HomeMy WebLinkAbout2000-11-27 City Council Summary Minutes
Regular Meeting November 27, 2000
1. Resolution 8016 entitled “Resolution of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Expressing Appreciation to Silke Vom Silberberg for Outstanding Public Service”..................179
ORAL COMMUNICATIONS..............................................179
APPROVAL OF MINUTES..............................................179
2. Ordinance 4667 entitled “Ordinance of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Amending Section 10.60.010 and Adding Chapter 10.47 to the Palo Alto Municipal Code to Permit the City Manager to Designate ‘No Large Vehicle Parking Zones’”
(1st Reading 11/13/00, PASSED 6-2, Kleinberg, Mossar “no,” Fazzino absent).............................................179
3. Resolution 8017 entitled “Resolution of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Authorizing and Approving a Grant Agreement with the State of California Department of California Highway Patrol for Collection and Reporting of Public Contact Demographic Data Resulting From Traffic Enforcement Actions”........................................180
4. Contract Between the City of Palo Alto and Bragato Construction Company in the Amount of $133,506 for Paving of the Duck Pond Parking Lots, Capital Improvement Program Project 10003...............................................180
5. Contract Between the City of Palo Alto and K. J, Woods Construction, Inc., in the Amount of $3,784,000 for Project 10 Sanitary Sewer Replacement (CIP #37811 & 37814)..........180
6. Contract Between the City of Palo Alto and Brown, Vence & Associates, in the Amount of $90,500 for Refuse Fund Cost of Service Study............................................180
7. Council Approval of Response to Grand Jury Report on “Whether the City of Palo Alto is in Violation of Proposition 218”............................................180
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8. Downtown Parking Structures – Approval of Construction Sequencing, Parking Space Allocation, Concept of Deferred Teen Center Design and Construction and Review of Financing Issues and Costs Being Developed for the Future Preliminary Engineer’s Report...........................................180
9. Mayor Kniss re Cancellation of December 4, 2000, Regular City Council Meeting........................................193
10. Council Comments, Questions, and Announcements..............194
ADJOURNMENT......................................................194
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The City Council of the City of Palo Alto met on this date in the Council Chambers at 7:05 p.m. PRESENT: Beecham, Burch, Eakins, Kleinberg, Lytle, Mossar, Ojakian ABSENT: Fazzino, Kniss SPECIAL ORDERS OF THE DAY 1. Resolution 8016 entitled “Resolution of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Expressing Appreciation to Silke Vom Silberberg for Outstanding Public Service” MOTION: Council Member Beecham moved, seconded by Lytle, to adopt the resolution. MOTION PASSED 7-0, Fazzino, Kniss absent. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS Ben Bailey, 600 Homer Avenue, spoke regarding the late-breaking news of Paddy’s Piddlecops and the big swallow of beer caper. Bob Moss, 4010 Orme Street, spoke regarding the offices in CN zones. Jeb Eddy, 2579 Cowper Street, spoke regarding the City of Davis City Council streaming video, and e-mail list subscriptions. APPROVAL OF MINUTES MOTION: Council Member Ojakian moved, seconded by Kleinberg, to approve the Minutes of October 16, 2000, as submitted. MOTION PASSED 7-0, Fazzino, Kniss absent. CONSENT CALENDAR Council Member Mossar moved, seconded by Ojakian, to approve Consent Calendar Item Nos. 2 – 7. 2. Ordinance 4667 entitled “Ordinance of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Amending Section 10.60.010 and Adding Chapter 10.47 to the Palo Alto Municipal Code to Permit the City Manager to Designate ‘No Large Vehicle Parking Zones’” (1st
Reading 11/13/00, PASSED 6-2, Kleinberg, Mossar “no,” Fazzino absent) 3. Resolution 8017 entitled “Resolution of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Authorizing and Approving a Grant Agreement with the State of California Department of California Highway Patrol for Collection and Reporting of Public Contact
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Demographic Data Resulting From Traffic Enforcement Actions”
