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Home My WebLink About2025-03-26 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: March 26, 2025 2 Council Chambers & Virtual 3 6:00 PM 4 5 Call to Order / Roll Call 6 6:00 PM 7 8 Chair Chang: Good evening, everyone. I’d like to call to order this regular meeting of the 9 Planning and Transportation Commission for Wednesday, March 26, 2025. 10 11 ROLL CALL 12 13 Chair Chang: Ms. Dao, could you please take the roll? 14 15 Administrative Associate Veronica Dao: Chair Chang? 16 17 Chair Chang: Here. 18 19 Veronica Dao: Vice-Chair Akin? 20 21 Vice-Chair Akin: Here. 22 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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: Commissioner Hechtman? 2 3 Commissioner Hechtman: Here. 4 5 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Ji? 6 7 Commissioner Ji: Here. 8 9 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Peterson? 10 11 Commissioner Peterson: Here. 12 13 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Summa? 14 15 Commissioner Summa: Here. 16 17 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 18 19 Commissioner Templeton: Here. 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 Veronica Dao: We have a quorum. 2 3 Oral Communications 4 The public may speak to any item not on the agenda. Three (3) minutes per speaker.1,2 5 6 Chair Chang: Okay. Our first order of business is public comment on items that are not on the 7 agenda. Are there any speaker cards, Ms. Dao? Or raised hands on line? 8 9 Veronica Dao: There is one from… 10 11 Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: And for clarification, the recognition of Commissioner 12 Summa is an item on the agenda, and so if you wish to speak on that, we can hold until that 13 item. 14 15 Veronica Dao: Looks like we do have one from Zachary. 16 17 Zachary: Yes. Hello. Thank you all for just a couple seconds here. I wanted to just mention that 18 the Transbay Coalition I contribute to is looking for City Councils and PTCs to voice their 19 approval of transportation funding that’s pending in the California State Legislature of $2B for 20 as part of the budget approval. So this is just sort of an announcement for that. 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 Chair Chang: Thank you very much. Is there anybody else? 2 3 Veronica Dao: No, just the one. 4 5 Chair Chang: Okay. 6 7 Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions 8 The Chair or Commission majority may modify the agenda order to improve meeting management. 9 10 Chair Chang: How about Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions? Ms. Armer? 11 12 Jennifer Armer: None today. 13 14 Chair Chang: Okay. 15 16 Special Order of the Day 17 Recognition of Doria Summa for her years of service on the Planning & Transportation 18 Commission 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 then our next order of business is the Special Order of today, which is 1 recognition of Doria Summa – Commissioner Doria Summa for her years of service on the 2 Planning and Transportation Commission. And so I would like to present Doria with this plaque, 3 which says, “In recognition and appreciation for outstanding public service as Planning and 4 Transportation Commissioner from January 11, 2017, all the way to today, March 26, 2025. As 5 well as serving as Chair from February 2023 to May 2024.” So here you are, Doria. 6 7 Commissioner Summa: Thank you. Thank you, Chair. And my colleagues and staff, I thank. It’s 8 really unexpected. Thank you. 9 10 Chair Chang: Yes, a special thank you to Ms. Dao for arranging for the plaque. 11 12 PUBLIC COMMENTS 13 14 Chair Chang: Are there any public comments? 15 16 Veronica Dao: Yes, I have two in-person and one on Zoom. First is from Jennifer. 17 18 Jennifer: Hi. Good evening. So I – when I heard that Doria was going to be celebrated and − or 19 honored tonight, I wanted to be here. I met Doria a decade ago when residents across Palo Alto 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. encountered aircraft noise problems that are devastating for many. I later learned that it was 1 Doria who knew somebody who reached out to connect with Stanford Aeronautics Professor 2 who has since been involved in cutting-edge research on aircraft noise that could eventually 3 really make a difference for Palo Alto. I was lucky to meet her and thank her then but I’m here 4 because I’ve seen her do this again and again with other issues affecting the City. She listens, is 5 irrespective of who you are. No matter how simple or complex the problem is, she’s ready to 6 engage. It’s a gift to encounter leaders able to empower voices to help the City innovate, to be 7 fair, and to make progress. When I hear Palo Alto’s values, Doria is at the top. Congratulations 8 and thank you for your service to the City. I hope we will see you on Council one day because 9 the kind of trust that you generate from so many would be tremendous for helping the City 10 achieve its many goals. Thank you. 11 12 Chair Chang: I know we’re celebrating tonight but I’m just going to ask everybody to hold their 13 applause because that’s what we do here at the PTC. Who’s our next speaker? 14 15 Veronica Dao: Next is from Hamilton Hitchings. 16 17 Hamilton Hitchings: I wanted to thank Doria for her eight years of service on the Planning and 18 Transportation Commission. I guess time really does fly. I really appreciate all – everything 19 Doria has done. I – her − and her service both as a Commissioner and as Vice-Chair and Chair. I 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. first met Doria when we were doing public comment at the City Council and I was like really 1 impressed. It was like these two people, Jeff and Doria, who always had like this incredible 2 amount of insight on every topic. And I was like how do they do it? And then I served with Doria 3 on the Comprehensive Plan, Citizen Advisory Commission, and we worked for two years on 4 that. During that time and also from the Public Comment, I became a huge fan. I − [but 5:58] 5 even more of a fan of her as she served on the Commission. So I really wanted to thank you, 6 Doria. You really help – you’re an example of what makes a Palo Alto community great. So 7 thank you so much for everything you’ve done for us. Take Care. 8 9 Chair Chang: Next speaker, please. 10 11 Veronica Dao: Next is Terry Holzemer. 12 13 Terry Holzemer: I’ll try to keep my comments very brief. But I really want to express to not only 14 to all the people on the Planning Commission today, but those future ones that are still coming 15 up, and that is if they would follow the dedication and the time commitments that Doria 16 Summa made to us for over the last eight years, we’d be in great shape. So I recommend that 17 all of us can follow her lead in all the achievements that she’s done. She’s not only been the – in 18 my opinion, the best Planning Commissioner, the most dedicated, the hardest-working – all the 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. superlatives that you could possibly have. So thank you, Doria, personally. It’s a shame you 1 can’t serve another twelve years − or eight years because we need it in the City. So thank you. 2 3 Chair Chang: Next speaker, please. 4 5 Veronica Dao: Next is Lydia Kou. 6 7 Lydia Kou: Good evening, Chair and Commissioners. I just want to say Doria has been superb in 8 her skills of knowing our municipal code, especially in Planning and Transportation. But it’s 9 more than knowing the codes; it’s also the common sense and the practicality as well as the 10 sensibility, knowing how a built environment benefits the residents and the businesses of Palo 11 Alto, the City that you all live in, is really crucial in this job. And I have always appreciated all 12 your advice and recommendations to Council. At this point, I just want to say thank you for – I 13 think it’s more than the eight years; it’s over 20 years of service to the City of Palo Alto. You say 14 no but – don’t say no to me. But anyways, I do want to say thank you and always for speaking 15 the truth. The truth about what is sensible, what is right, representing the people that we want 16 you to represen-, that has elected the Council to appoint you. But really looking out for the City 17 and its built environment, knowing that our trees are environment. There’s backyard habitats 18 and so forth. So thank you again for your years of service and also being a friend. 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 from Shani. 1 2 Shani Kleinhaus: Thank you. My name is Shani Kleinhaus. I usually advocate for nature, the 3 parks, trees, animals, light pollution, all these things. Doria is an expert on the urban [inaudible 4 9:47] but her heart is out there in nature. I can tell you because every one – every time that 5 we’ve discussed anything that had to do with our natural environment, she had keen interest 6 and deep compassion and understanding. So people always say how much she knows about the 7 code and – of the codes and zoning and all that and that’s all true. But I think to me what’s 8 most compelling is the compassion that she [brought 10:15] to everything, to the community, 9 deep understanding, her hand on the pulse of this community, and everything else that she’s 10 done. So thank you, Doria. And thank you for being my friend. 11 12 Veronica Dao: Next is Jeff Greenfield. 13 14 Jeff Greenfield: Thank you. I’m here as well as everyone else to thank Doria for her years of 15 service and really for being such a key resource for the community. She’s someone you can 16 count on to really stand up for the residents, for the community, to know the insides and outs 17 of things, sometimes as well as anyone in the City. And someone who’s passionate and 18 consistent and reliable. She’s not out there for herself. She’s probably not completely loving 19 this moment but she gets it anyway. And we’re here to thank you. I thank you. It’s been 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. pleasure working with you on community issues, on urban forestry issues. And just being a 1 friend. And thank you for your service and thank you for being a part of our community and for 2 continuing to be a part of our community. 3 4 Veronica Dao: And then next on Zoom, from Liz Gardner. 5 6 Liz Gardner: Hi. 7 8 Chair Chang: Go ahead. 9 10 Male: Hi. 11 12 Liz Gardner: Oh, hi, sweetie. Sorry. I’m at the airport picking up my son from college break. I’m 13 at the airport. Planning and Transportation. Okay. I just wanted to say briefly and hopefully 14 deeply, my thanks for Doria, for your service. It’s – I’ve always been able, even if we have not 15 agreed on everything, to count on you for your in-depth and analysis of the plans before you. 16 And I just – I − it’s not easy being a public servant and with no pay and you have dedicated your 17 life as a career. It’s almost like – you leaving is almost like seeing kind of a family member move 18 on from a really incredible position and to the next level. What I am really excited about is what 19 you’re going to do next. And I know it’s going to be thoughtful and thorough. I’m really 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. you did not make City Council. We needed your energy and your – just you. The other thing I 1 wanted to say, and although we didn’t agree on everything, as I am a housing advocate, you 2 always picked up your phone for me, you always met me when it was – any time pretty much, 3 any place – I mean reasonable. But invited me into your home. So that said, I did want to 4 commend you for your service and it wasn’t always easy. And you came to me to look at where 5 I lived and really had a great understanding and perspective of what it is to be low income and 6 what was necessary in this crisis. 