 10
employees spanning across the teachers, the PAEA, and the classified employees, the CSEA. 11
We’re talking about 55 units here, so I think that’s context in and of itself. And I’ll just leave it at 12
that. 13
14
Commissioner Summa: Thank you. 15
16
Chair Chang: Did you have more questions, Commissioner Summa? 17
18
Commissioner Summa: That’s it for right now. Thank 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.
Chair Chang: Okay. So I don’t see any other – no other lights. I’m going to – oh, Commissioner 1
Templeton. 2
3
Commissoner Templeton: Sorry, my light doesn’t work, so I’m trying to figure out how to do 4
[inaudible 114:30]. I guess I’m not bringing questions at this point, just I wanted to recognize 5
and appreciate all the really thoughtful comments that we had from our PAUSD workers, our 6
Staff leadership, the unions. I – the board members, the formal board members that were here 7
and some people I know through my personal life as people who appreciate their teachers and 8
want to have people live nearby. I keep thinking about − where I grew up, we had a lot of 9
coaches and academic coaches and sports coaches and other afterschool extracurriculars that 10
were led by teachers. And [out 115:22] here, we haven’t had that [for 115:24] my kids where 11
they’re growing up because teachers can’t stay. They can’t stay. They have to drive home for 12
two hours to the Central Valley. And it’s such a loss. The time spent with people who care and 13
who know how to communicate and connect with our children and build more in them and for 14
whom it’s more than just a job. Like it’s part of this community that we can extend outside the 15
school walls. So I really am excited about this project and I want to reflect on the changes that 16
have been made by the applicant in response to what our Commission has said; it’s astonishing. 17
18
I really was skeptical that we could see so many changes implemented and it’s really quite a 19
testament to your commitment to this project to see so much responsiveness to those things, 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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.
even down to the bins. I know it’s so silly. You’re like, “Why are you talking about the bins?” But 1
like that’s something that we’ve heard from people in the community and it’s really amazing 2
that even that added to the package that you’re presenting to us tonight. So I really appreciate 3
that and I appreciate all the work that Staff has done to respond and bring us back what we 4
asked for. So I’m really positive about this project and – yeah, that’s where I want to leave it for 5
now. Thank you. 6
7
Chair Chang: Okay. I do have questions but I do also want to thank all the many public 8
commentors. I also [have 117:02] kids in the district. Some of the teachers here were actually 9
teachers of my children and I cited it as examples last time actually of somebody who had a 10
two-hour long commute, one way. So yeah, I – teacher housing is important to me. I do have 11
questions. So about the bike parking. For the five electric bikes, are those counted in the 55 12
bike parking spaces or not? 13
14
Garrett Sauls: No, they’re surplus. 15
16
Chair Chang: So effectively… 17
18
Garrett Sauls: So… 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: …there’s 55 plus the 4 public plus the 5 spaces for the electric? 1
2
Garrett Sauls: Yes. 3
4
Chair Chang: Okay. Thank you. Also − so there’s somebody in public comment that mentioned 5
that this has taken really a – a really long time, so I wanted to ask about the long gap between 6
April to November. And what that was due to as well as what the typical time is for an 7
affordable housing project, like Wilton Court or the teacher housing project, the Grant Avenue 8
one, and just to understand what’s going on. 9
10
Garrett Sauls: Yeah, so a part of that was a product of changing the project from that initial 11
submittal of 44 units to 55 units. So that took time from obviously the applicant’s side to sort of 12
reconsider some of the design aspects of that, how to put the plans and other things together, 13
so there was some gap there. And then when that was resubmitted, Staff had to look at it in 14
some ways – and some Staff had to look at it in some ways as a new project, right? Even though 15
it's sort of 90 percent the same, there’s some additional policies that could potentially apply as 16
we look at that. And so in a typical situation – when I think of a typical, I think of now what sort 17
of State law allows for all the density bonus changes. This change from 44 units to 55 units 18
exceeded sort of that typical allowance that HCD provides, which is a 20 percent change in 19
either unit count or square footage. Rather than wh-, so in some ways, bureaucratically, we 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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.
could have said, “Take this file off. File a new application and we’ll start from scratch there.” 1
But obviously, we didn’t want to do that with the housing – with the affordable housing project, 2
so we kept the same file and tried to expedite those reviews with Staff, so that way we could 3
ensure they could go back to other hearings as soon as we could. 4
5
Built in with the veil or pull the curtain back and see the little green man a little bit, there are 6
sort of spreadsheets in a sense that calculate or gauge out internal Staff times for preparing 7
reports that − for ARB, for example, gauge about 1½ months in advance of that hearing. For 8
PTC, almost 2 months. And so part of what I had been trying to do was trying to sort of get 9
ahead of some of those. And there were some unfortunate sort of gaps in between some of 10
that where we had to adjust schedules or commissioners got elected to Council and we had to 11
try and get a quorum and we couldn’t. That resulted in sort of various different delays of 12
progress to where we are today. 13
14
Chair Chang: Well thank you so much for all the hard work that you put in. It sounds like were 15
there not the additional changes, then it might have gone on faster. And also thank you for 16
trying to expedite as much as you could. I had a question about the z-, so when we were looking 17
at the comparison chart slide where it says there’s a 0 to 5-feet rear setback, I’m wondering like 18
what is the setback? Why is it 0 to 5? 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.
Garrett Sauls: So the proposal has a 0 to 5-foot setback and that’s based on the physical – let 1
me see if I can go to the site plan. 2
3
Chair Chang: Oh, I see. It varies. In some places, it’s zero and some places, it’s five. It’s not 4
meant to reflect ambiguity. 5
6
Garrett Sauls: That’s correct. 7
8
Chair Chang: Got it. 9
10
Garrett Sauls: The standard is 10 feet and a variation of 0 to 5 is reflecting what the proposal 11
actually is doing. 12
13
Chair Chang: Thank you. I was like how do we not know what it is. 14
15
Garrett Sauls: I mean… 16
17
Chair Chang: Okay. 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.
Garrett Sauls: …to [some side 121:06] − the other opposite and physically of the property on El 1
Camino is a 0 to 8-foot setback depending on the existing width of the building to get to that 2
pedestrian zone, right? So… 3
4
Chair Chang: Thank you. That makes a lot of sense. I just completely didn’t understand that. 5
And then one last kind of big-picture question about – can you – we’ve had so many changes in 6
terms of – and laws and our own zoning has changed over time. What is allowed under AHIP? 7
Like how does this project compare to what would be allowed under AHIP. And I know AHIP is a 8
little bit influx right now because we were just looking at that last month. So AHIP is the 9
Affordable Housing Incentive Program for members of the public listening. 10
11
Garrett Sauls: Yeah. So on the screen that you can see here, I did have that comparison, talked 12
about it in the first project, albeit the numbers on the far right that are bolded are different 13
with this version that we’re seeing here. So generally, as you progress from left to right, you see 14
the CS District rule, the AHIP rule, and proposal. And so with the AHIP as it relates to the lot 15
coverage requirement, there is no maximum. So they would not be in conflict with that rule. 16
For the floor area ratio, it’s 60 percent under the CS District, 2.0 under the AHIP, and with this 17
proposal, 4.42. Previously, it was around 3.8 with that 44-unit project instead. And again, open 18
space, 150 square feet per unit for CS, 50 for AHIP. This one is 31. Parking one to one for the 19
underlying district: .75 for AHIP, and – which is 42, and 32 for this proposal. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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: Okay. Thanks. This is a very helpful slide. Thank you. And then I had a pretty 2
specific question on Packet Page 15. So there’s – right above the table – which we know you’ve 3
edited the table. On Packet Page 15, it talks about – there’s a sentence that says, “A two-person 4
household may qualify for such studio with a household income of up to 118,000 per year, 5
which is 80 percent of AMI for a two-person household.” Should – is that sort of a typo? Would 6
we have adjusted the numbers to 70 percent of AMI or are we saying that if two people live in 7
this unit, then it – we would change to a 80 percent AMI? 8
9
Garrett Sauls: So what that’s referring to more is tied to the persons per household, so you may 10
qualify. As you can see on the screen, based on the persons per household, you may still be in a 11
studio, for example, but you could have potentially up to two people who live there, and 12
therefore, we’re looking at the second column in terms of how you determine the income 13
qualification for those individuals. And for one bedrooms, the County Housing Authority 14
potentially considers that there could be up to four people in a low-income, one-bedroom unit 15
or a moderate-income, one-bedroom unit. So they assume potentially two people in a studio 16
and potentially four people in a one bedroom. So you may consider something like parents and 17
kids that could qualify as multiple persons per household but not necessarily mean a 18
multiplicative income for each individual. 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.
Albert Yang: All right. So I… 1
2
Chair Chang: [Inaudible 124:48] my question. 3
4
Albert Yang: …can clarify. 5
6
Chair Chang: Yeah. 7
8
Albert Yang: So these units are going to be restricted to households that fall into the low-9
income or moderate-income categories and those range, right? For low income, it’s 50 to 80. So 10
if you are anywhere in that 50 to 80 range as your household income, you qualify, but the rent 11
will be limited at 70. So you could be making 80 percent, but you still pay the rent that’s at 70. 12
You could be making 55 percent and – but you’d still pay the rent as if it were 70. 13
14
Chair Chang: Thank you. That’s what I wanted to confirm just that we weren’t shifting the 70 15
percent like – so thank you. Thank you for that clarification. I think that’s it for my – oh, I do 16
have a question about the TDM. So there’s a mention that if the TDM is – well if, based on the 17
surveys, there are too many trips or cars, that penalties could be enacted. But it wasn’t very 18
specific about what those penalties would be. So what penalties would be enacted? 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.
Garrett Sauls: That’s a good question. I think those typically are designed or created a little bit 1
sort of further down the line once that is – once the project is approved. But they could be like 2
financial penalties levied on the property owner to try to encourage them to actually ensure 3
that the practices that they have as a part of their TDM, like people are using their passes or 4
other can – is actually being done. But if you give me a little bit more time, I can look into that a 5
little bit more and get back to you. 6
7
Chair Chang: Okay. My only real experience with TDMs here, like I had – was the one with 8
[Castilleja 126:56], where there were very [inaudible 126:57] − the TDM also included the 9
penalties. And as part of approving the project, the PTC looked at those penalties too. So that’s 10
something that we could encourage to happen between now and Council, correct? 11
12
Garrett Sauls: [Inaudible 127:17]… 13
14
Chair Chang: And I wouldn’t want to… 15
16
Garrett Sauls: …we could have something more explicit. 17
18
Chair Chang: 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.