4. Contract Between the City of Palo Alto and Bragato Construction Company in the Amount of $133,506 for Paving of the Duck Pond Parking Lots, Capital Improvement Program Project 10003 5. Contract Between the City of Palo Alto and K. J, Woods Construction, Inc., in the Amount of $3,784,000 for Project 10 Sanitary Sewer Replacement (CIP #37811 & 37814) 6. Contract Between the City of Palo Alto and Brown, Vence & Associates, in the Amount of $90,500 for Refuse Fund Cost of Service Study 7. Council Approval of Response to Grand Jury Report on “Whether the City of Palo Alto is in Violation of Proposition 218” MOTION PASSED 6-1, for Item No. 2, Kleinberg “no”, Fazzino, Kniss absent. MOTION PASSED 7-0 for Item Nos. 3-7, Fazzino, Kniss absent. REPORTS OF OFFICIALS 8. Downtown Parking Structures – Approval of Construction Sequencing, Parking Space Allocation, Concept of Deferred Teen Center Design and Construction and Review of Financing Issues and Costs Being Developed for the Future Preliminary Engineer’s Report City Manager Frank Benest said staff would provide an update that evening on the status of the Downtown parking structures project. He asked the Council to approve the simultaneous construction of two parking structures, establish 40 percent to 50 percent of the parking spaces in those structures as public spaces, defer the issue of the location of the Teen Center, approve the design of a shell space in front of the structure, and review financing issues. Prior to that evening, Council adopted a Planned Community (PC) zoning ordinance for the development of the two structures and the design and art concepts for the structures. Council needed to discuss the allocation of parking spaces to public and permit designations, construction sequencing, and temporary parking during construction. In January 2001, staff would seek Council approval of a preliminary engineering report for the Downtown Assessment District, review project financing, and discuss the assessment ballot process. Director of Public Works Glenn Roberts stated that staff had reached the 50 percent design stage and prepared an estimate. The development of the stairwell was the most important refinement in the design of Lot R, located between High and Alma Streets. There would be poetry walls located in the stairwells. The most important
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refinements for Lots S and L located on Lytton and Bryant, were the elevation, elevator location, and setback of the upper levels. The art element for Lots S and L was a bird motif that changed with each floor of the structure. Lots R and S would be five stories above grade, Lot L would be four stories above grade. Lots S and L would have two-story basements, and Lot R would have no basement. The total number of parking spaces would be 716. Currently, there was a 1500-space parking deficit in the Downtown. A shell of a building was planned for the corner of Lytton Avenue and Bryant Street. That shell would be built on space not usable for parking, and could be used for retail lease space, a Teen Center, or both. There were 8,100 square feet available, and the shell would be two stories tall. The shell would have to be financed separately from the parking structures. Council had to consider how the spaces would be allocated between public and permit parking. He asked Council to direct staff to establish a goal of allocating 40 percent to 60 percent of the spaces to public parking. The configuration of the parking spaces would need to be easily enforceable. A study would be done to determine the need for residential permit parking. Staff wanted to establish additional parking for retail customers. Merchants felt that in order to justify the assessment, they would need to be able to attract more customers. Maintenance costs should be recovered from the permit fees. Staff hoped to gain some additional parking spaces during negotiations with Jim Bear regarding the lease of the Cowper-Webster garage. If Council directed staff to seek the allocation goal, staff would have until 2003, when the structures would be finished, to resolve the issues surrounding allocation. The allocation for all existing Downtown garages was currently 48 percent public parking and 52 percent permit parking; staff’s allocation goal was consistent with current practice. Staff would deliver a report on December 18, 2000, discussing the next steps to be taken in the parking allocation process. The allocation would be finalized before the garage opened. Another issue to be discussed that night was the sequence of construction of the two garages. The garages could be built simultaneously or sequentially. Staff recommended simultaneous construction. Simultaneous construction would take 1.5 years as compared to 2.5 years for sequential construction. The larger bid package for simultaneous construction would result in a lower overall cost. Simultaneous construction would allow the City to institute a residential parking permit program a year earlier, save approximately $2 million in inflationary costs, and impact one less holiday season. The two largest problems with simultaneous construction were that the two lots would be unusable at the same time and that construction impacts would be higher. In response to the first problem, staff prepared a parking mitigation report. The Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF) site would be available to replace parking spaces lost during construction. The site would be available after Summerhill Homes finished using it, before construction began on the garages.