7 8 Where you want to go − your vision really has not waivered. So again, thank you, coming from 9 somebody who’s done a lot of volunteer work. I’ve never run for a campaign and it’s got to be 10 difficult. But you just – you’ve shone with brightness and steadfastness and that’s important in 11 today’s world to be human as [inaudible 14:34], just accolades to that. So thank you for being 12 part of our community. Thank you. 13 14 Chair Chang: Thank you. Is that it? 15 16 Veronica Dao: That – yes, that’s all our speakers. 17 18 Chair Chang: Okay. So we’ll bring it back to the Commission. And I don’t know if anybody on the 19 Commission has any comments that they would like to add. 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: Well just briefly. And you’ll all be happy to know I did not prepare a 2 speech. But I do want to respond to all of you here and all of you on Zoom and everyone else in 3 the community and my colleagues and staff, with just undying gratitude for allowing me to be 4 in this role for so many years. And – because I got to work on things that I think are some of the 5 most important things that we can do and that’s good governance, that means smart and fair, 6 and also public service. So I – at the risk of going on and on about that, I think, especially at a 7 time like this in America, we really need to rely on good governance and true public servants. 8 So I want to thank my colleagues very much. It’s been a pleasure serving with all of you and to 9 staff who are here but also over the years so many staff members. And also the Council that 10 [twice 16:08] put me in this role and other roles on boards and commissions. So thank you all 11 very much from the bottom of my heart. 12 13 Chair Chang: All right. Commissioner Hechtman. 14 15 Commissioner Hechtman: So it’s not a secret that Doria and I are on occasion, seem to be on 16 opposite ends of the ideological spectrum. But it has been a true privilege for me to serve on 17 the PTC with her for 5 years. She is a model of how to prepare for the work we do and to carry 18 out that work. There is no, in my experience, more fierce advocate for the comfort and 19 concerns of the existing residents of the City of Palo Alto. And I have always admired the 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. passion she brings to the work and the civility that she brings to our dialogue when we are 1 looking at things differently. So it’s been a great learning experience for me to have you here on 2 the Commission with me during my entire time and I’ll miss your presence going forward. So 3 thank you for your service. 4 5 Chair Chang: Commissioner Templeton. No. Yes. Commissioner Templeton, then Commissioner 6 Peterson. 7 8 Commissioner Templeton: He can go first. 9 10 Commissioner Peterson: Commissioner Summa, I just want to say thank you. I think you’re a 11 great mentor to all the new public policy people coming into campaigns. And I don’t think this is 12 the last that we’re going to see of you in the political world of candidates and campaigning and 13 I think it’s probably just the start of a lot of really good work that I’m sure you’ll do. So I just 14 want to thank you and appreciate the example you set up here for us all to follow. 15 16 Chair Chang: Commissioner Templeton. 17 18 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. I guess I’m the person up here who served with Doria the 19 longest. So it’ll be different for me without you here and I would like to share some of 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. reflections about what has changed over those years. Because I remember at first, it was – 1 somebody has mentioned political spectrum of ideology and whatnot and it was very opposite 2 – opposing, oppositional, whatever, that was the world we came onto the Commission in. And I 3 think what one thing that I have appreciated over your tenure is how you have grown to be 4 more engaging with the Commissioners up here. And I think that kind of growth is really 5 important and laudable, and I’m so happy that you have. Because honestly, we don’t differ on 6 that many things and it’s absolutely beautiful for us to focus on the things that we can do 7 together. And I’m really glad that you have had this journey and this experience because I don’t 8 think you’re a voice alone. I think you’re bringing people and perspectives with you and that’s 9 really important for the City, for us, to get through all of this because at some point, we have to 10 get through all this, right? 11 12 So just really want to appreciate you and your willingness to see the good in your fellow 13 positions – positions from your fellow commissioners because that is not necessarily the world 14 we came from before. And that’s something that you’re bringing to it and I’m going to miss. So I 15 really appreciate that and I will say also that I don’t know who’s going to be my tree buddy 16 when you’re gone. Like I’ve really appreciated that alignment that we’ve had. So thank you for 17 this time and I look forward to seeing what you do next. 18 19 Chair Chang: Commissioner Ji. 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 Ji: Thank you. I just want to start by saying that I started like many other citizens 2 in Palo Alto as having a concern that Doria came and listened. She came over to our house, 3 listened to the concerns, and for that, I’m forever grateful. And I just want to say that there is 4 no better role model. I want to call back to Mr. Holzemer’s comments about being able to 5 follow someone’s – for people to follow Doria’s lead. And those are extremely big shoes to fill. I 6 would say that I would not be up here without Doria’s encouragement, her support, her endless 7 knowledge, her – just everything about her. I am very excited also that I was able to serve with 8 her for three meetings. And even though you will no longer be a part of the PTC, I hope that we 9 will continue to have our relationship blossom. Thank you. 10 11 Chair Chang: Commissioner Akin. 12 13 Vice-Chair Akin: Like everyone here, it’s difficult to express how much we owe to you for all 14 you’ve given to us individually, as a Commission, and as a City. But like Commissioner Ji just 15 said, I often think of you as a role model, not only for how to comport yourself [here 21:50] in 16 Commission, how much you have learned and know, and how much the rest of us should aspire 17 to, but also I envy your connection to the community. That is such a strong feature of you that I 18 see constantly, and that again, we should all be so lucky to do as well. So thank you again and 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. perhaps − as some of you know, one of Doria’s favorite animals is the goat, and perhaps the 1 greatest of all time is exactly appropriate for Doria. 2 3 Chair Chang: And so I guess I’m going to close out. So Doria, I just want to thank you for your 4 tremendous dedication and really principled work ethic. I think what I’m going to say is echoing 5 what everybody else has said. Everything that you do is so well researched. You don’t shy away 6 from that work. Yeah. Hold up your packet right now. Because she has a ream of notes and 7 many tabs and that’s what she has every single meeting. And so I don’t think I’ve ever seen a 8 commissioner who is so hard working and works so selflessly to make our city just better. 9 Secondly, you’re tremendously generous with your time and I really appreciate that and am 10 indebted to you for that. I’ve learned a lot from you. And I also know that you’re − you always 11 have said you just want to help people, and that’s exactly what you do. And you’re so – yeah, 12 just so generous with your time, so willing to drop everything that you’re doing and delve into 13 that big mountain of research and then you follow up, which is amazing. 14 15 And then finally, I think I’m really going to miss on this Commission, the incredible wealth of 16 knowledge that you built up over the last 17 years in neighborhood associations, numerous 17 working groups, updating the tree ordinance. I don’t even know how many committees. And 18 obviously, the PTC. And you have this awareness of the history of our city and the context for 19 how all decisions have been made and precedent that few residents and probably most city 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. staff even have. And so I just want to thank you from myself, from all of us here on the PTC, and 1 all of Palo Alto for your tremendous service. 2 3 Commissioner Summa: Can I say thank you again? Thank you again to everyone. And the sad 4 truth is this has just been a delaying tactic. I now have to clean all my closets. So thank you very 5 much and the hyperbole is embarrassing but I do appreciate it. To everyone up here is just as 6 marvelous and if not more. So thank you. 7 8 City Official Reports 9 1. Directors Report, Meeting Schedule and Assignments 10 11 Chair Chang: Okay. So our next order of business, our City Official Reports. Ms. Armer – or is 12 Mr. Rius here or… 13 14 Jennifer Armer: Yeah. 15 16 Chair Chang: …anybody from Transportation? So I… 17 18 Jennifer Armer: 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. Chair Chang: …don’t know who wants to go first. 1 2 Jennifer Armer: I’ll go through my report. Hard to follow all of that. But we’ll quickly do a quick 3 summary through future meetings. So just so – an update on some of your future meetings. At 4 the meeting on April 6, currently we are planning to – I might give a moment so that the 5 chambers can empty. All the celebrants there for you. All right. So on April 9, we currently have 6 you scheduled to discuss the final plans for Crescent Park Traffic Calming as well as an update 7 to the ADU Ordinance to respond to comments received by HCD. And given it’s the first 8 meeting of April, and we’ll have our new Commissioner seated, we will do the election of Chair 9 and Vice-Chair. 10 11 Chair Chang: Can I just ask – thank you, everybody for coming. And can I just ask that you have 12 your conversations outside so that we can continue with the other items that we have to do, 13 that are less fun. All right. Go ahead. 14 15 Jennifer Armer: All right. Thank you. So then also on April 30, we do expect to be able to bring 16 to you the Parking Program update that has been delayed a few times but we do expect to be 17 able to bring it at that meeting. And on the next slide then, some of the recent updates in 18 regards to City Council, the Vesting Tentative Map at 4335 and 4345 El Camino Real was 19 approved by Council on March 17. On March 24, they had a discussion of a potential Senate Bill 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. 457, where it's potentially proposing amendments to the State Housing Law. This is one that is 1 – they’re going to continue discussing it on April 7, but it has to do with State Housing Law and 2 therefore, some of the work that we do here on PTC and potential timelines for builder’s 3 remedy projects. And then on April 7, we have scheduled City Council review of the Lighting 4 Ordinance that was reviewed and recommended by you, the PTC, on October 30 of last year. As 5 we do move that one forward, the recommendation from PTC did include − I believe it was a list 6 of six different items, modifications to the ordinance presented by staff and the staff report will 7 be published tomorrow, so that will have more details. Staff does include some modifications to 8 two or three of those items in our recommendation. 9 10 We do provide clearly what the PTC’s recommendation is but I wanted to make sure the PTC 11 understood that staff did identify some that – items that – we found some middle ground to try 12 and ensure implementation and enforcement is feasible. So I’m not – we’ll have to look in the 13 packet; we’ve got a list of who it is that’s representing the PTC at that meeting. But you are… 14 15 Chair Chang: It’s Commissioner Hechtman. 