Garrett Sauls: But I think like you’re talking about with Castilleja again, [inaudible 127:22] and 1
now the Castilleja person that [Inaudible 127:25]. Good and bad sometimes. But I know what 2
you’re talking about in terms of the level of detail… 3
4
Chair Chang: Yeah. 5
6
Garrett Sauls: …to that extent. So very different projects obviously. But we can have more 7
explicit details built into the conditions of approval that say if you fail to meet your objectives 8
within the first year or whatever, right, here’s the penalty and sort of add on to that. 9
10
Chair Chang: Okay. Thank you. That’s it for my questions. So I know Commissioner Templeton 11
already – did you have more questions? 12
13
Commissioner Hechtman: I had a follow up. 14
15
Chair Chang: Yeah, please. 16
17
Commissioner Hechtman: I just have a follow up on that one that where we’ve seen a TDM, it’s 18
where somebody is requesting reduction in parking from code, right? And so, well okay, how 19
are you going to manage things so you don’t overpark and burden the neighborhood. But this 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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.
project, because of its PC nature, it doesn’t actually have – or does it have a parking 1
requirement itself? 2
3
Garrett Sauls: No, the PC ordinance doesn’t have explicit standards. 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 6
7
Garrett Sauls: We tie it from 1852, which is trying to draw that comparison, like you saw on 8
some other slides. 9
10
Commissioner Hechtman: Right. Okay. So I think that’s an important distinction to make 11
because it – in a lot of projects where we’re dealing with TDMs, aren’t we looking at the need 12
to reduce traffic? This is a housing development where people are going to live and 13
approximately 32 of them are going to have cars.I thought that the focus of this TDM was to 14
provide alternatives, so that you wouldn’t need to have a car. This project has the bus passes to 15
every unit, and one bike spot per unit. And so I’m trying to figure out where you would get a 16
penalty. And I guess if you like converted the bike parking to storage, maybe there would be a 17
penalty there or if you stop distributing the passes. But isn’t this a little different than most 18
TDMs where the penalty is if you don’t reduce traffic as required in the TDM. 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.
Garrett Sauls: Yeah, it is in that sense a little bit different. I think in terms of the ways that the 1
TDM plan tries to express how successful it will be, a lot of that’s location-based too, right? In 2
this instance, we have the convenience of a VTA stop on sort of both sides of the street. 3
4
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. 5
6
Garrett Sauls: Right? North and southbound and free parking – free – excuse me − free passes 7
included, which is a significant investment in the potential opportunity for residents to use that 8
in addition to unbundling parking. So those two items are sort of currently some of the more 9
impactful elements for TDM plans that we’ve seen and those are the ones that our 10
Transportation Staff are pushing most people to do. Where again, a free pass is – I’ll say it 11
myself, thank you City of Palo Alto allowing me to be able to commute from San Jose without 12
having a car for the last eight years. 13
14
Chair Chang: So a follow-on question now because of that. My understanding – like I 15
understand what you’re saying about it’s not a zoning code-required TDM but my 16
understanding is the applicant has put together this TDM, understanding that there is a concern 17
that neighbors in the neighborhood will be impacted or quality of life for the residents will be 18
impacted because they’re not able to get around or they’re – because they’re having to park 19
three blocks away or whatever the case may be and then walk in the dark. So like that’s part of 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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 reason for the TDM; it’s to make sure that this is a good development. So because it’s a PC, 1
we can put – if, for example, we were concerned about the impacts on the surrounding 2
neighborhood, we could place whatever restrictions we wanted to, correct? 3
4
Garrett Sauls: Yes, you could. I think one of the things the applicant did note too is that at least 5
on the immediate side streets in the vicinity, there are – there’s no overnight parking allowed, 6
right? And so… 7
8
Chair Chang: That’s right. 9
10
Garrett Sauls: …currently at least, there’s already a built-in protection in the immediate vicinity 11
that that’s not going to happen. Other projects we’ve seen, there have been conditions added 12
on where the individuals living in the project could not participate in the… 13
14
Chair Chang: RPPs. 15
16
Garrett Sauls: …residential parking permit program, right? 17
18
Chair Chang: Yeah. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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.
Garrett Sauls: So there’s other things that could be done there too. 1
2
Chair Chang: Okay. Thank you. Are there other questions? And do we want to go with the first 3
round of comments? I mean I know that – well… 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: I was going to ask if you guys are ready because you guys answered 6
– asked all your questions. 7
8
Chair Chang: Yeah. We haven’t all made our comments, I don’t think. 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: Oh. 11
12
Chair Chang: And then Commissoner Summa has her hand up. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: Go ahead. 15
16
Chair Chang: Commissioner Summa? 17
18
Commissioner Summa: Related to the TDM comments that were just being made – and I will 19
say that the fact that there’s no overnight parking right there, only makes me more concerned 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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.
for residents who might not be able to use a car or public transportation, that they will be – 1
that two things will happen. They will be walking farther distances, possibly after dark when it’s 2
less desirable and safe. And also that it will push into the neighborhoods where – unless in the 3
future, there is a residential parking permit program there. So it’s kind of troubling that way. 4
And I was wondering – actually I just thought of this and forgive me if this was addressed 5
somewhere but I was wondering if the PAUSD and the employees union – if they have data 6
already on what percentage of their employees can come by − and it’s not by public 7
transportation and maybe that isn’t going to be relative because we’re trying to provide new 8
housing opportunities that would allow that to be their choice. But I don’t know – it’s kind of 9
hard to imagine exactly how that’s going to work out. And I also was missing the fact that – I 10
know for some – yes, the bus stops are really close in both directions and the buses basically go 11
up and down El Camino and to get to the other side of the tracks, a lot of times you have to go 12
downtown and connect there. 13
14
I’m just wondering for all the schools in the public school system if anybody calculated the 15
length of time it would take to commute on public transportation. Because I just don’t think all 16
teachers are going to be able to bike and maybe not all employees. I just have a practical feeling 17
that teachers are often carrying a lot of stuff. And there are cargo bikes and stuff but it’s just – I 18
don’t know if we have any of that data; I didn’t see it in the Staff Report but… 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: Do we have any of that data? 1
2
Garrett Sauls: No. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: I think since we’re talking about giving them passes, I’m not sure like 5
− certainly, who would do it after moving in would change significantly. 6
7
Jason Matlof: [Can I 135:08]… 8
9
Commissioner Summa: Possibly. But… 10
11
Chair Chang: Go ahead. 12
13
Jason Matlof: Can I address the question? 14
15
Chair Chang: Yeah, please. 16
17
Jason Matlof: In the original presentation, I don’t think we actually did it here, and Isaiah, I 18
think, briefly went over it. But there are seven district schools that are along the El Camino 19
Corridor where the VTA traverses. Again, we’re a couple hundred feet from a stop right in front 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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 our parcel. And so the thinking is from the VTA – and I think four or five of them are within a 1
half a mile of a VTA stop and then two more are just beyond that like within two-thirds of a 2
mile. So it should be easily walkable from a VTA ride. Those schools could also be easily biked to 3
if someone – the weather permitted and someone wanted to bike and, of course, we have an 4
abundance of biking. So the analysis has been done. Again, it’s seven of – how many PAUSD 5
schools are there? Fourteen? Or thirteen? So… 6
7
Female: Thirteen elementary and three middle [inaudible 136:06]. 8
9
Jason Matlof: Okay, so it’s a little less than half of the schools are directly in that corridor that 10
are served by the VTA. So again, 1600 teachers − we’re talking about 55 and to put it in 11
perspective. 12
13
Commissioner Summa: Yes. Thank you. I would just − like I’m wondering how long it would 14
take, for instance, to get to Ohlone School, which is… 15
16
Jason Matlof: That’s not one of the seven. 17
18
Commissioner Summa: …pretty far away. But I don’t think we know… 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: A comment from the applicant was that’s not one of the seven schools. But yeah, 1
we don’t know is the answer. 2
3
Commissioner Summa: Okay. I’m just worried about the tenants and them having access to safe 4
and efficient ways to get to their jobs and conduct the rest of their lives without cars. That’s my 5
concern. But I’ll leave it… 6
7
Jason Matlof: [Yeah 136:55]. 8
9
Commissioner Summa: …at that. 10
11
Jason Matlof: Fifty-six percent of the tenants will have cars or will have the option for cars 12
because that’s our parking ratio. So it’s not no cars. It’s not that no tenants will be able to drive 13
to the schools. It’s that for those other – what is that? Forty-six percent − or 44 percent, 14
potentially they could address their employment and the seven other schools are easily 15
accessible from the VTA. 16
17
Commissioner Summa: Thank you for that. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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: And while we’re on that topic, I had a question about – so for Mr. Sauls, for the 1
transportation pass that Palo Alto offers for you, is that the Go Pass or is it just VTA? 2
3
Garrett Sauls: It’s just the Go Pass. So it’s really just for me. 4
5
Chair Chang: [Inaudible 137:39] the train. 6
7
Garrett Sauls: It’s only Caltrain. 8
9
Chair Chang: Okay. Does this pass include the train? No? 10
11
Garrett Sauls: It would only be VTA. 12
13
Chair Chang: Okay. Yeah, on – and then my question for the – I don’t know if Mr. Matlof or 14
somebody here from PAUSD would know. Does PAUSD offer transit passes for teachers? 15
16
Female: No. 17
18
Chair Chang: No is the answer. Okay. 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: Nor students. But they could. 1
2
Meb Steiner: There are some VTA passes for students. 3
4
Chair Chang: Could you please speak into the microphone? 5
6
Meb Steiner: So – this is Meb Steiner, CSEA President. There are VTA passes that we do offer to 7
some special ed students and especially when they have their programs where they are out in 8
the community, so those are available through the district. There is also a program for setting 9
aside money to pretax for transportation; that option is available. We also have both PAEA and 10
CSEA were founding members with Manzanita Works. And they offer free Caltrain passes for 11
our school employees. 12
13
Chair Chang: Awesome. That’s fantastic. 14
15
Meb Steiner: Yeah. And they’re a wonderful partner as well. And Manzanita Works also does a 16
lot of work with housing, transportation, all of these issues that we’re kind of all dealing with. 17
18
Chair Chang: That’s great. That’s great news… 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.
Meb Steiner: Yeah. 1
2
Chair Chang: …that the Go Pass is included for – because yes, teachers – if they don’t have a 3
car, they might want to go up to San Francisco on the weekend… 4
5
Meb Steiner: Yeah. 6
7
Chair Chang: …right? So it’s great news that they can on Caltrain. Thank you. 8
9
Meb Steiner: And our principal just recently put out an announcement of that. 10
11
Chair Chang: Thanks. 12
13
Meb Steiner: The Manzanita passes as well. 14
15
Chair Chang: Great. Commissioner Summa, did that – did you have comments or was it – or are 16
you finished for now? You’re on mute. 17
18
Commissioner Summa: Yes, for now. Thank 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.
Chair Chang: Okay. Then we’re going to have Commissioner – Vice-Chair Akin, and then 1
Commissioner Hechtman. 2
3
Vice-Chair Akin: Thank you, Chair. I think I just accidentally triggered the light. To the applicants, 4
thank you for the responsiveness to our concerns from last time around. And to the creativity 5
with which you’ve approached solving these problems. This is very much appreciated. I have a 6
couple of concerns left and the reason I saved them till the end is that I would propose a couple 7
of conditions of approval to address them; neither of these are onerous but they do deserve 8
some discussion, I think. The first one predictably enough is about parking. I suspect we will find 9
that the project is under-parked but in the beginning, the TDM plan doesn’t prevent parking 10
elsewhere off-site. So I expect some residents will find it appropriate to park in Ventura, 11
particularly in the early years of the project. That’s complicated by the fact that the on-site 12
parking is going to be a bit challenging to use thanks to the puzzle system and the tight 13
circulation and the drive path, And because parking is unbundled, there’s a financial incentive 14
to park elsewhere for free. We don’t have a lot of tools to deal with under-parked projects but 15
we need to start establishing precedents for how we do handle them. Ventura doesn’t have an 16
RPPP now but as it gets more dense as we expect and we have to deal with more projects that 17
may yet also be under-parked, then it may develop one. 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.