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Council Member Mossar clarified that the PAMF parking lot would be available for use after Summerhill was finished using it. Mr. Roberts confirmed that statement. Council Member Mossar asked whether using that parking lot as mitigation would result in extending the intrusion into that neighborhood by two years. Mr. Roberts said if the definition of “intrusion” was “use as parking” then the answer was yes. Council Member Mossar asked whether there was any overlap between the use of the parking lot for mitigation and its use by Summerhill. Mr. Roberts said Summerhill’s use of the parking lot would end before the City began to use it for mitigation. Director of Planning and Community Environment Ed Gawf said there would be an overlap of the two uses, but he was not sure of how long that overlap would be. He would find out and give the information to the Council. Mr. Roberts said he did not believe using the PAMF site for mitigation would extend Summerhill’s schedule. Council Member Mossar said she was concerned about the neighbors, not Summerhill. Mr. Roberts said the mitigation plan would provide 220 spaces to replace the 189 lost during construction. Construction costs were $9.7 million for Lot R and $21.7 million for Lots S and L. Design and management costs were $5.8 million dollars, approximately percent 16 of construction costs. That percentage was standard for the construction industry. The City had $3.5 million in debt remaining in the Downtown Parking District that would be refinanced and included in the project’s cost. Finance and capitalized interest costs of $6.3 million dollars. The total cost for the project was $47 million. That number would not change substantially between that evening and January 2001, when staff would present the engineer’s report. That number would be the “not-to-exceed” maximum that would be on the ballots sent out for the vote on the Special Benefit Assessment District. Assuming that district was approved, $47 million would be the maximum amount of debt that could be issued. The cost to property owners would be $0.14 per square foot per month, $0.03 of that $0.14 already being assessed for the existing debt. For a 5,000 square-foot building, the cost would be $700 per month. That $700 effectively paid for 20 parking spaces. Another issue for discussion was the location of the Teen Center. Council gave staff direction prior to that evening to include a Teen Center in the proposed parking structure at Bryant Street and Lytton Avenue. After that evening, the Community Services
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Department initiated the Youth Master Plan study, which evaluated youth services. Decentralized locations were being considered in the study. The Teen Center would cost $2.6 million, and was not currently budgeted. Staff recommended that the Council defer the final decision on the location of the Teen Center. Staff could provide time for Council to make the decision through proper management of the project. He asked Council to direct staff to design the shell of the building. The shell could then be used for a Teen Center or for retail leasing. The following year, when Council finalized the design package, staff could include the design of the Teen Center in the bid package. Staff could delay the decision until the middle of construction, in late 2002 or early 2003, at which time the design would be implemented as a change order. Another issue for Council to discuss was the project schedule. The election for the Downtown Assessment District would take place in the first quarter of 2001. The bond sales would take place in the second quarter of 2001 and in 2002, the design process would last through 2001, design of the Teen Center could begin in the fourth quarter of 2001, the bid and award would take place in the first quarter of 2002. Construction would start in spring of 2002 and would last 1.5 years until fall of 2003. The estimates of the dates on the schedule were conservative. He acknowledged that the design process to date had taken longer than expected. The additional time was a result of staff preparing the preliminary design three times. In 2001, Proposition 218 and staff’s proposed method for financing would constrain the project. Construction time also constrained the project. Staff was looking for opportunities to expedite construction. Project incentives were a possibility because the City would receive more permit revenue if the parking lot opened earlier. Chop Keenan would talk about the construction being more of private sector initiative than a public sector one. Chop Keenan said the Downtown Assessment District election was upcoming. There would be outreach to the affected property owners, the Downtown property owners would lead the election in conjunction with City staff, and there would be an informative brochure and a web site in addition. Cornelia Pendleton, Downtown Marketing Committee, 267 Hamilton Avenue, supported the staff recommendations. Roxy Rapp, P.O. Box 1672, said parking was important to retail on University Avenue. Warren Thoits, 629 Emerson Street, urged Council to proceed with the project. Council Member Mossar referred to page 7 of the staff report stating the parking deficit would remain at 700 spaces. She asked staff to clarify the parking deficit before and after construction of the parking structures.