16 17 Jennifer Armer: Okay. But you are welcome to join if you would like at that time. And that 18 concludes my update. I believe we got someone from Transportation here who can provide an 19 update from them. 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 Transportation Parking Manager Nate Baird: Good evening, Commissioners. My name’s Nate 2 Baird. I’m from the Office of Transportation. I’m a transportation planning manager and I work 3 on our parking programs and our transit program. I wanted to come here this evening because 4 we were – we really have been trying to get to PTC with a Parking Programs update. I’ve had to 5 delay it again. But I wanted to talk through that. Just give you a verbal update a little bit about 6 what you can expect for the April meeting and I’ve also got a couple updates in Rafael’s stead. 7 Rafael Rius is going to – I’m giving him a break this evening. Then, I’m going to give you a couple 8 updates from our office before I give you the Parking Program update. So the first one is from 9 on our South Palo Alto Bike Ped Connectivity Project. This project will develop locally preferred 10 crossing locations and design concepts for two new grade separated bike ped pathways of the 11 Caltrain Corridor and the southern portion of the city, i.e. south of Oregon Expressway. We 12 have a community workshop scheduled for Wednesday, April 2, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at Mitchell 13 Park Community Center. OT staff is planning to bring that project to this Commission tentatively 14 planned for May 14. The second update is that our Metropolitan Transportation and 15 Commission, known as MTC, is requesting feedback via an on-line survey for their planned Bay 16 Area 2050+ implementation. A link to the on-line survey will be emailed to members of this 17 Commission. 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. The public is also invited, I believe, if you go to MTC’s website. It’s also at − plannedbayarea.org 1 is the website. So those our two main updates. And then regarding our parking programs, we’re 2 – we’ve been teasing this for a while but we really want – need to give some attention to our 3 policies for the downtown, in particular. So currently, we have an employee program and two 4 and three-hour parking. This kind of presents a number of pain point. The current – the way the 5 programs are currently set up in downtown, it presents some pain points. So currently, if you 6 want to stay beyond two or three hours, there’s no way to do so except to buy a full daily 7 permit. There’s no way to kind of right size your permit stay. If you arrive at noon, you still need 8 to pay the full day. If you arrive at 2 p.m., you still need to pay for the whole day or move to a 9 different color zone. The color zones we’ve noted numerous times are fairly confusing. We also 10 know that our quarterly permits right now do not really serve part-time or shift workers very 11 well. And so those folks often are shuffling their cars around during the day, [inaudible 32:20] 12 colors in the color zone. So this kind of adds to the congestion in downtown that some of you 13 may already be experiencing. And then our two and three-hour limits used to work but we have 14 parts of the downtown now that are quite congested. 15 16 Parking is difficult to find if you are looking for it on University Avenue or the Ramona Lot or the 17 Emerson Lot. But then we have lots of availability that few folks know about in other places. 18 And so we want to talk about what sort of pricing we might do to help turn over [inaudible 19 32:53] in those really demanded places. But also still let people know about free parking 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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. available in the garages and some of the further field lots. The Public Works. There’s a number 1 of other initiatives going on too that kind of really help us – our parking programs really are 2 worth considering right now. So Public Works is going to be delivering the APGS system to four 3 gar-, downtown garages. So if you’ve been to Cal. Avenue, you’ve experienced the fact that as 4 you pull up to the California Avenue, 350 Sherman Garage, it kind of displays how much parking 5 available is on each level. We’ll have that capability added to four garages in downtown. And 6 that too will also give us better data on our usage. So currently, our occupancy data is restricted 7 to basically an annual count that we do on a couple days. And so the – these – that new system 8 will allow us to get regular occupancy data on how well those garages are used. So all of this is 9 really coming together. 10 11 It will help us talk about bringing – potentially bringing more affordable housing downtown and 12 how park-, how we can better use our parking resources to help that effort as well as a number 13 of other efforts that we are looking to do in the next few years. It’s also really difficult to do 14 TDM – good TDM, Transportation Demand Management programs if your parking programs are 15 kind of the way that we have them set up. So we’d really like to take a good look at that. We’ll 16 be talking to a lot of business owners and visitors over the next couple weeks and months. So if 17 you know someone who’s just dying to talk to me or to the City about parking in downtown, 18 please send them my way. But we’ll have some focus group opportunities for folks and we’ll be 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. doing a lot of conversations this spring and summer. So I look forward to diving into that with 1 all of you as well. 2 3 Chair Chang: Thank you so much. Do the Commissioners have any questions for staff? No? 4 Okay. 5 6 Action Items 7 Public Comment is Permitted. Applicants/Appellant Teams: Fifteen (15) minutes, plus three (3) minutes rebuttal. 8 All others: Five (5) minutes per speaker. 9 10 2. Recommendation on an Ordinance to Amend the El Camino Real Focus Area 11 (Chapter 18.14 of the Palo Alto Municipal Code), Implementing Program 3.4E of the 12 Housing Element. CEQA Status: The Addendum to the Comprehensive Plan 13 Environmental Impact Report (EIR), Considered by the City Council on April 15, 2024, 14 Analyzed Potential Environmental Impacts of the 6th Cycle Draft Housing Element 15 Including Program 3.4E. (Continued from March 12, 2025) 16 17 Chair Chang: So our next – so our first Action Item tonight is a recommendation on an 18 Ordinance to Amend the El Camino Real Focus Area. And this item was continued from our last 19 meeting on March 12. So could we have the staff report for this? Oh, sorry. I think I need to ask 20 for disclosures and recusals first, so maybe if we start – we’ll change it up for – and start down 21 with Commissioner Templeton and just go on down the line. 22 23 Assistant City Attorney Albert Yang: No, we don’t need disclosures generally. 24 25 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five 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, wait. Not disclosures, re-… 1 2 Albert Yang: Yeah. Just… 3 4 Chair Chang: Sorry. Legislative item. So I think Commissioner Summa has something. 5 6 Commissioner Summa: Yes, I just wanted to let everyone know that I will be recused on the 7 major portion of this item because I live very close to one of the areas under discussion. So I will 8 be in [inaudible 36:10]. Thank you. 9 10 Chair Chang: Well, so Mr. Yang, did you want to… 11 12 Albert Yang: Yeah. So we’re going to structure this item so that it’s segmented into the portion 13 that creates the conflict and then a later portion where there is no conflict. And we’ll decide – 14 the PTC will take a vote and take it to action first on the portion that creates the conflict. But 15 we’re going to have a combined staff report and combined public comment. So Commissioner 16 Summa, you may remain for those and then leave after the public comment. 17 18 Chair Chang: Thank you, Mr. Yang. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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: And we have Jean Eisberg online to do the staff presentation for us this 1 evening. 2 3 Consultant Jean Eisberg: Okay. Good evening, Chair Chang and members of the Commission. 4 Again, I’m Jean Eisberg, a consulting planner with the City. So we are back tonight talking about 5 the El Camino Real Focus Area. As a reminder, this is implementation of a Housing Element 6 program. There’s an existing El Camino Focus Area and what the program says is to consider 7 how to expand the geographic boundaries and consider any changes to development 8 standards. And the purpose of this focus area is to incentivize housing production in 9 appropriate locations as an alternative to State Density Bonus Law. So the request tonight is 10 that the Commission make a recommendation to the City Council on the Draft Ordinance. We’ll 11 talk about the expansion areas, the development and regulations, affordable housing 12 requirements and special setbacks on Hansen Way. And then second, separately, we’re 13 interested in your feedback on future action and planning for the remainder of the corridor not 14 included in the focus area. And then also separately, potential rezoning of 470 Olive Avenue. As 15 you may recall, we met in December with both the Planning Commission and the Architectural 16 Review Board, and at that time, we’d explored – we had evaluated the entire corridor and 17 broken it up into a series of tiers for potential inclusion in the focus area based on a number of 18 criteria, including distance to transit, the size of the site, interest from developers, a lack of 19 proximity to R1 or low-density zoned districts. 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 And sorting those into tiers, we got feedback from the Commission and the Architectural 2 Review Board on those expansion areas and on whether or not to adjust development 3 standards depending on locations or size of site. So this is some of the feedback we received 4 from the Commission, including the idea to provide incentives for lot consolidation and 5 considering some adjustments to the height transition standards. We received some similar 6 feedback from the ARB. They did recommend expansion through all of the tiers and we’ll talk a 7 little bit more about that. But we did spend a lot of time with the Architectural Review Board 8 talking about adjustments to the daylight plane and the height transition standards as well as 9 the upper story step-back that we’ll talk about on El Camino Real. So what’s proposed in the 10 ordinance is to expand the boundaries of the El Camino Focus Area. So the existing focus area is 11 shown here in blue and the expansion area is shown in pink. And the expansion areas are 12 generally areas that we identified as Tier 1, the most potential or best sites for potential 13 redevelopment under the focus area. We did include a site that had been identified in Tier 2 14 because that site has a builder’s remedy application. So the other reason why we limited the 15 sites for inclusion in the focus area to just these sites is because of CEQA. So the Housing 16 Element included an addendum to the Comprehensive Plan EIR that studied a certain amount 17 of development. 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 so this is the amount of development that we can assume under that existing CEQA 1 document. So future analysis of the corridor inclusion in the focus area would require 2 additional CEQA review. The Draft Ordinance also recommends some modifications to 3 development regulations. And this relates to this idea of having incentives for lot consolidation. 