If the residents of this project were able to use that, then it would eventually compromise both 1
the TDM goals and our sustainability goals by allowing more driving than we anticipate now. So 2
to address this, I think we have to recognize that it would be unfair to impose a constraint on 3
the residents in the future without warning them in advance that this might happen. So I 4
suggest a condition of approval, which this has already come up in public comment from Mr. 5
Borock as well as casual conversations here, that we should state in advance that the residents 6
of the project won’t be eligible for new residential preferential parking permit programs nearby 7
and that they must be informed of this along with all the other TDM information before they 8
actually rent a unit. I have more formal language for that if you’d like it but that’s the general 9
gist. So any questions about that to start? Okay. The language I had suggested and I thought 10
about this fairly carefully to deal with some edge cases, so I’m going to read it to you. 11
Residents of this project shall not be eligible for residential preferential parking permit 12
programs that allow parking within one-half mile of the project. Residents should be informed 13
of this along with other TDM information before renting a unit. And for the distance constraint 14
there is to allow cases where people have legitimate reasons for participating in parking permit 15
programs elsewhere in the city. 16
17
For instance, if they have a permit to deal with a parent or someone else who lives in a 18
different neighborhood. I don’t want to blanket – eliminate their ability to participate in RPPs 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.
everywhere, simply to use it at this particular project. So that’s the rationale there. The second 1
condition is about the ever-popular discussion of affordability. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: Did you want to discuss that with the Commission before moving on 4
or… 5
6
Vice-Chair Akin: Sure, we can do that. We can do the [inaudible 144:14]… 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: I don’t know… 9
10
Vice-Chair Akin: …if you like. 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: …how you want to do it, so I’m just asking because I’m going to – my 13
memory is not as good as it used to be. 14
15
Vice-Chair Akin: No. I think your suggestion is a good one. So… 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. 18
19
Vice-Chair Akin: …please, let’s do 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.
1
Commissioner Templeton: So you’re talking about restricting people who would reside in this 2
structure from participating in a parking permit program that doesn’t yet exist? That doesn’t 3
have any rules that would – we would be binding people who’d be creating that program in 4
advance? 5
6
Vice-Chair Akin: That’s right. 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: Why? 9
10
Vice-Chair Akin: Because if you don’t act proactively in the beginning, you can never recover 11
that. 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: But the program… 14
15
Vice-Chair Akin: So… 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: …doesn’t exist. 18
19
Vice-Chair Akin: So what’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.
1
Commissioner Templeton: So we could tell them they could if a RPP comes into Ventura, you 2
could be prevented from using it. Would − I would be much more comfortable with that 3
because that’s correct. Whereas preventing them from something hypothetical that we’re 4
going to assume looks like this. We don’t know yet what it looks like. 5
6
Vice-Chair Akin: Yeah, so what I’m – what’s driving this comment is – and I’ve mentioned this in 7
the past but I’ll bring it up again. There was a bill introduced this past year at the State level 8
called SB 834 and what it did was to say that within AB2097 areas, everyone is prohibited from 9
using residential parking permit programs. And the rationale for that is pretty much what I’ve 10
outlined here that you want to encourage people not to drive, you don’t want to provide a 11
loophole that not only exports parking impacts elsewhere but also compromises your 12
sustainability goals. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: So you want to hinge approval of this project on a hypothetical build 15
that might come in the future that might affect hypothetical RPPs? 16
17
Vice-Chair Akin: No, not… 18
19
Commissioner Templeton: I’m sorry. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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 Akin: I’m suggesting… 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: I’m having a hard time following this. 4
5
Vice-Chair Akin: Yeah, I’m suggesting the – I mentioned the bill to describe the rationale. We 6
may yet see that come before us again but the concern for us now is that you don’t want to 7
sabotage your sustainability goals and… 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: Well, I don’t want to be accused of sabotaging anything. 10
11
Vice-Chair Akin: Yeah. 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: So that’s not – but I don’t want to sabotage this project either. 14
15
Vice-Chair Akin: Oh, I don’t think it will. And that’s the point. If you believe that we have 16
adequate parking in the project and that the TDM provisions are sufficient that no one will 17
need to drive, then this will have no effect on anyone living in the project. This only has effect if 18
those assumptions turn out to be untrue. 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: And also it’s pretty excessive [micromanaging 146:57] and outside 1
the scope of this project, like RPPs is not like – for Ventura, is not in this. It seems like 2
farfetched to me as a condition of approval. I love the… 3
4
Chair Chang: So… 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: …idea [inaudible 147:10]… 7
8
Chair Chang: …I feel like things are getting rather heated here. 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: No, I… 11
12
Vice-Chair Akin: No, this is a fair… 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: I’m sorry. I did not feel like… 15
16
Chair Chang: Okay. 17
18
Vice-Chair Akin: This is a fair… 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: …anything aggressive… 1
2
Chair Chang: Okay. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: …was happening. 5
6
Vice-Chair Akin: This is a fair point. 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: It was just discussion. 9
10
Vice-Chair Akin: Yeah, it’s anticipating in order to prevent a problem from happening in the 11
future. 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. 14
15
Vice-Chair Akin: So if – sorry, Chair. 16
17
Chair Chang: So – Mr. Yang just popped on, so I want to hear what Mr. Yang has to say. 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.
Albert Yang: Okay. So I was just going to comment that we cannot under State laws that 1
currently exist – we can’t exclude a project from an RPP if it’s within the RPP boundaries. Like 2
we can’t say, “Oh, everyone around you can participate in the RPP but you who are in the 3
middle of this district cannot.” We can draw the boundaries to end short of that project but we 4
can’t just say if you’re − there’s a project that’s in the middle of the RPP zone, that it’s excluded. 5
I don’t know if that’ll help with the conversation. 6
7
Chair Chang: So are you saying that Commissioner Akin’s proposed − proposal would not be 8
legal? 9
10
Albert Yang: Well it really depends on how the RPP – the future RPP is drawn up, right? Like it’s 11
okay – we could say like you − we’ll draw the boundaries around you but we can’t say if the 12
zone surrounds you on all sides, you are excluded. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: That is the point I was trying to get it. We can’t do it there – this way 15
without doing that whole project that the RPP for Ventura doesn’t work. 16
17
Vice-Chair Akin: Okay. So that’s – I think that’s fair. So the – if the condition were to be applied, 18
then the form it would take would be that this project would not participate in an RPP 19
boundary − would not be within an RPP boundary. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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 Templeton: And warning them ahead of time is perfectly acceptable. I think 2
that’s correct that – and we may need to tell Staff and they would – whenever and if ever they 3
worked on an RPP for Ventura, they would have this little note from this project. 4
5
Vice-Chair Akin: Okay. 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: And I’m totally supportive of that. 8
9
Vice-Chair Akin: And I’m perfectly happy with that formulation too. 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you for working together on that. 12
13
Vice-Chair Akin: Okay. 14
15
Chair Chang: Commissioner Summa had her hand up, I think in response to the suggestion from 16
Commissioner Akin and the discussion, correct? 17
18
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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 Summa: Yes. I fully support it and − with the nuance and clarification added by 1
our City Attorney. And I will just mention very briefly that I believe a similar thing was done for 2
the Workforce Housing building that is on the corner of El Camino and Page Mill. 3
4
Chair Chang: Okay. 5
6
Commissioner Summa: If I recall correctly. And so – and I think that – and to say a little further. 7
We want these projects that are under-parked by our traditional standards to succeed for 8
everybody but – including the tenants that live there. So I think that the best way we’re going 9
to do that in what is still – regardless of how you feel about it − a vehicle-driven sort of area – 10
the best way to do that is to find people that will want – that are able to live that way and that 11
will want to continue to live that way as far as their renting in this facility. So I think it’s a really 12
smart thing to do because it encourages people who would like to live – have that lifestyle to 13
live in this building. And I get really worried when people have to park too far away, especially 14
for women and people with disabilities and people with young children. And I do not – I do note 15
that people are, because of the cost of housing, living with much denser, whether it’s 16
anticipated or not, numbers of family members in studios and one-bedrooms. And so I just 17
think it’s a smart thing to do and I fully support it. 18
19
Chair Chang: Commissioner Hechtman. Yeah, I know. 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
Commissioner Hechtman: I’m a little concerned about sort of laying this limitation today on a 2
future district that we haven’t designed and I worry about what the parameters of that district 3
might be and are we going to have this little island? Is the nearest parking district that gets 4
created six years from now gonna be this area and there are these islands that are inside of it 5
closer than other places but can’t participate. And so I’m really concerned about unintended 6
consequences. But you made me think of sort of a more direct approach to this. I mean the 7
concern is if I’m renting there, we don’t want my car to burden the neighborhood, right? We 8
have 32 parking spaces. They’re unbundled. So what I’m wondering is – and while I don’t know 9
how successful in the long run we’re going to be in getting people out of their cars and with no 10
cars and just bikes and buses. But I believe we’ll be somewhat successful. I believe in that 55-11
unit development, there’s going to be some number that don’t have cars. And so what I was 12
wondering about is whether it would work to – that we minimize the negative impact by 13
ensuring that the first – that the 32 people in that building who have cars have those parking 14
spaces because then we’re only dealing with 23 other units, some part of which will not have 15
cars, right? 16
17
They’ll – that’ll be the group that is biking and bussing, and then it’s a smaller number of cars 18
where people are finding some other place to park, which we can’t – again, I don’t want to 19
prohibit. I don’t want to make those people park in the next RPP over because we’ve said 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.
can’t park in the closest RPP. So what I’m wondering is a more modest approach that would 1
basically – and again, I’d like to hear from Mr. Yang on this whether it’s doable and from the 2
applicant whether it’s palatable. Just say if you’re renting here, you have to declare whether 3
you have a car that you’ll be using here, not stored in a garage in Alabama. And if so, and 4
there’s a space available, you have to take the space. If there’s no space available, then you’re 5
actually going to want to know that when you come to rent with your car and – right? But − so 6
then you aren’t compelled to rent. So that’s a concept that might be an alternative. It doesn’t 7
get us 100 percent of the – where you wanted to go but it gets us, I think, a long ways toward it. 8
9
Commissioner Summa: And I’ll add, before we move on from this, that people will – if people 10
are really looking for a place to park, they can also park across El Camino in Barron Park. So it’s 11
just hard. It’s pretty hard. I still support Vice-Chair Akin’s idea. 12
13
Vice-Chair Akin: Yeah, the original – one of the reasons that I framed it the way I did originally 14
was precisely that. That limiting it to Ventura might not be sufficient. That it could go over into 15
Barron Park. But I’m less worried about that because I think there’s sufficient distance from the 16
project that that should be minimal. 17
18
Chair Chang: Sorry. I’d like to comment on this topic, if that’s okay, because I haven’t yet. 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: [Inaudible 156:14] that we were talking about [inaudible 156:16]. 1
2
Chair Chang: No. So I actually – my concern globally on this park-, with respect to parking is that 3
the project is under-parked because when I look at – and I don’t know. That’ s just my 4
suspicion. But when we were doing work on the retail Ad Hoc, we had retailers and landlords 5
say like, “We need the parking because this is a car-driven society.” Now that’s not to say that 6
some peop-, some percentage, hopefully because parking is limited in this development, it will 7
attract people who don’t need a car. But I don’t want the incentive to be what we’ve seen 8
happen at Stanford where people choose not to buy the Stanford parking pass for a couple 9
hundred dollars and then park in the neighborhoods. And – because I think − at least my 10
suspicion is that we don’t have enough parking for this. And when I went to do the visit today, a 11
good – the vast majority of Lambert actually has no parking from 11 to 5, which means that if 12
anybody came to the unit and the first 32 spaces were occupied, they would have to park 13
somewhere else in the neighborhood similarly across the street – immediately across the street 14
at least. There’s also no parking anytime signs there in the office building on – like on the 15
streets there. So I’m – I like Commissioner Akin’s suggestion because if this isn’t under-parked, 16
then we don’t have a – there’s no problem. And yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. 17
18
Because there’s a – one of my big concerns is − okay, so if you don’t have a car, how are you 19
going to get around? And later on after Commissioner Akin has finished his other point, I do 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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.