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Mr. Roberts said the staff report was worded incorrectly. The parking deficit would not “remain” at 700 spaces after construction, would “be” 700 spaces after construction. The deficit currently was 1,500 spaces. After construction the deficit would be reduced to 700 spaces. Council Member Mossar said the price of the permit spaces and the allocation of public and permit parking spaces was related to Transportation Demand Management (TDM). The staff report focused only on recovery of garage maintenance costs when considering the price of permit spaces. It did not consider changing driving behaviors or relate those behaviors to the availability neighborhood parking. She asked whether there was any information on those issues. Mr. Roberts said he did not have any information on that issue that evening. The Planning, Public Works, and Police Departments would be working together on the project. TDM would be a consideration. The price and allocation of permit spaces would affect people’s driving behavior, but the desire to affect driving behavior had to be balanced with the desire to provide residential permit and retail parking. Council Member Mossar said she would feel more comfortable when making the final decision if she had more information on how the garages affected TDM. Mr. Roberts said staff would gather more information. Council Member Mossar asked whether permit parking would be shifted to the Cowper-Webster parking lot, since staff mentioned there was low public demand for parking in that lot. Mr. Roberts said parking demand in that area was mainly driven by nearby offices. Permit parking would be moved to the upper floors and public parking to the lower floors. Providing more public parking on the lower floors would help fulfill public parking demand. Council Member Mossar said her understanding was that it was only a few staff member’s opinion that parking demand was low for Cowper-Webster. She had experienced high parking demand at lunch and dinner hours. She asked whether employees of businesses on Emerson, High, and Alma Streets south of Forest Avenue would be eligible to purchase parking permits in the new parking garages, since those businesses were not in the Downtown Assessment District. Mr. Roberts said those employees were not eligible. Council Member Mossar said it was important to remember that only employees in the Downtown Assessment District would be able to purchase permits.
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Council Member Ojakian asked whether it was realistic to project that the City would be able to borrow money at 7 percent interest. Administrative Services Director Carl Yeats said the interest rate was higher than the last time the City issued debt. The bond market had changed since that time. The projected interest rate was conservative. Given the City’s AAA bond rating, it would be able to get a bond passed at a reasonable rate. Council Member Ojakian asked how the City would pay for a cost overrun. Mr. Yeats said the money would have to come from the General Fund. Council Member Ojakian asked whether that money would come from the Downtown Assessment District. Mr. Yeats said once the amount charged to the Downtown Assessment District was set, it could not be increased. Council Member Ojakian said it was important for the City to complete the project without any cost overruns. Mr. Yeats said if the bids were all greater than staff’s estimate, Council had the option to not award the project. In that case the assessment would not be implemented. Council Member Ojakian said it was possible to hold a vote in the Downtown Assessment District to increase the amount. Mr. Roberts agreed with Council Member Ojakian’s statement. Council Member Mossar clarified there was an assessment election in the first quarter of 2001, a bond sale in the second quarter of 2001, a design review through the fourth quarter of 2001, then another bond issue. At the end of the fourth quarter of 2004, the Council would receive bids for the project. If those bids were greater than the estimate, Council could reject them. Mr. Yeats confirmed that statement. Council Member Mossar said at the time Council received the bids, the City would already have spent some of the money from the assessment on the design process. The businesses in the Downtown Assessment District would not be pleased if Council chose not to build the garages after spending assessment money on the design process. Mr. Yeats agreed with that statement. The money spent on the project to date had come from the Parking in Lieu Fund and the General Fund. Until the time of the debt issuance, the money would still come from those funds.