4 And essentially, the proposed regulations create a threshold based on lot size. This was also an 5 idea that came out of the Architectural Re-, excuse me, the Architectural Review Board who 6 was interested in using lot size or lot width as a threshold for when a higher development 7 standard would come into play. So as it is today, the standards allow 4.0 FAR and 85 feet within 8 the focus area. And so those standards would remain for lots that are over 10,000 square feet. 9 Under 10,000 square feet, which include only the new lots that are proposed in the 10 development in the focus area, it would have reduced development standards. The idea being 11 those smaller lot sizes can’t really handle that level of height or accommodate that much FAR. 12 It’s difficult to make the parking work on a smaller site of that size. I just wanted to hone in on 13 one example, at 3300 El Camino, this particular site has an improved office building. And so 14 based on those standards – so also the developer has expressed interest in also doing a 15 multifamily product on the site. 16 17 Now in this case, the way the standards are currently written, the 85-foot height limit would 18 also serve the office buildings. The office building could, under the current standards, go up to 19 85 feet. The 4.0 FAR would be shared across the whole site. And now if the Commission 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. interested in ensuring that the office building was just limited to the point – 0.4 FAR that’s 1 currently allowed today, that’s something we would need to add to the Draft Ordinance. The 2 Draft Ordinance also modifies development and regulations related to daylight planes and 3 height transitions. So what it does is proposes to eliminate the height transition and replace it 4 with a more strict daylight plane. It also proposes to modify the upper story step-back that’s on 5 the El Camino frontage side of the buildings to streamline that standard and simplify it a bit. I 6 mentioned the affordable requirements. So a new State Law went into effect at the beginning 7 of the year, and that changed the amount of affordable housing that a builder’s remedy 8 application – a builder’s remedy project needs to provide. And so previously, it was 20 percent 9 at least low income household levels – low income levels. And so the new State Law that’s now 10 into effect allows reduced below-market rate units depending on the level of affordability, 11 lower than 20 percent. And so that begs the question if the City should revise the focus area 12 affordability requirements for this focus area to make them more comparable to State Law, to 13 consider potential in-lieu fee payment or changes to that 20 percent standard. 14 15 So up here is that existing focus area standard and the new builder’s remedy requirements, 16 which do pertain to existing builder’s remedy projects that have already been submitted. In 17 addition to the staff report, the Draft Ordinance calls for waiving fees for below-market rate 18 units, and this is a staff recommendation to just clarify that the waiver of fees pertains to only 19 the units restricted to lower income levels and therefore not too moderate or above. The 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Hansen Way special setback. This is a special setback of 50 feet that applies throughout 1 Stanford lands and the Research Park area but particularly at the 3300 El Camino site pretends 2 – presents a potential constraint to development here. And so we’ve been talking to the 3 Transportation Division about whether it might be appropriate to remove or reduce that special 4 setback. At this time, they recommend not removing it completely. There’s potential to reduce 5 it but wanted to get the Planning Commission’s input on the possibility of removing that special 6 setback just in this El Camino area. Across the street, the setback has already been removed for 7 mixed use or hotel projects at 3200 El Camino. So what could happen on the rest of the 8 corridor? We have received some direction from the City Council to prepare an area plan for El 9 Camino sometime in the future. There’s currently other area plans going on, so this is not yet 10 scheduled but we’re open to the Commission’s input if you have any other feedback on 11 planning for the – an approach for the remainder of the corridor. 12 13 And then lastly, this hasn’t been noticed as part of this item but through this process and how 14 we’ve been talking to different property owners along the corridor, we did have interest form a 15 property owner in rezoning of this particular site at 470 Olive Avenue. This is part of a series of 16 sites that’s owned by one property owner. The site’s been in commercial use continuously even 17 though it’s zoned R-1 or now NV, as in North Ventura R-1. There is ongoing ground water 18 monitoring due to an offsite plume and so redevelopment as a single family use is unlikely to be 19 financially feasible, but mitigations could be in place to allow for redevelopment of the bigger 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. site as multifamily housing. So the potential proposal here is to rezone that NV R-1 site to 1 NVMXM, which allows for 20 – 2.0 FAR, 55-foot building heights and would require a daylight 2 plane. So the question here is as a part of a future action if the Planning Commission would 3 support rezoning of this site. So the staff recommendation is here on the screen and that 4 concludes my presentation. Thank you. 5 6 Chair Chang: Thank you. So Mr. Yang, is it okay if we ask clarifying questions right now? Because 7 usually we do that or do we take Public Comment first? 8 9 Albert Yang: Because we’re segmenting this issue, I would recommend holding the questions 10 until after public comment and after Commissioner Summa recuses. 11 12 Chair Chang: Okay. Thank you. 13 14 PUBLIC COMMENTS 15 16 Chair Chang: So then let’s move straight to Public Comments. Ms. Dao, do we have speaker 17 cards or raised hands online? 18 19 Veronica Dao: Yes, I have one raised ha-, sorry. One speaker card and two raised hands. First is 20 from Peter Giovannotto. 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 Peter Giovannotto: Just a clarifying question. How long do I have? 2 3 Veronica Dao: Three minutes. 4 5 Peter Giovannotto: Three minutes. All right. First off, I wasn’t aware I was going to be here at 6 such a momentous meeting. Congratulations. I wish I had known you better. But it’s pretty 7 much impossible to get that many people to show up to a meeting with positive things to say all 8 around the board, so congratulations. Enjoy it. Anyhow, good evening. My name’s Peter 9 Giovannotto. My family’s [been 48:02] in Palo Alto for over 30 years. My parents raised me 10 here. They built a business here. Now I’m raising my kids here. And we are the owners of the 11 3606 and 3781 El Camino Real sites and we’re all set to create about 500 new apartment homes 12 via the builder’s remedy process, which was kind of the only route that was available to us at 13 the time. But we were very excited to hear about our sites being added to the expanded El 14 Camino Real Focus Area. But as our letter noted, which my brother sent in earlier before the 15 prior meeting, there are three standards that block this pathway for us. The first being that 70 16 percent lot coverage cap, which it looks like staff has done a great job and recommended that 17 move up. And the 10-foot step-back above 55 feet and also there seems to be some wording 18 for a catch-all issue that’s kind of buried inside the staff recommendations. So first on the lot 19 coverage, we do echo the staff’s recommendation, the 80 percent maximum coverage. 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 It seems like a small shift but it actually makes a massive positive impact on the site. On the 2 step-back, a 10-foot step-back eliminates on our projects a minimum of 24 units. And it also 3 shrinks dozens of other units on the site, making them into somewhat cramped boxes to keep 4 those units and minimize the lost units. We would suggest either a 2-foot step-back or no step-5 back and instead just encourage material changes to the 55-foot height. And our letter has 6 photos that show examples of successful projects using both methods. And lastly, staff 7 recommends, “Tying the focus areas to other development standards and design criteria.” So 8 the base district rules is kind of what we read in there. And this would certainly create a 9 Pandora’s box of issues if that − the standards – other development standards are leading 10 rather than the focus area leading the development standards and that may result in the loss of 11 all benefits to us of being in the focus area. So we would recommend that the focus area 12 standards control over the base district standards. So in short, please support the 80 percent lot 13 coverage, a low to no step-back approach, and a focus area-led standards so that projects like 14 ours have a chance in the focus area. Thank you. 15 16 Chair Chang: Thank you very much. Who’s our first Zoom speaker? 17 18 Veronica Dao: First on Zoom is from Liz Gardner. 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. Liz Gardner: Hi. Can I go after this next person? Sorry, I’m just pulling into park. Is that okay? 1 Thank you. 2 3 Chair Chang: Yes, please be safe. And we’ll move on to the next person. 4 5 Veronica Dao: Next is from Laura Bowser. 6 7 Laura Bowser: Hello. My name is Laura Bowser and I’m with Sand Hill Property Company. We 8 ground lease several properties within the Stanford Research Park, including 3300 El Camino, 9 which is part of the El Camino Focus Area. And we are currently working to develop a mixed use 10 project at 3300 as staff mentioned. I’d like to thank staff and the Planning Commission for your 11 efforts to update the focus area and increase the feasibility of developing housing. We support 12 the proposed revisions to the focus area and agree that they will help deliver more housing to 13 the city. There are a few additional development standards that we feel should be addressed, 14 as we noted in the letter we submitted for this meeting. The first is removing the Hansen Way 15 Special Setback. The existing setback is no longer necessary as Hansen Way already provides a 16 Class 2 [inaudible 51:46] buffered bike lane, which is recommend – the recommended bike 17 facility within the City’s pending bike/ped transportation update. Therefore, the 50-foot 18 setback along Hansen is no longer required and detrimental to developing housing. We 19 recommend reducing it to match the proposed El Camino Real setback to create better 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. activation at the corner of El Camino and Hansen Way. The second update we request is to 1 clarify that the rear and interior setbacks do not apply to below-grade structures. This would 2 allow parking to be maximized on the property. 3 4 Given that many of the focus area properties are relatively narrow, maximizing the amount of 5 parking will lead to the ability to build more housing within the provided setbacks above grade. 6 And the last update we request is for the Commission to revisit the 20 percent BMR on-site 7 requirement. As staff noted in the report, the 20 percent BMR requirement was originally 8 adopted as an alternative to builder’s remedy projects, which now only need to provide 13 9 percent of units as low income. As a 20 percent BMR project requirement penalizes developers 10 who have chosen to work with the City through a full entitlement process and rather than go 11 through builder’s remedy. It’s also been repeatedly shown by cities in the Bay area that a 20 12 percent BMR requirement creates infeasible projects, and that’s especially true in the current 13 economic conditions with high costs and interest rates. And we’re unaware of any economic 14 analysis that’s been done to show that a 20 percent BMR requirement is feasible. And lastly, 15 just the [inaudible 53:33] of the City has the ability to pay an in-lieu fee for affordable housing 16 and we request that the focus area be held to the same standard. Thank you for your time and 17 I’ll stay online in case you have any questions. 