have a – my own suggestion about the bike parking for this unit to make sure that people can 1
get around – the people who live there can get around. But – so those are my thoughts on 2
Commissioner Akin’s proposal and Commissioner Hechtman’s proposal. And then I think you 3
had something on Commissioner Hechtman's proposal too, correct? 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah, I don’t get it at all. I’m sorry. I know you have many creative 6
ideas. This one, I feel like we’re being pretty heavy-handed with how we’re approaching this as 7
far as whether there’s enough parking and that time will tell. But the laws say they’re fine and 8
we have notified where we anticipate the issue to be, right? We’ve agreed that we would notify 9
tenants that if an RPP comes into this neighborhood, you’re probably not going to get it. 10
11
Chair Chang: I’m just trying to understand what you mean by the laws say that they’re fine 12
because there’s no zone. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: Staff said that this is not under-parked. That this meets all the 15
requirements we have about parking. 16
17
Chair Chang: That’s not what Staff said. They’re short on a few parking spaces is my 18
understanding. I could be wrong though. Maybe Staff could clarify on that. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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: In terms of it [blocking 159:17]… 1
2
Chair Chang: There’s no zone… 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: In terms of blocking the building, it can be built. 5
6
Chair Chang: There’s no parking requirement here. So the parking requirement is whatever we 7
want it to be. If we’re going to do… 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: Well the parking requirement in terms of what’s required in order to 10
build has been satisfied. We are anticipating that it’s not sufficient and that we want to make 11
sure residents know and that’s why I… 12
13
Chair Chang: I don’t think I… 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: …supported what Mr. Akin said. 16
17
Chair Chang: I’m sorry. I’m just not understanding what you said by the parking requirement in 18
terms of what’s required to build. There is no parking requirement for what’s required. 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: That’s right. It’s been satisfied. There’s no number to meet. 1
2
Chair Chang: Right. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: That’s right. 5
6
Chair Chang: No, that makes sense. 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: So.. 9
10
Chair Chang: But I… 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: When – what you’re saying − and I understand what you’re saying − 13
we’re anticipating future problems because we think that it may need more parking than is 14
being built, right? 15
16
Chair Chang: Yes. 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: So the proposal by Vice-Chair Akin is to note to – as part of our 19
approval requirements, to say that they will notify the residents that it could be future RPPs 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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.
adjacent to this property that you can’t be in. It’s just a note. It’s a courtesy notification. It 1
makes sense because that gives us time to build a new one. And the other thing that I was 2
going to try and say closer to when you said it − and I apologize for getting too excited – was 3
there’s no way they can park in Barron Park; it’s full of Stanford people, Stanford cars. So – just 4
a joke. Sorry. I’m a Barron Park neighbor and a former Ventura resident, so I just feel really 5
personal about all this. 6
7
Chair Chang: Okay. So we’ve discussed that proposal but I know that Commissioner Akin had 8
like a part two, so let’s go there. 9
10
Vice-Chair Akin: All right. Thank you, Chair. So hopefully this one will be… 11
12
Commissioner Hechtman: [Inaudible 161:05]. 13
14
Vice-Chair Akin: …a little bit easier to deal with. So we’ve had quite a discussion about what 15
constitutes affordability and we’ve had, I think, consensus on the definition that happens to be 16
the same one used by the City and by HUD. So I went through and worked the numbers for the 17
four categories of income and unit configuration, and as Commissioner Summa noted, we don’t 18
really have the critical information we need, which is how many PAUSD employees fall within 19
given income categories but we can make some general conclusions based on the income 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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.
categories alone. And one of the conclusions that the numbers lead me to make is that we are 1
likely to have fewer people who are both eligible – who are eligible for these units and who can 2
afford them than we’re anticipating. Now I don’t suggest that that justifies changing the project 3
in any way but I think what it justifies is for future decision makers, who are faced with the kind 4
of uncertainty that we’re facing right now, we need to gather information for them. And so the 5
second condition of approval that I’d like to propose is that annually, perhaps along with the 6
TDM report, that the property manager produce a list of how many PAUSD employees are in 7
the development and in what type of unit. 8
9
So the goal here is to simply gather the information, so that future decisions can be informed. 10
Whereas we’re running blind here on this particular project. So I think that’s manageably easy 11
to do and hopefully will buy us some information we can use for the next such project. 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: That’s a great idea. 14
15
Chair Chang: Yes, it’s a great idea. I had the same note. Commissioner Hechtman. 16
17
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah, question on that. I’m – my memory from when this was in 18
front of us in April is while the applicant has secured these arrangements with the educational 19
community, that’s not part of our approval. And I want to – that we’re not requiring, for 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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.
example, that the local educational community be given priority. Is that – is my memory 1
correct? And if so, has that changed in the project from April to now? 2
3
Garrett Sauls: Your memory is correct and it has not changed. 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. I think there were some reasons for that that maybe Mr. Yang 6
can talk about. But given that we are not requiring it, I’m wondering if there’s a concern about 7
now connecting ourselves to that private arrangement by requesting this data. 8
9
Chair Chang: I think that’s a great question because one of the conditions of approval that I was 10
going to suggest was that we make that actually explicit. So I had asked Staff about it off line 11
and the question that I had asked was can we add to the condition – like if this is really teacher 12
housing and that’s kind of how it’s been talked about in the community. And we had all these – 13
almost every single one of our speakers tonight was either part of PAEA or the Classified 14
Employees Union. And so I was wondering if it was possible to say that right of first refusal must 15
be given. And the answer that Staff gave me was that that is usually something that would be 16
worked out between the applicant and the housing administrator, which is Alta. But for me, I 17
think it would be important to – again, this is not a, “It must go to teachers.” It’s that teach-, the 18
PAEA and CSEA must be given right of – those members must be given right of first refusal 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.
within a particular timeframe the way that this would have been anyways. Yes, go ahead, Mr. 1
Matlof. 2
3
Jason Matlof: [Inaudible 166:18]. Sorry. In the interest of time, I can short-circuit this. I’m happy 4
to agree to − I think what I heard you say is just an annual accounting for how many teachers 5
are in the building. Totally fine. I’m fine with that. Do you want some color on it or should I just 6
shut up and sit down? 7
8
Chair Chang: Great. 9
10
Jason Matlof: I’m [inaudible 166:37}… 11
12
Chair Chang: But what about the second question, which is would you be open to including in 13
the conditions of approval that these affordable units – like right of first refusal would be given 14
to the… 15
16
Jason Matlof: So – okay. That’s the second. So now it’s more complicated. 17
18
Chair Chang: Okay. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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Jason Matlof: So let me give you the full – so there is two bilateral agreements; one is going to 1
be the regulatory agreement with the City that will deed restrict us to the particular affordable 2
rents. And then there’s a second agreement that already exists, and Terri and Meb can speak to 3
this, that it is an agreement between us and them exactly how we will manage this right of first 4
refusal that they will have for two weeks. There’s a prioritization. There’s a process. We’re 5
going to manage it with a Google document. There’s a whole thing that we’ve agreed to. The 6
reason why we’re not crossing those [trains 167:28] is because we don’t want – they don’t want 7
and we don’t want and I don’t want and I don’t think the City wants to have three parties in the 8
regulatory agreement. They don’t… 9
10
Chair Chang: No. Agreed. But can’t we just reference that agreement? 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 167:43] condition of approval. 13
14
Chair Chang: As a condition of approval, okay. 15
16
Jason Matlof: So I’m happy to assert and – I mean I don’t know if they as presidents can maybe 17
participate in that but if it’s going to have to be part of a regulatory agreement, then they have 18
to get their lawyers involved, they have to get their membership to vote. It’s a really 19
complicated thing that they don’t want and I don’t want and I don’t think the City lawyers want. 20
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So – now let me tell you why I’m – I hope that you won’t think that there’s any reason to be 1
concerned and it is this, we will be bound to rent at a dollar or whatever the rent is to anyone. I 2
have zero incentive to rent to anyone else in the world except for our teachers. So why would I 3
need to lie to my community that I live in for no benefit to do that? It makes – there’s no 4
economic motive at all. So I hope that you – objectively, we can agree that since there’s no 5
motive, there’s no economic benefit that could be derived, there’s no need for that. So – but 6
coming back to your point, Commissioner Akin, I’m happy to provide an annual accounting to 7
that. 8
9
Vice-Chair Akin: Yeah, thank you. I believe that it’ll help understand what the dynamics of 10
demand really are. Thank you. 11
12
Commissioner Hechtman: [Inaudible 169:00]. 13
14
Chair Chang: Yeah. Commissioner Summa, did you have a comment? 15
16
Commissioner Summa: Yes. 17
18
Chair Chang: About Commissioner Akin’s proposal? I [inaudible 169:07]… 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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Commissioner Summa: Yes. 1
2
Chair Chang: Like not your own new one because Commissioner Hechtman’s in front of you in 3
line for that. 4
5
Commissioner Summa: No, I was just [inaudible 169:14]. 6
7
Chair Chang: Awesome. 8
9
Commissioner Summa: …commenting on the conditions that Vice-Chair Akin – I would go along 10
with that condition also. And I will tell you my thinking behind it is that this project has been 11
positioned as a teacher project and has garnered wide support in the city because of that. And 12
there’s a lot of unknowns in this in how it’s going to work and I think the most we can learn 13
from it and how this is actually serving our PAUSD community is very important. So I think 14
that’s – and the applicant has also agreed to it. So I think both these conditions are important. 15
16
Chair Chang: Thank you. Okay. So Commissioner Akin, does that wrap it for your kind of first 17
round of comments here? 18
19
Vice-Chair Akin: In fact, that’s all of them. Thank you. 20
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1
Chair Chang: Fantastic. Okay. So Commissioner Hechtman. 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: All right. So my comments. So this is an improved project from what 4
was a very good project when it came to us in April. It now has 11 more affordable units. It has 5
6 more low-income units at 70 percent rather than 80 percent, which incidentally is 6
proportionately a larger proportion of the overall unit count than the prior project, which was 7
20 percent low. This is 25 percent low. And it gives us 9 more moderate units. They have 8
increased the open space. The roof looks a lot better now by more than 50 percent, 1700 9
square feet of open space, which is a good size. And they’ve disproportionately found a way to 10
increase the parking. So there’s a lot to like here. This is – these affordable – 100 percent 11
affordable projects are rare and when you have one that is unsubsidized, for-profit, those are 12
extraordinarily rare. And the fact that we have somebody who lives in our community who has 13
the guts to try to pull it off is admirable because it’s a challenge. And I appreciate the work that 14
the applicant has done to find a way to make it work, to hear our comments, and those of ARB 15
and Council, synthesized all that and still find a way to go forward with this project. I think the 16
project itself is a really good scale, right? It’s a small lot and so it’s a small development. Fifty-17
five units. 18
19
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It’s a high-density count but it’s in this kind of manageable cube. It’s less than 85 feet along El 1
Camino where we are going to 85 feet in a lot of locations. So this is a good place for it and it’s 2