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Council Member Mossar said if the City decided to move ahead with the project it would be obligated to pay for any cost overruns rather than end the project. Mr. Roberts said ending the project would be a significant policy decision. He reminded Council Member Mossar that the estimate included design and construction contingency amounts totaling 20 percent of the estimate. The risk of exceeding those contingency amounts was small. The City took the risk that it would not recoup the money spent to date on the project. After the first bond issue, the Downtown Assessment District members would risk losing their money if the project ended before the second bond issue. The public and private sector risk was equal. Council Member Ojakian said a 20 percent contingency on construction projects was high. Mr. Roberts said there was both a design and a construction contingency. Council Member Ojakian asked what the City’s cost for the project would be since it owned property in the Assessment District. Mr. Roberts said the City would bear the cost of the assessment on the parking garages themselves. Under Proposition 218, government property had to be assessed as much as private property. The final amounts would be in the engineer’s report in January 2001. The amount would be $247,000 per year or less. There would be an assessment on the retail space amounting to $14,000 or more. The City would also bear the cost of building the Teen Center. Council Member Ojakian said the City would receive some revenue from the retail space in the parking garage. Mr. Roberts confirmed Council Member Ojakian’s statement. The retail space would be self sufficient, and could generate revenue. Council Member Ojakian said the revenue staff expected to receive from the space was low, considering the rental rates in the Downtown. He thought staff planned to rent the space at market value. Mr. Roberts said it was staff’s intent to rent the space at market value, and the revenue estimate was conservative. Council Member Ojakian asked whether staff had studied how to route trucks to the construction site. Trucks were disruptive to the neighborhood near the construction project. Mr. Roberts said part of the final bid package would deal with construction impacts. He did not have a final answer to Council
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Member Ojakian’s question that evening, but staff would study construction impacts. Council Member Ojakian asked under what circumstances would the bonds issued be taxable. Mr. Yeats said if Teen Center was not in the garage, the bond issue for building the retail space would be taxable. Council Member Lytle agreed with Council Member Mossar that staff needed to address TDM and discuss the issue with the Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce and the affected neighborhoods before Council made the decision on allocation of parking spaces. Mr. Roberts said staff needed Council direction that night, but those issues could be addressed before the final recommendation. Council Member Lytle asked why the decision on parking space allocation had to be made that night. Mr. Roberts said the merchants in the Assessment District needed to know there would be an adequate allocation of spaces to address their needs before voting for the assessment. Council Member Lytle said the construction timeline was long. She was afraid construction costs would escalate during that time. She asked what staff was doing to address that problem. Mr. Roberts said simultaneous construction was the biggest efficiency staff could implement in order to compress construction time. As staff developed the project specifications they would create deadlines for the contractor combined with incentives for early completion. Council Member Lytle asked if some time could be cut out of the permit review segment of the project. Mr. Roberts said staff was including time considerations in the project as best they could. Council Member Kleinberg referred to section 3 on page 11 of the staff report entitled “Resource Impact” which stated the City would initially use the Budget Stabilization reserve to cover the $400,000 for design and other costs of the non-parking element of the garages. In the second stage financing, the $400,000 would be recovered. The full cost of the non-parking element would be “reflected”, according to the staff report (CMR:428:00). She asked Mr. Yeats to clarify the meaning of the work “reflected”. Mr. Yeats said the Budget Stabilization Reserve would be reimbursed $400,000 as a result of the first debt issuance. The construction costs would not come from the City’s reserves.
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Council Member Kleinberg asked what the non-parking element would cost per resident. Mr. Yeats said there would be no direct payments from residents aside from the property owners in the Assessment District. Money to pay the annual debt service payment would come from other programs or new revenue. Council Member Kleinberg clarified there would be a cost to residents, either monetarily or in loss of services. Mr. Yeats agreed. City Attorney Calonne clarified there would only be a cost to residents for the non-parking element of the project. Council Member Kleinberg asked staff to address concern among small business owners that there would not be enough parking spaces allocated to them. Mr. Roberts said staff was aware that small business owners were worried about the cost and the allocation process. With regard to cost, the spaces would cost approximately one quarter of what a space in downtown San Jose or San Francisco cost. The property owners would be willing to pay the cost if they could be sure they would get the spots for their employees. Staff was planning to improve the allocation process to ensure that spots were allocated to small business owners. Council Member Kleinberg asked whether there would be more daylong public parking. Some business owners needed longer-term parking for their customers. Mr. Roberts said that type of parking would be difficult to provide during construction. Staff was considering the possibility of having attendant parking in the garages when they were finished. Council Member Kleinberg said there was not enough daylong parking. She asked staff to consider allocating more of the parking spaces to daylong parking. She suggested changing some existing parking spots to daylong parking to fulfill the need for that type of parking during construction. Mr. Roberts clarified that daylong parking meant parking for a single day. Council Member Mossar said existing daylong parking had been successful. Council Member Kleinberg asked staff to consider making some of the non-garage space in the building on Lytton and Bryant Avenues available as office space for non-profit organizations.