18 19 Chair Chang: Thank you. Okay. 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 Veronica Dao: Next is Liz Gardner. 2 3 Liz Gardner: Hi. Thank you for – hello? 4 5 Chair Chang: Yes, we hear you. 6 7 Liz Gardner: Oh, okay. Yeah. Thank you for taking – waiting there. My name is Liz Gardner 8 again. I am actually a neighbor of Sand Hill Properties. I reside at 2500 El Camino Real, which is 9 a very low income Mayfield-related private property owner – very low income, LIHTC tax credit 10 building. I am here to speak on behalf of the low-income working class in the city. I do not 11 believe that the 20 percent low-income threshold should be reduced. It’s hard living on El 12 Camino Real. I do feel lucky with my family and my kids to have actually attended the Palo Alto 13 Unified School District. We are a complex, a very hard-working people, who struggle to make 14 ends meet, but we are also part of this community. It doesn’t seem like it because we are on 15 Stanford Research Park but as a neighbor of Sand Hill Properties, who deal in multi-million, 16 billion dollars’ worth of properties, I beg to differ. I think that we need more affordability in this 17 town, much more, so that the jobs to housing [imbalances 55:22] − more balance and people 18 are able to work and/or live where they work or live where they send their kids to school or 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. work where their kids go to preschools and all sorts of things. So it’s critical dur-, in this crisis as 1 well. 2 3 So I also am sort of interested in why there’s all these daylight planes and setbacks and whether 4 we should have setbacks or whether there’s the setback is too far, it’s overcrowding, which is 5 definitely an issue. We need housing – infill housing. We need housing in the centers of our 6 cities. Along the El Camino Real focus area, there’s not a lot of amenities. It’s not really close to 7 shopping. Maybe it’s close to the transit, which is good but we are dealing with – especially at 8 Mayfield Place on Stanford Research Park is a lot – and a lot of this does come from Sand Hill. I 9 hate to say – and trying to be a good neighbor here but please address the light, air, and noise 10 pollution as well. I would like to see that really incorporated. As a resident of Mayfield, we deal 11 with a lot of light. These are families who go – work all hours or have – get up, get their kids to 12 school. There’s just far too much light, air, and noise pollution, especially in this area of the 13 Stanford Research Park. So I thank you for making changes tonight and I [wind up 56:55] there 14 and thank you. Bye. 15 16 Chair Chang: Thank you, Ms. Gardner. Okay. So I think Commissioner Summa needs to leave for 17 a moment and we’ll let you know when we’re ready to come back. Okay. So the way we’re 18 going to handle this item is address the items first. Ms. Eisberg, if you could pull up the – I think 19 it’s the last slide that had the bullets of the things that we need to cover. Okay. So 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 is allowed to participate with respect to 1D, the special setbacks on 1 Hansen Way as well as Item Number 3, the future rezoning of Olive. So what we should do is 2 then cover 1A through C as well as Item Number 2, and then we can bring Commissioner 3 Summa back. And I think that that should be pretty easy to do because 1D and Number 3 are 4 kind of separate items. So I – and so I think in terms of clarifying questions, to the extent that 5 we can kind of save any ques-, clarifying questions as they relate to Hansen Way or 470 Olive. If 6 we can just hold those until Commissioner Summa rejoins us, that would be best. So let’s do 7 clarifying questions first and then we’ll go into whatever rounds of comments we need to do. 8 Anybody have clarifying questions? Commissioner Ji. 9 10 Commissioner Ji: Thank you, Chair. Ms. Eisberg, do you mind going back to the map of the 11 different tiers? I think – yeah. So I know that we’re trying to avoid questions about Olive but I 12 just want to better understand which map – you have a little bit of discrepancy between the 13 different maps that you have about these zones. So on this one here on Slide 4, you have 14 included this piece about Olive as well as the whatever the shaded zone below it is and then on 15 the map on Slide 7, it – you’ve got a different diagram for this. 16 17 Chair Chang: So Commissioner Ji, just to clarify, you’re saying that 470 Olive is represented 18 differently on the two maps. Is that what you’re saying? 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 Ji: Well act-, my first question is just whether or not we should be – is that 1 included in your – in this Tier 2, Ms. Eisberg, on Slide 4 or wherever you were? I just want to 2 better understand that first. 3 4 Jean Eisberg: Yes. So part of this exercise was consolidating – looking at lots that had common 5 ownership. So if there was a site on El Camino and it had common ownership in the rear similar 6 to this cluster of sites here or across the street, some of the builder’s remedy sites, then we 7 took those sites all together as a group. So for the purposes of this exercise, yes, 470 Olive was 8 included. 9 10 Commissioner Ji: Thank you. And then can you go to − I believe you had mentioned about the 11 70 percent front setback. This is a different question now. About the 70 percent front setback. 12 Can you just help me better understand what that actually looks like? 13 14 Jean Eisberg: So the way it is now, on the right-hand side, there’s a upper story step-back, and 15 so above 55 feet, currently it’s an average setback of 20 and a minimum of 6. It’s not shown 16 here on the diagram but the idea is above 55 feet, there would be a step-back of at least 10 17 feet, if you can see what I’m drawing here. 18 19 Chair Chang: Yes, we can see it. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Jean Eisberg: Okay. 2 3 Commissioner Ji: Wait. So where does the 70 percent come in? Or is – are you just saying 4 what… 5 6 Jean Eisberg: Oh, I apologize. So across the – so then if we look at it across the front, across 70 7 percent of the façade, you would have to have at least that 10-foot setback. The remaining 30 8 percent of the façade could extend all the way out to the – either the property line or the front 9 of the façade depending on how it’s defined. 10 11 Commissioner Ji: Okay. Thank you. Sh-, that’s it for now. 12 13 Chair Chang: Okay. I don’t see other lights but I have a couple clarifying questions. Okay. So 14 when you were speaking, you were setting the context for the El Camino Real Focus Area as an 15 alternative to State Density Bonus. A public comment − which is what I understood it to be. A 16 public commentor mentioned it being an alternative to builder’s remedy, which it sort of is but I 17 wanted to ask in the context of Packet Page – the packet page that has all the affordability on it. 18 19 Commissioner Ji: [Inaudible 62:39]. 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: Packet Page 208. Is that right? Yes, my packet – my pages are sticking together 2 Sorry about that. Yeah. So Packet Page 208 where there’s new affordability requirements for 3 builder’s remedy. Are those new affordability requirements linked in any way to Density Bonus, 4 specifically? 5 6 Jean Eisberg: No. So those are specific to – those are written into the Housing Accountability 7 Act section of the State Statute. And so that applies to builder’s remedy projects. Now a project 8 that is also proposing under State Density Law instead of the El Camino Focus Area may have a 9 different or overlapping set of affordability requirements. 10 11 Chair Chang: Okay. But nothing in AB 1893 changes the incentives offered for State Density 12 Bonus? 13 14 Jean Eisberg: No, I don’t believe so. 15 16 Chair Chang: Okay. Thank you. And then you had mentioned when you were showing the map 17 of the Tier 1 sites, that there was one site that wasn’t originally Tier 1 but has been included in 18 this recommendation because it has an SB 330 application. Are there any other sites Tier 1 – 19 sorry. In Tiers 2 through 4 that also have SB 330 applications? Or is that the only one? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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 Jean Eisberg: I don’t know about SB 330. There could be other SB 330 preliminary applications. 2 3 Chair Chang: All right. Builder’s… 4 5 Jean Eisberg: But… 6 7 Chair Chang: …re-… 8 9 Jean Eisberg: Okay. 10 11 Chair Chang: …remedy, yeah. 12 13 Jean Eisberg: No, all the builder’s remedy applications are included either in the existing focus 14 area or the proposed. 15 16 Chair Chang: Great. Okay. Thank you. And then finally − I can’t remember which slide it was but 17 it was the one where you had a schematic of the office develop-, of the 3300 El Camino Real 18 proper-, proposed development. Right. And you said sort of something quickly about how the 19 office building – that’s the last bullet right there. As drafted, the Ordinance would allow the 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. office building to take advantage of new standards. Okay. And so are you saying that the 1 current staff recommendation doesn’t limit the height of office? 2 3 Jean Eisberg: The current – the Draft Ordinance does not limit the height of the office – well 4 limits the height of the office to 85 feet. So would allow an office to extend up to 85 feet and 5 would allow the entire development site to build out as 4.0 FAR and does not… 6 7 Jennifer Armer: And… 8 9 Jean Eisberg: …stipulate the breakdown of residential versus office except that it does require a 10 housing development project. So that means it has to be two-thirds residential. 11 12 Jennifer Armer: And… 13 14 Male: All right. [Inaudible 65:51]. 15 16 Jennifer Armer: To clarify, it’s because our regulations don’t specify that mixed use has to be 17 vertical mixed use. That it could be horizontal mixed use. And so if it was developed as one 18 project – if it was just the office building, then no, it would not be able to take advantage of 19 these rules. And I believe – Albert, did you have something to add. 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: Yeah, I just wanted to put a pin in that response because I want to go and check. 2 My understanding was that the office component is still limited to .4 FAR. And really what we’re 3 talking about here − with the idea that the office could use that new standard, 85-foot height. If 4 the developer wanted to build this project so that residential was on the bottom and office was 5 the top floor, that would be possible. But my understanding, and I’ll double check this, is that 6 the office is still limited to .4 FAR. 7 8 Chair Chang: Okay. Thank you. I think that’s a pretty important piece of information and 9 appreciate you coming back to us with the clarification because everything that I understand in 10 terms of – I don’t think anybody’s envisioning 85-foot high office buildings when − in any of the 11 prior discussions either here at the PTC or City Council that I heard. So we – yeah, that’s a 12 pretty big footnote. Thank you. That’s it for my clarifying questions. So with that, why don’t we 13 do – oh, sorry. Commissioner Hechtman. 