more than 500 feet from any residential district. So that ameliorates the height concern we 3
would normally have. So these are all I think positives about this new version of the project. In 4
terms of calculating the rent, I mean honestly that I don’t believe is the job of the PTC. I think 5
that is a function of qualified staff applying State law and local law to arrive at a definitive 6
number, which is formulaic. There’s no guess work there. And so I don’t think that we should 7
really spend much time concerning ourselves about those numbers. It’s the percentages. It’s 8
the categories of low and moderate. It’s the percentages of 70 and 110 that are relevant, I 9
think, to our discussion. The educational community priority is wonderful but as I said back in 10
April, that really doesn’t affect my opinion about this project. This is an excellent project 11
whether there’s ever one educator that resides there or not and I’m expecting it to be full of 12
educators and educational staff members. Because in our community, we need 14 more units 13
that are either studios that rent at 2259 or one-bedrooms at 2582 and that’s with the utility 14
allowance. 15
16
And we need 41 more moderate units that rent at 3548 or for a one-bedroom, 4056 with the 17
utility allowance. We need those things within our community whether they are going to serve 18
teachers or not here. I believe that it’s clear that they are and frankly, as Mr. Matlof said, this is 19
not really a one-off project for him. He has a reputation not only within this community but 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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outside this community to consider and if he ever wanted to do another project and thought he 1
could be clever and promise to deliver this benefit to our teachers and then stiff them, he’d be 2
done, right? He would never see the inside of a Council Chamber along the peninsula again. 3
And so I don’t worry about that. That’s not going to happen. I think that this is a concept that 4
was conceived by him and it seems to me that it’s in some sense is a passion play and I’m 5
expecting him to carry through with it. So I am clearly supportive of this project. I’m okay with 6
both Vice-Chair Akin’s conditions at least the last of which we’ve heard from the applicant is 7
acceptable to them. I’ve got a few minor clean-up items, which maybe I’ll cover later in the land 8
use action resolution. Thank you. 9
10
Chair Chang: Okay. Since there’s not any lights right now, I’m going to go with my comments. So 11
I echo what Commissioner Hechtman has said about a lot of the positives in this program – for 12
this project. So I am really glad that at least there’s no single-family home neighborhood right 13
there that’s impacted, that it’s on El Camino, that it’s walkable to Caltrain, that the parking is 14
unbundled, that it’s many units of housing; that’s wonderful. That there’s no additional funding 15
required. But I – this is where – I also think it’s a beautiful building. I like what you did with the 16
rooftop, so thank you for that and for making it bigger − the rooftop area. So I don’t have any 17
objections to the height or density in and of itself. My concerns around it are around two 18
particular areas and – oh, by the way, with respect to the comment I made earlier about if 19
there’s a way to codify that PAEA and CSEA get the right of first refusal, that wasn’t meant at all 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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to impugn on Mr. Matlof’s integrity. It’s just that our community has seen that sometimes 1
when things are sold, [inaudible 177:05] the next owner has different motivations. And so that 2
was sort of my concern. Also, this is something that I’m hoping that we will address in our 3
conditions of approval potentially − is sort of the length of deed restriction. So I would just like 4
it – us to say explicitly that it’s the life of the building. 5
6
That’s what I would like it to say. And it sounds like that’s consistent with what Mr. Matlof is 7
planning. But my concerns primarily are on two areas. And it remains – so the first one is the 8
parking. I’m pretty skeptical of how you actually measure parking impacts because how would 9
one know if a – with counts in the middle of the night like which cars in the neighborhood are 10
actually associated with the – with this development? And so I don’t know if there’s a way to do 11
it based on say car registrations of the DMV or something like − I just don’t know but that 12
would make me feel a lot better. But I actually think that the suggestion by Vice-Chair Akin − to 13
the extent that we can find good wording for essentially saying that these – we’re expecting 14
that these – the residents in this building will not be taking part in RPPP. That would also solve 15
my concern. My second – so related at the transportation concern – okay, so let’s say 16
somebody go-, lives there and doesn’t have a car. They still need to get around. The VTA pass is 17
a good start but I mean there’s Gunn students all the time who can’t get to school. In fact, 18
that’s one of the issues right now bas-, because VTA routes change, right? So what we really 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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need, and Palo Alto is great for this, is bikes. But what I’m seeing here is – what I would love to 1
see is if we could make up the difference in parking spaces, right? 2
3
Like if we’re saying that every unit normally in a different development would be asked to have 4
a parking space or a .75 of a parking space, like I’d love it if every unit could have – if [inaudible 5
179:53] really 55 parking spaces of that difference between 32 and 55 could be made up 6
somehow in terms of bike spaces. Because if there’s a one-bedroom that doesn’t have a 7
parking space, that’s two – and two people are living there, they need two bike spaces. Where 8
are they going to put the bike space? It’s a 500-square foot unit. And so I don’t know if there’s a 9
creative way to maybe put – there’s an elevator. Maybe we can have some more – I know that 10
the bike parking has really been packed in there. But maybe there’s a way to put bike parking 11
on the roof, like somewhere else for people to store their bicycles. Because that’s what we 12
really want to encourage. And we know that teachers or whoever lives there may want to – like 13
teachers sometimes need to go from site to site within a set amount of time. VTA might make it 14
difficult but like right now, from my house, it’s faster to get to Gunn on a bicycle than it is in any 15
other mode of transportation. And so that’s one of the things that − I wonder if it’s possible. If 16
there’s any place else that we can put bikes, I would love to see that. Yeah, sure. Please. 17
18
Jason Matlof: [Inaudible 180:53]. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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Chair Chang: If we’re not going to do the 55 parking spaces, maybe let’s… 1
2
Jason Matlof: Yeah. 3
4
Chair Chang: Yeah. 5
6
Jason Matlof: First of all, you’ve – your point is not a bad one. What I would say is like for the 7
parking, I don’t think all units will have bikes. So a car-owning person very well might not likely 8
have a bike, in which case there would be spare spots. The second more practical thing is we 9
have packed – I mean this is the tightest – Isaiah hates me because we have packed so much 10
parking and bicycle parking and trash and it’s the smallest footprint to get so much in, so – but I 11
do think the first – my first point is I really don’t believe everybody is going to have a bike. The 12
car owners are not commonly – like in my other buildings elsewhere, it’s usually one or the 13
other. They don’t typically have both. So anyway. 14
15
Chair Chang: So the bikes also – I mean somebody el-, well a Commissioner earlier had 16
mentioned like teachers often are [inaudible 181:47] a lot of stuff. Like I would see the teachers 17
at Hoover rolling in just like – they had like a roller bag that they brought to the [inaudible 18
181:55] school. And so the bike parking right now wouldn’t work for a cargo bike, is that 19
correct? Like from what I – I looked up the plan. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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1
Garrett Sauls: Our current standards don’t build in a difference, right? Between – for normal or 2
cargo bike. 3
4
Chair Chang: No, I understand. 5
6
Garrett Sauls: I think for the future… 7
8
Chair Chang: I’m just asking if… 9
10
Garrett Sauls: …there’s a plan for that. 11
12
Chair Chang: I’m just asking a question about where – like there’s no ability to park one, right? 13
They’d have to put it right now in their unit. 14
15
Jason Matlof: I think [baskets 182:25]. They could… 16
17
Chair Chang: Please come speak in the mic, so that anybody – for the recordings and for 18
anybody listening. 19
20
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Jason Matlof: All right. I think they would easily accommodate baskets and the side Pan-Yays or 1
whatever they’re called. 2
3
Chair Chang: Right. 4
5
Jason Matlof: If you’re talking about those long cargo things that you put multiple kids in, no, 6
they… 7
8
Chair Chang: Yeah. 9
10
Jason Matlof: …wouldn’t support that. 11
12
Chair Chang: Okay. That’s fine. I just wanted to understand. Thank you. 13
14
Isaiah Stackhouse: Just one other comment. The cargo bikes come in thousands of different 15
styles; some may fit, others won’t. And I guess the one other thing I’d add like I have an adult 16
son who still doesn’t have his license, doesn’t want a license. And he doesn’t bike. He doesn’t 17
take the bus. But it’s far cheaper for him to take Uber and Lyft around all the time than to pay 18
for a car… 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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Chair Chang: A car, yeah. 1
2
Isaiah Stackhouse: A car ownership, the insurance, repairs, and all that. So there are other 3
modes as well that we’re not talking about here. 4
5
Chair Chang: Sure, I know. It’s just bike – Palo Alto is so proud of its ability to – of it’s wonderful 6
bike paths and people like living here. It’s a great community because it’s so bikeable. So that’s 7
why I was asking about that. So it doesn’t sound like that’s a cond-, it’s not feasible. So is it not 8
feasible to put anything on the roof in terms of storage, bike storage? 9
10
Isaiah Stackhouse: So up on the roof, we’ve expanded the open space, which is fantastic. 11
12
Chair Chang: Yeah. 13
14
Isaiah Stackhouse: We have already gone through a lot of design development. The rest of the 15
roof, we’re trying to make room for as many solar panels as we can get up there as well and we 16
have also mechanical equipment requirements. And I could say we definitely – I’d love to fit 5 17
more bikes in there somewhere or 20 more bikes, but it is really – I don’t think we could fit one 18
more bike in there or we would have. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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Chair Chang: Okay. 1
2
Isaiah Stackhouse: And… 3
4
Chair Chang: Not under the solar panels? 5
6
Isaiah Stackhouse: …I say that as someone who bikes all the time. I bike to work. That’s my 7
mode of transportation. I love what you’re saying about Palo Alto. We’d love to fit more bikes 8
in there. It’s just sort of that balance. We also need to fit the cars. If we took all the cars out, we 9
could fit a lot more bikes but we’re trying to balance – find that proper balance between 10
providing as much affordable housing. Every unit that we can get is an affordable unit. So we’re 11
trying to get that unit count. We even talked about could we get another floor of units. Well no, 12
it would drive the cost through the roof because we have a whole floor of concrete units. But 13
it’s that balance between really wanting to maximize every unit we can get. It provides 14
affordable housing for another household. And as many cars to make the – to provide as much 15
as we can and as many bikes and we’ve sort of hit the limit of the site for balancing all of these 16
competing interests. 17
18
Chair Chang: Yeah. No, it’s a small site. And I worry that it’s like trying to do a little too much in 19
that footprint. So that kind of bring – so my other bigger concern still remains the affordability. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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Like I think the 70 percent AMI units are fantastic. Like that’s definitely below market. Market 1
as defined by what you can just find like online, right? Not market as defined by the State. 2
Because there’s a difference between what is affordable by State definition versus what as Mr. 3
Matlof pointed out, what people might actually be paying and also for what is kind of practically 4
affordable. Because when you speak – when I speak to members of the public about affordable 5
housing and then I say $4,000 for a one-bedroom or $3800 for one-bedroom, people’s jaw 6
drops and that’s not what they were thinking of in terms of affordability. So my concern is that 7
I did a little bit of research on the much [inaudible 186:53] Palomino and looked at what they 8
were charging right now for vacancies that they have. And so that project for a one-bedroom 9
charges – where did I put it down here? I’ll look that up in a second. But at any rate, I also 10
looked at what you can get a studio for. Now granted this is a new studio. I do understand that 11
difference. But the [inaudible 187:23] for – out of six studios available in Palo Alto right now, 12
the average rent is 2538. 13
14
And out of 41 one-bedrooms, the average rent is 3424. So that’s like below the price that it 15
would be – the rent right now that we’re proposing for the 110 percent of AMI. Now I 16
understand that there’s – this is affordable according to the State definition. But practically 17