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Mr. Roberts said staff would consider that issue. Council Member Kleinberg asked staff whether they had considered a strategy for building a Teen Center if the City decided to rent the non-parking section of the garages to retailers. The longer the City waited to build a Teen Center, the more it would cost. City Manager Benest said the problem was not where to put a Teen Center, but what types of activities would be valuable to teens. In his experience, a set of services and activities without a centralized location was more valuable. Council Member Kleinberg agreed with Mr. Benest’s statement, but said, teenagers in the community had been asking for a location devoted to teens since the early 1980’s. She wanted to make sure the City did not eliminate the possibility of having a Teen Center without studying the option. Mr. Benest said by directing staff to create the Youth Master Plan, the Council had demonstrated that effective delivery of youth services was a priority. Mr. Roberts clarified that the decision staff was asking the Council to make that evening would not increase the cost of building a Teen Center, should the Council later decide to locate the Center in the non-parking section of the garage. Council Member Burch referred to page 5 of the staff report, which stated that excavation for Lots S and L would be a continuous operation for three months. There would be four trucks per hour entering and leaving the site. Following excavation, concrete would be poured once per week for a ten-month period. On the day of each pour, four trucks per hour would enter and leave each site. The staff report stated that the trucks entering and leaving the site would not change the nearby intersections. He asked Mr. Roberts to justify that statement. Mr. Roberts said four trucks every hour was one truck every 15 minutes. The average signal cycle was three minutes. There were five signal cycles in any 15-minute period. The construction would add one truck every fifth cycle, which would not impact traffic levels significantly. Council Member Burch asked whether traffic would be affected when the trucks were parked. Mr. Roberts said the trucks would occupy the parking and sidewalk areas when they were being loaded, and would not affect traffic. Council Member Burch said in his experience traffic backed up when there was a truck being loaded.
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Mr. Roberts said there would be some impact when trucks pulled in and out of the parking area, but overall there would not be a significant impact on traffic flow. Council Member Burch referred to page seven of the staff report (CMR:428:00), which stated one of the staff’s goals was to keep at least as many spaces public spaces as currently existed on the surface lots. He asked whether staff intended go to the expense of building garages which did not increase the number of public spaces. Mr. Roberts said that statement reflected a minimum number of spaces staff wanted to achieve. The recommendation in front of Council exceeded that minimum significantly. Council Member Burch clarified the statement was intended to ensure that staff did not lose any public parking spaces in the process of designing the garages. Mr. Roberts agreed with the clarification. The statement was a starting point for staff, and was redundant, since the goal of the project was to increase the number of Downtown public parking spaces. Council Member Burch asked how the City would know whether the project was successful in relieving Downtown parking problems. Mr. Roberts said there would continue to be a deficit after the garage was completed, but the deficit would be smaller. Staff was pursuing other programs in order to reduce the demand for parking Downtown. Council Member Burch said according to the staff report (CMR:428:00), the PAMF site would be used for parking for the following three years. Building of the park and ten single-family homes at the old PAMF site would not begin until 2003. The residents in that area would have objections to the delay in the commencement of construction of the homes. He asked whether there was any other place to put a temporary parking lot. Mr. Roberts said staff evaluated over 1,100 possible locations, and the PAMF site was the best possible site. The City would do everything possible to mitigate impacts to the neighborhood. Construction of the park at the old PAMF site was not funded or scheduled until 2003, so the City would not delay that construction. Council Member Burch asked whether the project could proceed without the PAMF site parking mitigation step. Council Member Mossar said parking Downtown would be a nightmare if they did not mitigate the construction impact.