14 15 Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. Yeah. So I wanted to really follow up on the questioning 16 that the Chair had about AB 1893, to make sure I understood it, and that is this concept that we 17 have. As I’m understanding it, our current plan for this El Camino area requires a 20 percent 18 BMR and that was based on State Law at the time. State Law has now changed through AB 19 1893 to give this tiering approach where instead of 20 percent BMR, you could go with 7 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 if those are extremely low or 10 percent or 13 as described on 208. What I’m trying to 1 understand is–the concept in the staff report is do we want to lower our 20 percent to match 2 up to 1893, so that developers will use our ordinance rather than State Law. And what I’m not 3 entirely clear on is when we say rather than State Law, are we only talking about builder’s 4 remedy projects of which there are now a finite number in this corridor because the window 5 has closed or are we potentially talking about those existing building – builder’s remedy 6 projects in Tier 1 plus this one other one or the existing areas. Or are we talking about other 7 possible State Law Housing projects that could come in under SB 330, for example? 8 9 Jennifer Armer: I believe we are speaking about both. 10 11 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 12 13 Jennifer Armer: And in terms of this discussion of potentially modifying this percentage and this 14 requirement, the one additional thing that I wanted to add is this 20 percent requirement for 15 affordability, that was kind of the core and purpose of this program of the El Camino Real Focus 16 Area. But given the public comment that we’d received and the knowledge of the kind of 17 changing rules for builder’s remedy, we did feel it was important. as part of this discussion. that 18 it be thought through in terms of your recommendation to Council. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. Then just to I understand and appreciate that but just to close 1 this, an applicant could apply tomorrow for a housing development in this corridor using a tool 2 like SB 330, and that project might include 7 percent affordability at extremely low income – for 3 extremely low income households. 4 5 Jennifer Armer: No. Not – this is the new categories for builder’s remedy. Because the City has 6 adopted and had certified the Housing Element, we would not be receiving builder’s remedy 7 applic-, any new builder’s remedy applications until the next cycle. 8 9 Commissioner Hechtman: Right. And I’m… 10 11 Jennifer Armer: Yeah. 12 13 Commissioner Hechtman: …trying to reference a State Law… 14 15 Jennifer Armer: Oh. 16 17 Commissioner Hechtman: …outside of builder’s remedy. So any of the other laws within the 18 HAA that provide a shortcut through the City’s process that aren’t builder’s remedy. In other 19 words, I’m trying… 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 Jennifer Armer: Yeah. 2 3 Commissioner Hechtman: …to figure if the universe of things we are trying to incentivize is just 4 those builder’s remedy projects that are already before us or if we are needing to concern 5 ourselves with other new projects coming in that cannot use our ordinance that we need to 6 incentivize to use our ordinance. 7 8 Jennifer Armer: I’m going to invite Mr. Yang to join this discussion to see if he has anything to 9 add as well. I think we are looking at Density Bonus Law as well and this is an alternative to 10 that. It’s just that these percentages don’t apply to Density Bonus Law, I don’t believe. But I will 11 leave that to Mr. Yang to clarify. 12 13 Albert Yang: Yeah, so these are − the percentages here are for the builder’s remedy. For Density 14 Bonus Law, someone could provide these percentages and they would get a Density Bonus 15 according to the table that’s in the Density Bonus Law. In terms of what are we targeting with 16 this program, I think it’s both. This program started off and in its current form was largely 17 addressing a builder’s remedy project at 3150 El Camino. And I – we are still targeting builder’s 18 remedy projects with it but we are also looking more broadly at projects that would other-, 19 don’t have the builder’s remedy available and only have Density Bonus as their alternative. So 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. one concept that I think isn’t discussed in the staff report but the Commission may want to 1 consider is a different standard for a project that has a pending builder’s remedy application. 2 3 Chair Chang: Does that answer your question, Commissioner Hechtman? 4 5 Commissioner Hechtman: It does. Thank you. 6 7 Chair Chang: Okay. Commissioner Peterson. 8 9 Commissioner Peterson: Thank you. So I have something of a procedural question. Having a 10 background with the – as the countywide investigator for labor standards, when I see this, one f 11 the first questions that comes to my mind is how is this enforced? Is this a State enforcement 12 that they have the investigator − that’s the builder’s remedy investigators? Is it statewide? Is 13 there a county investigator? Is it city? Who’s responsible for enforcing that once these are built, 14 that these units actually exist? 15 16 Albert Yang: At the affordability levels? 17 18 Jennifer Armer: Yeah, we would require that they be deed restricted to those affordability 19 levels as [inaudible 74:39]. 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 Peterson: So there’s nobody that actually goes in and checks to make sure 2 they’re there? 3 4 Albert Yang: So after – let’s see. Certainly, before occupancy, often before a building permit is 5 issued, we’ll enter into an agreement that gets recorded on the property that requires a certain 6 number of units to be offered at restricted prices. And then all of those units are typically 7 administered by the City’s BMR administrator, Alta Housing. And Alta Housing maintains a list 8 of those units and they maintain wait lists of candidates to fill those units and they make sure 9 people are qualified and go and fill those units. 10 11 Commissioner Peterson: And a follow-up que-, do we – because I mean at the county, my job 12 was − the [inaudible 75:37] on the floor at McDonald’s − was to make sure that those were 13 there. Is there somebody actually assigned this task? 14 15 Chair Chang: Yeah. 16 17 Commissioner Peterson: Or is this… 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: Alta Housing is assigned the task. So in short, nobody can – Alta Housing, for 1 example, or any other administrator who would enter into agreement with, is the party who 2 validates the tenants. So a tenant cannot take occupancy unless the administrator has validated 3 them at the appropriate affordability level. 4 5 Commissioner Peterson: [Inaudible 76:05]. 6 7 Chair Chang: So that’s the enforcement. 8 9 Commissioner Peterson: Which is usually the lightest level of enforcement. 10 11 Chair Chang: Which – I’m sorry, I didn’t understand what you said. 12 13 Commissioner Peterson: That’s usually the lightest level of enforcement that’s available. 14 15 Chair Chang: I’m not sure I’m following because I believe Alta Housing also has to validate the 16 income every year. 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 Peterson: There’s a process. But I mean it’s just in the tiers of enforcement, 1 that’s usually the light – the lower end of enforcement. That’s what I was asking, so it answers 2 the question. 3 4 Chair Chang: Okay. All right. So I was thinking about how to best approach this and I think what 5 we should do is just go ahead and comment on any – Ms. Eisberg, could you please pull up that 6 slide again. The one with the topics for discussion. So I was just going to suggest that we each 7 comment on everything except − our thoughts on everything except Hansen and 470 Olive and 8 then depending on the alignment that we see, we may decide to make one or several motions 9 splitting things apart. So let’s go ahead if you have comments. No lights? Anybody? 10 Commissioner Akin? We have Vice-Chair Akin. 11 12 Vice-Chair Akin: Sure. I expected to be next to last in this game. So I’ll run through several of 13 these. I’m disappointed we have to postpone the Tier 2 sites but I think the rationale is sound, 14 so I support that. I like the incentives for lot consolidation. So for affordability, AB 1893 is really 15 disappointing. I’d rather use inclusionary requirements so we don’t segregate people by income 16 level but given the really low requirements there, we may have to establish another standard, 17 and I’m open to that. But even if we don’t, I’d like to support allowing the use of in-lieu fees 18 because I think we’re quite likely to get more units by funding other projects than we would get 19 at these levels. So that would be my take. If you want to establish a standard, fine, but I’d 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. certainly support for – certainly support in-lieu fees. The proposed clarification on the fee 1 waiver also looks good to me. And my remaining comments are about the development 2 standards and those are sufficiently long − that I want to make sure that everybody else has 3 had a chance to speak first before I tackle those. 4 5 Chair Chang: Other comments? Commissioner Ji. 6 7 Commissioner Ji: Thank you, Chair. Like Commissioner – Vice-Chair Akin, I will also postpone 8 my comments on Item 1B, the development regulation changes. I’ll just kind of go line item as 9 well. Personally, looking at the map, I am in support of Tier 1 and Tier 2 and generally I agree 10 with staff that the areas labeled Tier 3 and Tier 4, I would not approve of. So I would say right 11 now I agree with what our previous recommendation was on Item 1A. On Item 1C, I don’t have 12 any specific comments other than if the focus area was created because we want to do 20 13 percent BMR, that’s kind of my preference. And I’m willing to listen to other Commissioners’ 14 opinions on that. And yeah, those are my comments for now. 15 16 Chair Chang: Okay. So it sounds like where we’re headed is we’re going to discuss everything 17 but the development… 18 19 Commissioner Ji: Oh, 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 Chair Chang: …regulations. 2 3 Commissioner Ji: Actually, I have one more. 4 5 Chair Chang: Okay. Yeah, go ahead. 6 7 Commissioner Ji: I actually had a question. Can – maybe – I don’t know if Ms. Eisberg or maybe 8 staff, can someone show me maybe on the lo-, like on the map, how actually big the 10,000 9 square feet is? I just want to get a sense of which lots are already 10,000 square feet. Is that 10 possible? 11 12 Jean Eisberg: I can pull up some maps that we included in the packet in December, if you give 13 me a minute, those segmented by lot size. 14 15 Commissioner Ji: That’d be great. Thank you. And then we can have other people comment 16 while she’s doing that. 17 18 Chair Chang: Yeah. Sure. Nobody else is lighting up their lights. Commissioner Hechtman. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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: Sure. So I’m not entirely following how we’re breaking this out other 1 than the part with and without Commissioner Summa. So I won’t talk about Hansen or Olive 2 Way, all of them. So in no particular order, staff’s suggestion on the limitation of the fee waiver 3 to 80 percent and below, I’m supportive of that. I think what we want to incentivize is more 4 deeply affordable housing in Palo Alto. I’m also supportive of the applicability of an in-lieu fee. I 5 think there may need to be a discussion of whether that can be a complete substitute for any 6 BMR requirement or a partial substitute. There are some circumstances where you provide a 7 whole number of BMRs and any remnant in the calculation as an in-lieu fee. I think that’s to be 8 discussed. And I think I’m supportive of a special BMR rule for our existing builder’s remedy 9 projects that are in this zone, particularly this new Tier 1 plus the one that we match 1893 to 10 give that specific group of developments a level playing field to possibly choose to use our 11 ordinance. I think and then perhaps we can revisit later whether we want these lower numbers, 12 these alternatives provided in 1893 to apply more broadly outside of – just as an incentive to 13 people with builder’s remedy. But for now − and I think this was Mr. Yang’s, not suggestion, but 14 he just mentioned the possibility that we could limit it to applicability to existing builder’s 15 remedy. 