speaking, it’s really market rate and this is a discussion that I know City Council has had for a 18
multiple – many years now. And has even talked to – City Council has talked about our − 19
revising our local ordinances to kind of reflect that. And where this project – it’s not so much 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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that this project gives me heartburn because if it were market rate, it wouldn’t give me 1
heartburn, ironically. Because I want affordable housing. But the – where it gives me heartburn 2
is that while we’re saying that there’s no funding being provided, there actually is a substantial 3
amount of subsidy that’s occurring because 100 percent affordable developments in Palo Alto 4
have 100 percent of their impact fees waived. And I was emailing Staff earlier today − for this 5
project, the total amount of impact fees that’s being waived is over $4M. Now it makes sense 6
to waive those fees for sure for the 70 percent of AMI units but then for the remainder that are 7
effectively market rate, what we’re doing is the City’s losing – if you take the development fee 8
and you say 75 percent of it is effectively market rate – this is how I’m thinking about it. 9
10
But that’s $3M of subsidy that the City is putting in to effectively get market-rate housing, like 11
the same rents as you can get a one-bedroom for elsewhere in the city. And just of note, that 12
for the one-bedroom units that were south of Oregon Expressway, they were all under 2500 a 13
month and the majority of them were much larger. Now again, I know that they were older but 14
they weren’t – I went and peeked into them. They were not ancient units. And so my concern is 15
that I have a hard time telling my neighbor that I’m going to subsidize the – effectively subsidize 16
these one-bedroom units but you neighbor are all – these one-room – I’m going to subsidize 17
this market rate housing but you neighbor who are also paying market-rate housing, I’m not 18
going to subsidize that. And so ultimately, I also – I went into a really deep rabbit hole on this 19
and couldn’t sleep last night because I was kind of like how do I think about this and what’s the 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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right thing to do? I looked at Wilton Court, the City contributed $6M for 49 units that were 1
much deeper afford-, like much more deeply affordable. And for the teacher housing project at 2
251 Grant, the City contributed $3M, the District contributed $1.45M, so a cumulative of 4.45M 3
for 29 units. Well again, larger units, deeper affordability. 4
5
And so the challenge here is that while these units are affordable, they’re 500 square feet; 6
they’re very small units. And the market rate commanded for those units is less in many cases. 7
And so that is what is – that’s my concern for this project. Okay. So go ahead, Commissioner – I 8
think Commissioner Summa was before you and then we’ll go to Commissioner Templeton. 9
Unless you want to respond to what I was saying. Okay. Commissioner Summa. 10
11
Commissioner Summa: Thank you so much. And I want to start out by thanking the applicant 12
for his hard work here and for the Staff assisting him and understanding – and all the public 13
speakers and public writers. Understanding that the project took longer because of the changes 14
and just not because anybody did anything wrong. And then – and this is a hard project for me 15
because I have no problems with the height. I just – I have the same problems that the – our 16
Chair just expressed. And it makes it – and I don’t think the applicant created these problems; I 17
think that the City has been too slow to reevaluate some of the way our affordable housing – 18
some of our affordable housing policies. And to me the loss of the impact fees for – and I agree 19
the 70 percent affordability is wonderful but regular sort of funded affordable housing projects 20
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provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
have a much deeper level of affordability as Chair just mentioned. And I’m – and these are 1
going to be more expensive than – I also – I’m surprised I didn’t see you in that rabbit hole last 2
night because I was there too. Because we get these projects, and the Palomino is a good 3
example. Now the Palomino is a totally different project at much higher AMIs and didn’t result 4
in affordability, so we’re going to – I believe the Director of Planning has decided that it would 5
be best to abandon that zoning, which was called workforce zoning. 6
7
I really want to supply – support this project but it’s really hard for me given all the competing 8
apartments that cost a lot less and don’t have the challenges that this will and the applicant 9
himself said this is a really dense project. I have no problems with that at all. I think it’s an 10
appropriate place. I think the location is good for this but I think it’s going to create impacts 11
that are going to be impossible to really mitigate. And I want also these units to be really 12
successful for the tenants of the building. I love that the open space on the roof got bigger. I 13
think that’s the only open space on the project. I’m really happy that the situation with the 14
neighbor was resolved and I really want to serve the community at – that serves us in our 15
school system. With that said, I also looked at the Grant, the county project in Grant and it’s – 16
they got a very different model because it really is restricted to only people working in the 17
schools, teachers and other [inaudible 194:53] workers that are part of the other union. And so 18
I think it goes to higher – I think it accommodates even higher levels of affordability to really 19
serve that community. So I’m kind of struggling with how this building is going to be successful. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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.
And I want it to be, especially given that it’s – we need new models for creating affordability. I 1
find the trade-off too steep perhaps, however. 2
3
And one of the problems for me – and I know we’ve brought this up over the years and it’s 4
something I wish I could have effected change on before my second term on this body was 5
over, which will be soon. Too soon for me but probably there’s some members of the 6
community, it won’t be soon for. But – and that is that we – it is very hard for us to evaluate the 7
value of say jumping from .6 FAR, which would be the underlying to an 2.0 for affordable, and 8
then this being 4.5 to round number it off. And we’d have no concept of the value of that to the 9
project and how to compare it to the loss of impact fees. And that is troubling to me. So I just 10
wanted to mention that and that is not the applicant’s fault; it’s the way that we do business, 11
which I have tried to change. And also I think – I can’t quite figure this out but the higher 12
affordabilities − and maybe it’s anything above 80, which is typically affordable projects are 30 13
to 60 or 80 AMI. The new – the cost of building and land probably is so much now that the new 14
units at the high-income levels are really market rate and even more than what people can get 15
and typically smaller units. And so it’s – I’m just parroting what the Chair said. So I do have 16
problems and I don’t see how to fix them. 17
18
I do like the conditions that were suggested by Vice-Chair Akin. I think those will help but I don’t 19
see how to totally fix the problems and I wish we had more information on the specific 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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.
demographics, how many dual incomes, are there teachers with dual incomes? Because there’s 1
a lot of teachers that work during the summer months. But just there’s – there was a lot that 2
wasn’t – information I really needed that wasn’t in the Staff Report. And it’s not anyone’s 3
particular fault except maybe our own in a community for not addressing the lack of help that 4
the higher – anything − maybe it’s 80, maybe it’s a 100 to 120 that those are basically market 5
value but more expensive and offering less of what people need to live. And I wouldn’t even say 6
amenities but just things people need, like places to put their bikes and vehicles and have a 7
little outdoor space to themselves. And so because of the cost of housing and the totally 8
reasonable desire of applicants to make money – they have to make money. We’re not getting 9
places that I think will offer as many opportunities for people to live well in our community like 10
we want them to now. So that’s – it’s really troubling but then this is also an opportunity to 11
explore a new type of affordability that doesn’t have the complica-, as complicated a housing – 12
I mean a financing structure. So those are my comments. 13
14
Chair Chang: Commissioner Templeton. 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. And I think [inaudible 199:11] and comments are all very 17
interesting. So I appreciate what everybody’s sharing. Mr. Sauls, I want to dig in a little bit on 18
some of the comments I heard tonight. Can you tell me why this – the impact fees were 19
waived? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Garrett Sauls: So the impact fees would be waived based on what our code allows for, which 2
identifies that a house – a project that is 100 percent restricted as affordable units don’t have 3
to pay impact fees. The housing in-lieu impact fee, which would be the case for a rental project 4
like this where there’s not an inclusionary requirement already and vice-versa. So… 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: What do we think is the reason that that is how our city laws are 7
structured? 8
9
Garrett Sauls: To opine a little bit and I’m sure the Assistant Director would rather prefer 10
answering this, but I would imagine the intention is to provide a strong incentive and draw 11
people in to say, “Do you want to pay $4M in impact fees for a 20 percent or 25 percent 12
affordable housing inclusionary requirement or do a little bit extra?” Because of the time that a 13
unit will be restricted for is different than one that’s sort of just sitting within the market in 14
[terms of the 200:19] value. 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: That makes a lot of sense to me. And do we think that the people 17
who made those changes to our codes did so with the understanding that $4M would be worth 18
it? Like do we have to justify on a per project basis or is the fact we’re building 100 percent 19
affordable housing projects seemingly sufficient? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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
Garrett Sauls: We don’t need to justify it because it’s currently written into the zoning code… 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. 4
5
Garrett Sauls: …as a requirement – or an allowance, excuse me. 6
7
Jennifer Armer: And it was justified at the time that that was adopted. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: That makes sense. And it seems like that’s the fair thing to do with 10
the applicant because that is what the laws are and as much as we might want to not have to 11
have those trade-offs, it’s currently the rules of the game at present. And so I don’t want to 12
conflate the issues. One, we should consider what kind of changes to make to have better 13
incentives and not “cost the City.” But on the other hand, we’re evaluating this project here and 14
now. And these are the rules we’re playing with. And I think about the other projects. It’s really 15
good that we have these different kind of projects that are targeted to different low-income 16
communities, so some are for people with disabilities and some are for other communities. 17
Here we’re talking a project that’s targeting people that work in our school district. I’m 18
comfortable with that. Thinking about what Commissioner Summa said, we are not getting 19
enough places to live well, I believe is the words that she used. And I agree. And I think it’s a 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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.
costly proposal to engage with us, with all your staff, whoever the applicant may bring with 1
them, to do all the iterations, to meet with our City Staff, to meet with Commissions. It’s very 2
costly. And that is really a dis-incentive, so it’s good that we have incentives. 3
4
We also have to be cautious that when we have something in front of us that has a lot of things 5
that we’re looking for, to understand what it means if we continue to process longer. I used to 6
live − before I moved here 20 years ago, I lived in Germany in a small city and I learned this 7
concept from – because there was a lot of farmers around. And there’s a mythical animal in 8
Germany called the eierlegende Wollmilchsau. And I don’t know if you guys know German or 9
not but it means the egg-laying, wool-growing, milk-providing sow p-, for bacon. So you get all 10
of these things from one animal and it’s interesting that we are talking about how we already 11
almost even have too much stuff in this project to wanting more in this project. And I keep 12
thinking about this mythical animal that it – I really do wish it could do everything and I wish 13
you could have all the bike parking and all the car parking and all the affordable units that were 14
even cheaper. But I know that’s not physically possible. We have constraints in this world that 15
we have to live with and the best part of this discussion for me is seeing how we are all united 16
on trying to get projects like this better and we have made a huge amount of improvements in 17
what we were originally looking at and what we’re seeing now. 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.