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Council Member Burch said the nightmare was being transferred from Downtown to the neighborhood. He asked whether there was any possibility of not having to use the PAMF site for parking mitigation. Mr. Roberts said he did not think it was possible. He clarified that using the PAMF site for parking mitigation would not delay construction of the ten single-family homes on that site. Mr. Keenan said one possible way to avoid using the PAMF site was to create an attendant parking program. Attendant parking increased the parking count by 50 percent over self-parking. His committee was studying that possibility and would bring a plan in front of Council when they finished. Mr. Roberts clarified the current PAMF parking lot had 317 spaces; staff intended to use 120 for mitigation. Council Member Burch said trucks caused messes on the streets. He asked whether staff was doing anything to mitigate that problem. Mr. Roberts said there would be requirements for the contractors to have the streets cleaned. Council Member Burch asked whether the trucks could be required to stay in the right lane. The drivers were paid by the load, so they drove too quickly. Mr. Roberts said he did not have any information on that issue that evening, but he would look into it. Council Member Mossar said there was commercial growth on Emerson, High, and Alma Streets south of Forest Avenue. That commercial growth impacted Downtown parking. If staff did not take that commercial area into account, attempts to solve the Downtown parking problem would not be effective. Vice Mayor Eakins referred to page 9 of the staff report (CMR:428:00), which stated there was no room at the entrance of the parking garages for an attendant booth. She asked whether that applied to both parking structures. Mr. Roberts said it did. Vice Mayor Eakins asked whether the structures would ever be converted to pay-for-park areas. Mr. Roberts said it was possible to place a gate on one of the upper floors and designate it pay-for-park. MOTION: Council Member Ojakian moved, seconded by Mossar, to approve the staff recommendation as follows:
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1. Approve the simultaneous construction of two new parking garages. 2. Direct staff to set an initial goal that would designate forty (40) to sixty (60) percent of the new garage parking spaces as public parking. This percentage is consistent with the current overall public parking allocation in the downtown parking district. 3. Direct staff to defer detailed design on the interior portion of the Teen Center, located in the commercial building at Bryant/Lytton, pending the recommendations of a Community Services Department study on the preferred Teen Center location. If a recommendation is delayed staff is proposing options which would have varying fiscal impacts. 4. Authorize the use of the old Palo Alto Medical Foundation parking lot at Homer Avenue/Waverley Street for vehicle parking during construction of the garages, and defer construction of any City park on the site until construction of the garages is complete. Direct staff to pursue acquisition of additional parking spaces on the upper floors at the Cowper/Webster garage that would be used for parking during the construction period. 5. Try to schedule and streamline these projects to get them going sooner 6. Evaluate parking and remove parking at PAMF after the fourth quarter of 2002 holiday season. Council Member Ojakian said the simultaneous construction was important. It was important to have the right mix of permit and public parking because the permit parking paid the maintenance costs of the parking structure. The Teen Center decision was difficult. A few weeks prior, he walked past the Teen Center Downtown and saw over 30 teens in line to get into the Center. It was important to have a place for teenagers to gather. The interim parking mitigation measures would alleviate the problems caused by construction. Other mitigation measures should be explored. Strong Downtown retail resulted in increased sales tax revenue for the city, so by building the parking structures, the City was indirectly increasing its revenue. Council Member Burch said he would not support the motion. He was opposed to building the parking structures. The City be visually impacted by the new parking structures. The two most imposing structures in Downtown would be parking garages. Council Member Lytle supported the motion. She wanted the final design of the parking structures to include provisions for converting them to pay parking in the future.
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Council Member Ojakian asked how much such a provision would add to the cost of the project. Mr. Roberts recommended against the provision. Staff would have to make significant alterations to the design, and it would delay the schedule. Council Member Ojakian asked whether it was possible to study the provision between that evening and when staff returned with the engineer’s report in January 2001. Mr. Roberts said it was possible. Council Member Ojakian said he would not support Council Member Lytle’s amendment as stated. Council Member Lytle suggested directing staff to examine the issue and return with a report. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to direct staff to review the design of the parking structures for the ability to convert the parking garages for a parking attendant and report back to Council in January 2001. Council Member Mossar said she was comfortable with losing ground- floor parking spaces in the course of converting the parking structure to attendant parking after it was built. Council Member Beecham said one of the reasons retail in the Downtown was strong was because of the Parking Assessment District. There was a shortage of parking Downtown. He complimented staff and the other Council Members on their handling of the project. He understood staff examined mitigation options other than the PAMF site. He was optimistic that staff would find an alternative to using the PAMF site. The biggest negative impact of the project would be the delay of construction of a park in the South of Forest Avenue area. Vice Mayor Eakins complimented staff for their work on the project. She pointed out that the buildings were only four stories, with parking on the roof. MOTION PASSED 6-1, Burch “no,” Fazzino, Kniss absent. COUNCIL MATTERS 9. Mayor Kniss re Cancellation of December 4, 2000, Regular City Council Meeting MOTION: Council Member Beecham moved, seconded by Ojakian, to cancel the December 4, 2000, Regular City Council Meeting.
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MOTION PASSED 7-0, Fazzino, Kniss absent. 10. Council Comments, Questions, and Announcements Council Member Mossar said the Bay Area Air Quality District had stated that diesel-powered shuttles would not be funded in the next funding cycle. ADJOURNMENT: The meeting adjourned at 9:05 p.m.
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