16 17 So I think I am supportive of that. I guess I’ll touch on a few of the development regulation 18 changes. I am supportive of the encouragement of assemblage for larger projects and 19 ncentivizing that through the increased I can’t remember if it’s lot coverage or FAR going 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. 70 to 80 percent. But I’m supportive of that. Let’s see. One of the speakers tonight mentioned 1 basement setbacks, which I don’t remember reading much about in the staff report, but I’m 2 interested in hearing staff’s perspective on that and to see if it’s something that they’re ready 3 to talk about tonight and we might have a recommendation on. And then the 10-foot setback 4 above 55 feet, if I’m understanding, this is the setback on the El Camino-facing side. And I don’t 5 understand what we’re getting by requiring that that’s worth more than what we’re giving up 6 by requiring that. And so I’d like to understand what the benefits are. Again, we’re more than 7 55 feet up, so to me that has very little effect on the pedestrian at ground level. It’s not like this 8 is a canyon with every floor stepping back, so I’m in the middle of a big V. I’ve got a solid 55-9 foot wall, pretty far apart. El Camino is very wide. And we’re losing housing units potentially or 10 at a minimum, the size of units by requiring that and so I’d like to understand why that might be 11 a good thing. 12 13 And I’m also curious about what some of the neighboring cities are doing in that regard. What I 14 read in one of the comments before coming tonight was the neighboring cities don’t seem to 15 be using 10 feet. They either have the smaller setback or it’s an architectural treatment that 16 gives the visual look of some kind of change, maybe shadowing or something that makes it look 17 different. But again, if I’m standing on the ground, I don’t really understand how often people 18 are going to be seeing that 60 – 55+ feet up. Those are my initial round comments. Thanks. 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. I don’t see other lights right now, so I’m going to go ahead and give my first- 1 round comments. So I’m just going to go down the list. Packet Page 206 – well first I’ll go – first 2 in order of the staff – of the slide. So the first, on 1A, Proposed Expansion Areas. For right now, I 3 think staff’s rationale for keeping it to Tier 1 and including the additional SB – the additional 4 builder’s remedy site makes perfect sense, so I’m supportive of that. Regarding the 5 development regulation changes, I’m going to go down the list on Packet Page 206. And so it 6 starts with the daylight plane, which I think we’re going to have a lot more discussion about. 7 But I am uncomfortable with the 45-degree daylight plane because we have had recent 8 experience on the PTC with the 45-degree daylight plane, and this one’s actually more 9 aggressive because this one begins at 16 feet rather than at 10 feet, which was our prior 10 experience on the PTC. So I’m hoping that there might be a compromise there because I am 11 supportive of removing the height transition. I think that that is a little bit much given the initial 12 motivation and excitement behind the El Camino Real Focus Area, which was that these 13 properties thus far do not back onto R-1 lots. And so I think we won’t get what we can out of 14 these fairly limited areas in the city where we can develop that don’t affect low-density parcels. 15 16 In terms of the simplified upper story setback, in response to what Commissioner Hechtman 17 said about what we’re getting for this, I think it is an effort by the ARB to avoid sort of the 18 canyon effect. And we will talk about this a little bit more − or as a part of doing an 19 investigation for the next action item on retail nodes, when I drove up and down El Camino, 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. what I noticed is that, at least south of Palo Alto, the El Camino setback is much larger than 1 what it is in Palo Alto. The minute you cross into Palo Alto, we have our 12-foot sidewalk, and 2 the buildings are much closer, whereas on the Mountain View side of the border, I don’t know 3 what the setback is but it's giant and that’s for everything, for commercial, for retail. It’s all very 4 far set back. And so it would not surprise me that other cities don’t have the same requirement 5 because their section of El Camino feels much wider. In addition, looking at the maps, El 6 Camino actually is in fact wider. So you can measure on Google Maps, our section – or the most 7 narrow sections in Palo Alto of El Camino, El Camino is about 90 to 100-feet wide, so it’s not as 8 wide – like the lanes are narrower and the street is narrower than certain other cities have. So 9 I’m inclined to just – this is not my area of expertise. 10 11 I don’t know how you avoid the canyon-like feeling. But I don’t want a canyon-like feeling and 12 understand that that is what our residents don’t want − that. So I’m inclined to just go with 13 what the ARB is recommending because I don’t know better. And I do think that it may help 14 with some of the flexibility that is needed because I understand that the current requirement of 15 20 feet really causes a lot of loss and is also difficult. I believe the public comments – some of 16 them said that having a 20-foot kind of like flat expanse creates engineering challenges and 17 etc., so I’m hopeful that this will allow for more flexibility while trying to mitigate the canyon-18 like effect. I’m supportive of standardizing setbacks, but I did have a question for staff about the 19 setbacks. And what I – if I refer to Packet Page 213, which is where it talks about front, rear, 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 side – streetside setbacks – sorry. Rear, interior, and front and streetside setbacks, I 1 wanted to – we’ve seen before for certain projects where depending on what is decided what is 2 the front or the street address of the lot, that it may change the direction of what a rear 3 setback is or a side setback is. 4 5 And what I’m trying to – what I want to ask staff is are there any parcels that are being 6 considered for addi-, at addition whether now or later to the focus area where we might find 7 ourselves in the situation where what we’re thinking of as the rear setback, which is the side 8 opposite from El Camino Real and is most likely to abut a very different zone – underlying zone 9 – whether there’s any properties where that would in fact become a side yard instead of a rear 10 yard. And I don’t know – maybe staff doesn’t have the answer to that right now. [Inaudible 11 92:26]. 12 13 Jean Eisberg: So what I… 14 15 Chair Chang: Yeah. 16 17 Jean Eisberg: Maybe I can try to answer. So the way it’s proposed, the rear and anterior yards 18 have the same requirements. So if you had a condition where you might think of as the abutting 19 rear setback is actually an anterior yard, the same standard will apply. So it’s just the front and 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 street side where you would end up with either way a street side condition even if the front 1 was not El Camino. 2 3 Chair Chang: Okay. That makes a lot of sense. I think that addresses my concern actually. Okay. 4 And then if it’s on El Camino, the El Camino 12-foot [inaudible 93:10] sidewalk is in place, so 5 that we’re never going to end up with a 5-foot setback when we don’t want one, is that 6 correct? 7 8 Jean Eisberg: That’s right. 9 10 Chair Chang: Okay. Thank you. I think that addresses – so then I’m supportive of standardizing 11 the setbacks. I think that simplifies things a lot. I’m supportive of the incentives for 12 consolidation. And to add that to that − this is just me brainstorming – I haven’t really thought 13 about the implications. But I wonder about the comment with in-lieu fees for affordable 14 housing, if to provide additional incentive for consolidation, we might want to do something 15 allowing like a greater percentage of in-lieu fees instead of inclusionary for lot consolidation or 16 something like that. Because we get a lot more out of consolidated lots and I think maybe 17 there’s something that we can do to play with that. And I’m also supportive of providing the 18 incentives for BMR units as long as they’re the 80 percent of AMI, which is what is currently the 19 affordability level set for the focus area. Now if we change things, per the suggestion that 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. look on Page 208, at the new AB 1893 numbers, then I might be less supportive of doing that 1 because I do agree with what Commissioner Hechtman said that we want to incentivize the 80 2 percent AMI. And that’s where we would want to waive fees. 3 4 I’m also open to – again, I’m not quite sure I understand the implications but I’m open to 5 Commissioner Hechtman’s suggestion about changing the affordable housing requirements for 6 just the builder’s remedy projects. And so my question of staff is do you know which of the 7 parcels – could − would you be able to pull up the map and just give us a sense of which of the 8 parcels that are currently either in El Camino Real Focus Area or going to be proposed to add 9 this round are builder’s remedy projects? 10 11 Jean Eisberg: Yes. And I’ll ask if I make a mistake here, please, staff, correct me. So the stars are 12 showing submitted applications, builder’s remedy or not. There are four builder’s remedy 13 applications, I understand, and there’s one here, one here, here, and here. 14 15 Chair Chang: Okay. That’s super helpful. I mean – so with respect to – again, I haven’t thought 16 through this or like done the analysis myself but the part that gives me heartburn is calling the 17 120 percent AMI units that are small, affordable. Because I have a bee in my bonnet about that 18 issue. I’ve discussed it at length for other projects. And so other than that, I’m definitely 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. supportive. But I just need to think a little bit about that one piece. So – okay, those are my 1 comments, my very lengthy comments. Commissioner Templeton. 2 3 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. I’d be interested in you taking the time to be a little 4 clearer about that particular issue if you do want us to – next time you talk. Because I 5 remember it but I don’t remember all the details and [inaudible 97:08] went over it really 6 quickly. Anyway, for all of the things that we’ve discussed so far tonight, the upper story 7 setback is the one that I think is surprising me in terms of controversy. I will say that you’re 8 right about Mountain View having the luxury of space but you can go further north and other 9 areas don’t have that, that are a little bit more comparable to us. And to Commissioner 10 Hechtman’s point, at some point, when you’re looking up, then you stop seeing after a certain 11 height. So I like the idea of making sure that we have architectural interests and I do think that 12 with 10 feet, we can have that. I’m a little nervous about losing housing opportunity. If we are 13 actually going to be building that high, it darn well better be housing in there, right? Like we 14 need to have – maximize our yield for that. So I’m thinking about – there’s plenty of ways to 15 address this that would be attractive. But to answer the Chair’s question about how do we 16 make this not feel too much like a block, I think part of the answer would be at street level. 