And I think we need to take the W and move forward with what we’ve got. It’s not perfect. It 1
doesn’t have to be perfect. It is a bird in the hand, so I think I would love to see if now is a good 2
time for us to make our motion. Is that okay? Did anyone else want to do more discussion or 3
can I go ahead and make a motion? 4
5
Chair Chang: Are there more – I don’t see any lights. 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. I would like to move the Staff Recommendation with two 8
additional requirements from the applicant. Number one being to add information to the lease 9
agreements that states that should RPPs be added to the area, they may not be eligible in the 10
future. We don’t know − whatever the subjunctive version of that, if I’m not using the right 11
legal verb there. And then the second one being to request that the applicant provide us an 12
updated report on a regular basis of – what did you say? Annual? 13
14
Vice-Chair Akin: I said annual because they’re already preparing a TDM report annually. It 15
seemed… 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: There you go. 18
19
Vice-Chair Akin: …like a… 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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 Templeton: Perfect. 2
3
Vice-Chair Akin: …good idea to… 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: On the same schedule. I like that. Of the number of employees and – 6
yeah. 7
8
Vice-Chair Akin: [Inaudible 205:23] say… 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: People affiliated with PAUSD. 11
12
Vice-Chair Akin: The number of PAUSD employees and the type of unit in which they reside. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: That would be a very… 15
16
Vice-Chair Akin: So we can see. 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: …interesting report. So I… 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Vice-Chair Akin: Right. 1
2
Commissioner Templeton: …would add that to the motion. 3
4
Garrett Sauls: If it’s helpful, I am trying to just sort of distill all of this onto the screen, so… 5
6
Male: Yeah. 7
8
Garrett Sauls: …if there are ways you can… 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: Oh, wow. 11
12
Garrett Sauls: …[inaudible 205:42] that even as you’re speaking, that’s – that would be helpful 13
too. 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: You’re never going to spell eierlegende Wollmilchsau. 16
17
Garrett Sauls: I’m going to try. 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.
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Templeton: Just kidding. I’m just kidding. Apologies to the transcriptioners. Okay. 1
So was there anything else that we wanted to add in here? 2
3
Chair Chang: I think there was something about the term of the deed restriction that it should 4
be for the life of the development. 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: I think that that was something that was going to be negotiated with 7
the director but we can leave comments about that. I don’t know if it’s part of the motion. 8
9
Vice-Chair Akin: So, Mr. Sauls, the construction of the first condition is almost right. The 10
residents should be notified that should RPPs be added to the area, they may be excluded. You 11
don’t want to wait until the RPPs are added. 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: Correct. 14
15
Vice-Chair Akin: The whole point is to have it done in advance. 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: It’s so entrancing to watch this happen in real time. You don’t even 18
have to say likely. I would say just may. Likelihood will be determined in the future. [Inaudible 19
207:07]. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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 Akin: And now you can eliminate should RPPs be added at the beginning. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: Perfect. Thank you, Vice-Chair. All right. 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: Motion? 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: Yes, that’s the motion. 8
9
Chair Chang: So we need a second. 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: Second. 12
13
Chair Chang: So with that motion on the table, is there further discussion? Okay. 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: I guess I just want to say that I feel like everyone of this has – of us 16
has been part of this moving forward and improving since we saw it in April. And even tonight, 17
we’ve had some good discussion and good changes, and I hope that this is reflective of what 18
people have asked for and hope you’ll support it. Thank 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.
Chair Chang: I don’t see lights, so I would like to make a [friendly 208:13] amendment but 1
doesn’t sound like it will be accepted. So the amendment that I would like to make is that the 2
deed restriction would be for the life of the building. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: Can Staff clarify? I thought that this was something the director was 5
going to work out with the applicant. 6
7
Garrett Sauls: That is what we’ve had conversations with him about and to be a little bit more 8
specific when we say the life of the building. It would be helpful to know what that means 9
because we have a lot of homes in Palo Alto that are over 100 years old and the span we usually 10
look at is 55 to 99. 11
12
Chair Chang: Fifty-five. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: When is Staff planning to have this conversation with the applicant? 15
Is it before it goes to Council? 16
17
Garrett Sauls: It’s usually part of the regulatory agreement, which is noted in Condition of 18
Approval Number 14, I believe, on Page 30 – Packet Page 35. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Jennifer Armer: But it would be after approval by Council. 1
2
Garrett Sauls: It would be – right. Before building permit issuance. So after Council approval. 3
4
Chair Chang: So the reason why I feel strongly about this amendment is because this is a brave 5
new world and thank you, Mr. Matlof, for taking us to that brave new world. But normally when 6
we have affordable housing, it’s either inclusionary or it is where there’s like other funding 7
sources that specify. And so we talk about deed restrictions and perpetuity but – or at least of 8
the expectation but it’s unclear what that actually means and because this is a brave new world 9
project, I wouldn’t feel comfortable approving it without knowing what it is that I’m approving. 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: Isn’t he the funder? Isn’t he the funder who’s specifying what he 12
wants to use it for? I might – what am I missing here? 13
14
Chair Chang: Well right. But as I – he is the funder and the whole thing is that we are also the 15
funder in the form of our – like we say if something’s affordable; however, we haven’t as a City 16
defined − like there’s vague definitions but it’s unclear. This is a gray area and usually – the 17
reason why we haven’t had to really deal with this before is because there’s usually financing 18
that specifies that if you’re going to receive this financing, it needs to be deed restricted. And so 19
again, I’m not trying to say anything about Mr. Matlof’s intentions. Like I trust Mr. Matlof but 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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 don’t know what’s going to happen with this project in the future. It could be sold to a 1
totally different owner. And so that’s why I want to just make sure that there’s a – like that this 2
is a long-term restriction. Like as was sort of the spirit of the law when we discuss affordable 3
housing. 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: So… 6
7
Chair Chang: Commissioner Hechtman. 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah, so I – as the seconder of the motion, I don’t feel like I’m 10
comfortable supporting the friendly amendment because I don’t know what the universe of 11
applicable deed restriction durations is. I don’t have the industry knowledge of that and didn’t 12
think to ask Staff in advance to look that up before tonight’s meeting. But I believe that this is 13
not throwing darts at a board when this decision is made in the development of a – 14
development agreement. And I believe that our planning director in negotiating the 15
development is going to have the City’s best long-term interest at heart. And so what I am 16
wondering, if would be sufficient to Chair, the maker of the friendly amendment, is if instead of 17
setting a time that I am not comfortable with, rather we provided the director with information 18
that the deed restriction duration should be appropriate in light of the waiver of impact fees 19
that projects of this nature enjoy in expectation of the long-term use of the properties for these 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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.
affordable uses. And then having told the director that he needs to be paying attention to this, 1
to trust him to do his job and work in the best interest of the City. So that would be my counter 2
– softer suggestion of a way to go about this. 3
4
Chair Chang: It just – so I don’t specifically want to throw out a number either. 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: But we all want a number. 7
8
Chair Chang: We – well, right. 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: I think. 11
12
Chair Chang: We want a number but I don’t – I mean I’m going off of what Mr. Sauls said about 13
the typical lifetime of these deed restrictions, which is 55 or… 14
15
Female: Ninety-nine. 16
17
Chair Chang: …ninety-nine. And that’s why I picked the smaller one because I figure at some 18
point, this building might need to be refurbished and whatnot. So that’s what that number was 19
based on. This is my concern. I think there were a lot of unintended consequences 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.
occurred actually as a result of the decision at one point to waive development fees for 1
everything that was affordable as defined by State law. The reason I think this is because I’ve 2
heard a number of Council members discuss this concern explicitly. And again, when – I just – 3
they were not explicit about what they really meant by affordable, right? Not foreseeing what – 4
that we’re going to see the projects like this. In addition, they didn’t specify that affordable had 5
to – in perpetuity had to mean a certain length of time. And so – or they didn’t even say 6
affordable in perpetuity. They just said affordable. And so that’s my concern. Like I don’t even 7
know what I’m getting. And it’s very hard. You remember when we were talking about 8
affordable ADUs, there was a tremendous amount of discussion about sort of what’s enough. 9
And so I don’t – I mean I’m not quite sure exactly how to handle this but like five years is not 10
enough. We can’t have teachers rent this for five years and then be kicked out on the street 11
because they – it’s no longer affordable. So I just… 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: I agree we should have… 14
15
Chair Chang: Yeah. 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: …something. And we… 18
19
Chair Chang: Yeah. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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 Templeton: …should direct – the only influence we can have here because 2
Council’s going to ultimately be the deciders, right? But we can direct the director to negotiate 3
this and with those things in mind, they’re probably going to do a better job… 4
5
Chair Chang: You know what? 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: …than us guessing. 8
9
Chair Chang: I would recommend that Council look at this specific – explicitly. 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: Well if we in-, by including it in… 12
13
Chair Chang: Right. 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: …the motion, we will. 16
17
Chair Chang: I actually think that that rather than the d-, again, this is brave new world. So this 18
should be something – this is a Council prerogative. It’s a PC. It’s a Council prerogative. It 19
shouldn’t… 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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 Templeton: So why… 2
3
Chair Chang: I don’t want to leave it up to the director. Not that I don’t, again, trust the 4
director. It’s just that I want to make sure that Council is getting what they expect to do 5
because it’s our job as… 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: Well he does… 8
9
Chair Chang: …the Commissioner… 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: He does… 12
13
Chair Chang: …to… 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: …that as an agent of the Council. [Inaudible 216:06]. 16
17
Chair Chang: I understand that but… 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 Templeton: But – okay. Looks like somebody adjusted this. Specified deed 1
restriction timeline for all units to be a minimum of 55 years. 2
3
Garrett Sauls: Yeah, I mean I just… 4
5
Chair Chang: That’s fine by me. 6
7
Garrett Sauls: …added that italicized to sort of provide… 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: Does that work? 10
11
Garrett Sauls: …a little more context from what… 12
13
Chair Chang: Sure. 14
15
Garrett Sauls: …I was hearing. 16
17
Chair Chang: But I’m not sure that that makes Commissioner Hechtman feel comfortable. 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: No, it doesn’t,but I like the idea of having the Council decide. And so 1
that should be our recommendation − is have the Council decide the duration of the deed 2
restriction rather than the Planning Director. I’m… 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: So… 5
6
Commissioner Hechtman: …comfortable with that. 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: …specify a timeline to be determined by the Council? 9
10
Chair Chang: Yes. Or recommend that Council specifies a deed restriction timeline. 11
12
Commissioner Hechtman: Right. 13
14
Chair Chang: Right? That’s… 15
16
Commissioner Hechtman: Right. 17
18
Chair Chang: …flagging it. 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: Yeah. I’m… 1
2
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. 3
4
Commissioner Hechtman: I would support that. 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: That sounds – well, it’s good because we’re flagging it too. Like 7
they’ll notice… 8
9
Female: [Inaudible 217:05]. 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah, I like that. All right. Any other thoughts? 12
13
Garrett Sauls: Just to clarify, that was accepted or… 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: I need a commitment from the Chair that she will support this 16
motion if we include this amendment. 17
18
Chair Chang: I’m still hung up on the… 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: So it’s not accepted? 1
2
Chair Chang: It – so I don’t know if I’m going to accept the amendment because there’s other 3
issues that I have… 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: Well let’s… 6
7
Chair Chang: …with it. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: …work it out. 10
11
Chair Chang: So yeah. 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: Because we need to − like bird in the hand. We need to figure this 14
out. So I’m open… 15
16
Chair Chang: Well I’m not sure that that issue can be addressed, right? So there’s… 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: Well we have – you have accepted… 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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: No, this issue… 1
2
Commissioner Templeton: …this phrasing. 3
4
Chair Chang: …is addressed. 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: Which issue do you need… 7
8
Chair Chang: I have a different issue, which is fundamentally, there’s a – so we’re supposed to 9
make findings, right? We’re supposed to make findings that the public benefit is [inaudible 10
217:52] that whatever − that the public benefit is worth it in layman’s terms, right? That there’s 11
a public benefit. Finding Number Two: Development of the site will result in public benefits, not 12
otherwise attainable by application of the [inaudible 218:08] laws. So that’s on Page 28. That’s 13
− when we approve a PC, we need to do it based on findings. We need to be able to make all 14
the findings. And I am not sure I can make the second finding because subsidizing market-rate 15
housing − when I look at like how much this 4M could – or 3M, whatever it is, could have gotten 16
us like I just don’t know that I can like in good conscience… 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: It was… 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: …do that. 1
2
Commissioner Templeton: It’s in the code. 3
4
Chair Chang: It’s in the code but this is a PC or a PHZ where there needs to be the public 5
benefit. So I don’t think I can make that finding. 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: But the code says – like that’s what we just – that was the first 8
question I asked. Does the reason – what is the reason we have that in the code? Because the 9
City has determined there’s a public benefit to building affordable housing. 10
11
Chair Chang: Yes, but there’s a question about affordability. I just don’t know that I can make 12
the finding, so I don’t – I mean we can agree to disagree there. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: Well we can but I’m – my intention is, because I think all of us have 15
worked really hard on this and we’re so close, is to try and find a way to get all our thoughts in 16
here. And I don’t want you to quit and get frustrated and… 17
18
Chair Chang: [Inaudible 219:20]. 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: I know. But we can do this. 1
2
Chair Chang: This is – there’s a problem here that may not be a fault of – it’s sort of by design 3
like there’s – the public benefit isn’t there. For the… 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 219:31] down the… 6
7
Chair Chang: …costs. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: …project that’s affordable housing because it’s [reaping 219:34] the 10
affordable housing benefits doesn’t makes sense. 11
12
Chair Chang: There’s – again, there’s the difference between the definition of affordable 13
housing and what’s – and when we talk about benefit, benefit is not defined. We have to make 14
that assessment. 15
16
Commissioner Hechtman: I have a question of Staff. 17
18
Garrett Sauls: [Inaudible 220:00]. 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.
Jennifer Armer: Sorry. 1
2
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. 3
4
Jennifer Armer: Go ahead. 5
6
Commissioner Hechtman: So my – it relates to this conversation we’re having. And I can’t 7
pinpoint it but my belief is that – and maybe it’s in our new Housing Element, that housing is a 8
public benefit. And that’s true whether it’s affordable housing or market-rate housing. Just 9
[inaudible 220:22] because we need 6,087 more units. Every unit we get is a public benefit 10
towards fulfilling… 11
12
Chair Chang: So… 13
14
Commissioner Hechtman: …that. So my question is isn’t that stated in our Housing Element? Is 15
that where it resides? 16
17
Jennifer Armer: The Housing Element does have those definitions of affordability, yes. That it − 18
and it does talk about that getting those categories of housing built that that is one of the goals 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.
for the community. I don’t know if it has the words public benefit but that is part of the PHZ 1
language that was included in your Staff Report. 2
3
Garrett Sauls: Yeah, so the specific language that Commissoner Hechtman − you’re referring to 4
is from the Staff Report from 2020 that went to Council that discussed the multiple options of 5
what a PHZ could mean where specifically Council had not – had acknowledged that housing 6
was the public benefit and the driver behind reevaluating PCs, which had gone dormant for 15-7
ish years prior to that or somewhat – maybe more like 10. But that the specific benefit initially 8
that Council evaluated were trying to find an equivalent option of 20 percent inclusionary 9
housing, where this provides 75 percent to that goal – or to that objective that Council outlined. 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay, thank you. 12
13
Jennifer Armer: If I may, through the Chair, just an additional guidance as you continue your 14
discussion, it is often a goal of this group to try to get to a unanimous decision, and that is 15
always a wonderful goal. But there also are benefits to having a mixed vote and the message 16
that that provides with the minutes from this meeting that show that there was a lot of support 17
for this project across the board but that there were some concerns about the affordability 18
levels that were proposed. And so it – from what – the discussion we have heard this evening, it 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.
sounds like there is support for a recommendation for approval even if it isn’t unanimous. And 1
so we’ve spent a good amount of discussion, and so − considering what the next steps are. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: Respectfully, I don’t want to give up yet. 4
5
Jennifer Armer: Okay. 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: And this is worth the time. 8
9
Jennifer Armer: Absolutely. 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: And I can’t think of anything that we’re going to be doing with this 12
time that is going to be more important to the teachers in this city. 13
14
Chair Chang: Commissioner Summa has her hand up. And then Commissioner Akin also has his 15
light on. I’m not sure if Commissioner Hechtman’s light is a ghost light or a – it’s a ghost light. 16
Thank you. So let’s go to Commissioner Summa and then Vice-Chair Akin. 17
18
Commissioner Summa: Thank you. I wanted to comment on this. It has always been troubling to 19
me that the Council stated their intention with regards to PHZs but the code has never 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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.
changed. So everything about a PC is still the old PC code. The code was not updated but – so – 1
and that was mentioned by a member of the public. And that has always been troubling to me. 2
And I think it would have been fairly – I think it would have been much clearer to update the 3
code. I will also mention that the [inaudible 224:00] by the Council with their intention – I 4
forget what year it was. In 2020 − February 3, 2020. The words used were the 20 percent of the 5
housing units as deed restricted for lower-income households. Now you may think it’s picky to 6
say, “Oh, of our below-market rate housing, we have low income, very low income, and 7
moderate.” They did not say for lower and moderate income levels. So I believe the intention 8
was to get a deeper level of affordability for that – whatever the value of the benefit in the – 9
that the PC applicant is asking for. So I think it’s a – I think it would be good if we end up with a 10
mixed vote to do just what Assistant Director Armer said and tell the Council we’ve got to 11
rethink these because the higher income levels of deed restriction that used to work are not 12
very helpful now. And that’s not the applicant’s fault. 13
14
As I stated multiple times, I believe – I don’t think anybody is questioning his good intentions 15
here this evening. So that is kind of where I fall on this discussion. I don’t – since it’s not in the 16
code, we can’t totally rely on it. But the term they used were lower income, not moderate and 17
lower. And I think that that’s maybe what they meant. And that was four years ago. So – 18
almost four years ago. So that’s where I’m kind of concerned about the same thing as the Chair. 19
[Same thing 225:57]. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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: Okay. Vice-Chair Akin. 2
3
Vice-Chair Akin: Well two points; one trivial, one more complex. The complex one is that the 4
issues that Chair Chang and Commissioner Summa are raising resonate for me but not 5
sufficiently that I think we shouldn’t proceed with the current project. It does need to be 6
addressed and Council needs to get that message. The second one’s trivial but as the maker of 7
the motion, you should pass judgment on it. The first condition of approval, the residents 8
should – that actually should read shall. Because that’s mandatory. Is that okay? 9
10
Garrett Sauls: [Agreed 226:53]. 11
12
Vice-Chair Akin: Okay. Thank you. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: All right, Chair, last call if – or should we remove that bullet, bullet 15
C? 16
17
Chair Chang: You can… 18
19
Commissioner Templeton: You’re still not supporting the 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
Chair Chang: I’m not supporting the motion. 2
3
Commissoner Templeton: Okay. [Inaudible 227:06]. 4
5
Chair Chang: I don’t know if… 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: Mr. Sauls, can you remove C and then let’s vote. 8
9
Female: [Inaudible 227:11]. 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: I guess the Chair would decide if we vote. 12
13
Chair Chang: I don’t know. Is there more discussion? Okay. So let’s go ahead and vote. 14
15
Veronica Dao: Vice-Chair Akin? 16
17
Vice-Chair Akin: Yes. 18
19
Veronica Dao: Chair Chang? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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: No. 2
3
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 6
7
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Summa? 8
9
Commissioner Summa: No. 10
11
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 14
15
Veronica Dao: Motion carries 3-2. 16
17
Chair Chang: So Commissioner Summa, would you like to speak to your no vote? 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 Summa: I think we’ve said it enough. I think I’ve stated it multiple times but I did 1
want to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Sauls with the motion making being visible to all of 2
us. That’s so helpful. Thank you. 3
4
Chair Chang: I would like to speak to my no vote. I really wanted to vote for this project. It kept 5
me up at night a lot. I spent way too much time on it. But if we could have made it so that we 6
weren’t providing such a great subsidy, a $3M subsidy. I mean I ran numbers about what would 7
happen if we just took that $3M and gave it to teachers at about 1500 a pop because that 8
seems like that’s the subsidy that we’re giving them for rent every month. You know what could 9
it do? And it could do a lot. And so I want when we are – the City has a limited budget. The City 10
needs its development fees in order to make – to keep the city running. If − what could we do 11
with $3M of money? Like what if we could apply that towards affordable housing? And so while 12
the housing itself might be a public benefit, we always have to factor in how much that costs us. 13
So if I said it was $100M for a unit of affordable housing, I don’t think we would make that – we 14
wouldn’t say that that was a public benefit. And so I had to make – I wanted to vote no but − I 15
wanted to vote yes but I’m voting no because to me, it doesn’t make sense for the City to be 16
subsidizing market-rate housing. 17
18
All right. It’s not the applicant’s fault is what Commissioner Templeton said. That’s correct. I just 19
can’t make Finding Number Two. So – because I need to evaluate the benefits. All right. Is there 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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.
any – so Commissioner Summa [inaudible 230:04], so I think we’re done. We’re done with this. 1
Onto the next… 2
3
Commissioner Summa: I would like to add – I should have mentioned… 4
5
Chair Chang: Oh, go ahead. 6
7
Commissioner Summa: …[inaudible 230:11] to Finding Number Two either. Because it’s 8
important to mention that. Sorry, I omitted it. 9
10
Chair Chang: Thank you. Yeah, that’s right, we’re supposed to specify what – why we are voting 11
no. So our next agenda item is – okay. We don’t have minutes to approve. 12
13
Commissioner Hechtman: [Inaudible 230:30]. 14
15
Commissioner Questions, Comments or Announcements 16
17
Chair Chang: So just Commissioner Questions, Comments, Announcements, or Future Meetings 18
and Agendas. Anything? 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: No. 1
2
Chair Chang: Nobody? Okay. So we’re adjourned. Great. Thank you, everybody. 3
4
Adjournment 5
9:53 PM 6
7
/ls 8