17 18 So having the space at the level where we’re driving where we’re usually looking like first story, 19 second story, where there’s interest, and you can have the property then go back out over 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. as you go further up and it might – we don’t have to legislate that but I’m trying to say there are 1 ways to design this that are more interesting. And a lot of times that entry level is the place 2 where they do choose to put visual interest instead of housing, right? The housing goes further 3 up. So it’s possible for us to get the visual interest that we need without sacrificing too much of 4 housing and possibly – and I don’t know if we were the – would be the ones to do it or if that 5 would be the ARB but possibly have – we need to make sure that people walking down El 6 Camino can enjoy the Palo Alto experience. And what I mean by that is we would like ideally to 7 have larger sidewalks and some vegetation and visual interest and architectural interest and we 8 do want to feel welcoming. So that’s something that we need to think about as we’re designing 9 in our minds what the requirements are for these buildings. It’s not – it wouldn’t work for us 10 anyway to just have a sheer wall of glass from the 10-foot sidewalk from the street, right? 11 That’s not the kind of thing we’d want to see necessarily. 12 13 But what we do want to do as a Commission is maximize the housing tradeoff, balance, 14 whatever you want to call it, when we are approving these special situations, right? We want to 15 make sure that we’re getting the feeling of living and working and being part of Palo Alto when 16 we’re near those parts – those neighborhoods – those new neighborhoods that we’re creating. 17 And there’s not only one way to do that. And we’ve been thinking about it in a pretty limited 18 fashion in terms of what was presented. But I think we can do better. I think we can build 19 something that’s beautiful, that fits here and provides the housing. As you said, we don’t want 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. necessarily to have to build in the lower-density neighborhoods, right? This gives us an 1 opportunity to have more homes and to design this well. So I think we can be flexible and we 2 can encourage the builders, who will take advantage of these new rules and regulations, to 3 build something that fits here and has a lot of homes here. They have told us in public comment 4 that we need to be – we need to not restrict them from building the maximum number of units 5 on the property. Thank you. 6 7 Chair Chang: Commissioner Peterson. 8 9 Commissioner Peterson: I just want to double check, are – is it a good time to bring up a new 10 topic? 11 12 Chair Chang: What’s the new topic? We’re all just commenting on – broadly on this item. 13 14 Commissioner Peterson: Okay. So the question I have is for staff, is the overlay with the 15 Superfund sites and the interaction with housing? Somehow, it seems Superfund and housing. 16 17 Chair Chang: Oh, for that one, I think that we should hold off until Commissioner Summa comes 18 back because that’s specific to Olive. 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 Peterson: [Inaudible 102:38]. 1 2 Chair Chang: And so let’s try and like save that discussion so that she can participate in it as 3 well. 4 5 Commissioner Peterson: Why is it specific to Olive? 6 7 Chair Chang: Well… 8 9 Commissioner Peterson: I guess I’ll find out. 10 11 Chair Chang: I mean if you have questions regarding the El Camino Real Focus Area and 12 Superfund sites in general, sure, go ahead. But Olive is – that’s one of the considerations in the 13 staff report. 14 15 Commissioner Peterson: I guess I’m just signaling staff if we could have those maps available, it 16 would be nice to be able to see. Because I don’t actually know where the boundaries even are 17 or if there are any. Maybe there’s not. 18 19 Jennifer Armer: You can go ahead and send me an email with that request. I want… 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 Peterson: Okay. 2 3 Jennifer Armer: …to make sure that I do get back to you on that. 4 5 Commissioner Peterson: Okay. Thank you. 6 7 Commissioner Templeton: And it is certainly broader than Olive. And I want to make a pun with 8 Olive, Palo Alto. No, I’m just kidding. All right. 9 10 Vice-Chair Akin: Yeah, the – I think the key term you’re looking for is the California-Olive – is it 11 Emerson Plume? I forget. COE. 12 13 Chair Chang: So it sounds like that some commissioners have a second round of comments and 14 I think this would be the time for it because I’m not seeing other lights. That or we can discuss 15 the item that I think is going to – that we – a number of us have indicated that we’d like to 16 discuss more, which is the daylight plane. So. Vice-Chair Akin and then Commissioner Ji. 17 18 Vice-Chair Akin: All right. So yeah, I’d like to talk a bit about development standards and the 19 daylight plane in particular. Ms. Dao, could you bring up the presentation that I sent? 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 Ji: Should we be calling this the commissioner presentation, in addition to the 2 staff presentation? 3 4 Vice-Chair Akin: This is much lower tech than those. 5 6 Male: [Inaudible 104:38]. 7 8 Vice-Chair Akin: All right. So I agree with Chair Chang that it looks like the height transition 9 standard is going away for good reason. What I’ve in-, pardon me. What I’ve included here just 10 for comparisons, so you can see what’s going on. What’s proposed by the ARB is a 45-degree 11 daylight plane, measured at 16 feet above the property line. And that I’ve drawn here in red. 12 Blue is the old height transition standard. And neighbors have raised objections to the 45-13 degree daylight plane in other cases. So I wanted to try and find something that might be a 14 compromise between these two that we could still argue provided for viable projects. So I 15 looked at a 30-degree daylight plane, also measured at 16 feet above the property line, and 16 that’s the green mark you see here. I think there are really two notable differences between 17 the 30 and the 45-degree options here. One is that the 45-degree daylight plane reaches 36-18 foot height right at the setback limit, right at 20 feet from the property line; while the 30-19 degree plane only reaches 27 feet. So that’s probably the difference between having three 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. stories or two stories right at the setback limit. And I think that would be a big difference for 1 people who are in the adjacent low-density residential zones. The other big difference is that 2 the 45-degree plane hits maximum height, 85 feet here, in just 69 feet from the property line. 3 And that’s really quite a bulk close by. 4 5 While the 30-degree plane reaches 85 feet about 120 feet from the property line. So that’s 6 substantially more roomy. After that point, both options allow the same amount of 7 construction. So the real difference is in that first 120 feet. So let’s have the next slide, please. 8 So I’m not going to spend much time on this. This shows you how much buildable volume there 9 is for each of those same three options. I should explain the numbers at the bottom are the 10 distance from the property line. All right, let’s go to the last slide now. This shows you the ratio 11 of the other two options versus the 45-degree daylight plane. So if the – if you plotted the 45-12 degree daylight plane, it’d be a red line up at the top and the numbers on the vertical axis here 13 are percentages. So this is how much of the largest option you get depending on how deeply 14 you build into the lot. What strikes me about this is that around 200 feet into the lot, the 30-15 degree daylight plane gives you 90 percent of what you could get from the 45-degree daylight 16 plane and it just goes up from there. One of the places these standards would apply is the 17 Creekside lot. So that lot is 370 feet deep. So there is a lot of room there and a 30-degree 18 daylight plane is sufficient to build about 95 percent of what you could build with a 45-degree 19 daylight plane. 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 And it offers a better job of reducing the impacts on the low-density residential properties that 2 are close to the property line. So if a 45-degree daylight plane is viable, then I think I would 3 argue that so is the 30. And it offers more accommodation to the nearby properties. One other 4 factor in this is the upper story setback. So my original thought was well, perhaps you would 5 want to trade off eliminating the upper story setback in order to make the 30-degree daylight 6 plane even more attractive but those two things don’t have to be connected. So they can be 7 treated independently. So I’ve examined just a few options. There are plenty of others but I 8 wanted to throw these out here with the actual numbers and the drawings, so that you could 9 see what some of these other options look like. Okay. That’s it for me. 10 11 Chair Chang: So then we’re going to hear from Commissioner Ji, then Templeton, then 12 Hechtman. 13 14 Commissioner Ji: Thank you. Ms. Eisberg, did you get a chance to pull up those lot site – lot 15 map? Maybe wrong slide? 16 17 Chair Chang: Ms. Eisberg, we see Slide 16, which is a list – there we go. 18 19 Commissioner Ji: Okay. 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: Yeah. 2 3 Commissioner Ji: I think it’s just lagging. 4 5 Jean Eisberg: Yes. So this was the map that was in the packet in December and it breaks down 6 parcel sizes; it doesn’t show you exactly what you’re looking for but 10,000 square feet is just a 7 little under .25 acres. So a 10,000 square foot lot is this lightest taupey color. It’s going to be 8 under that limit, if I zoom in a little bit. So these darker taupey colors are over 10,000 or 11,000 9 square feet and the lightest are under. 10 11 Commissioner Ji: Okay. Thank you. That is helpful. I’m – okay. I am in – I just want to say that I 12 am in favor of providing incentives based on this. Thank you. I guess I’ll also now just comment 13 on each of the items on Packet Page 206, like my fellow commissioners. On the daylight plane, I 14 agree with Chair Chang that the 45 is a little bit uncomfortable but I am pretty excited about 15 Vice-Chair Akin’s diagram. Maybe we should be having more commissioner presentations in the 16 future featuring Vice-Chair Akin. But I think I’m pretty open to the idea of the 30-degree 17 daylight plane given that it already includes about 90 percent – 95 percent of buildable area 18 and personally I already do live behind a building that does use a 45-degree daylight plane. And 19 I ha-, it’s a couple stories tall and so I am really empathetic towards not having the 45-degree 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. right behind an R-1 or someone’s residential neighborhood. Regarding the height tra-, so yeah − 1 so – and kind of in tandem with that, I would be in support of removing the height transitions. 2 Now going over the upper story setback, I want to comment – and I think I read this 3 somewhere in the staff report or in Ms. Eisberg’s previous presentations, but I did see that the 4 height in Mountain View is 65 feet and in Los Altos, it’s 60 feet. 5 6 And that may contribute to the feeling that you’re able to have more of a feeling of it not being 7 as much of a canyon given that the building is a lower of the – than the height that we’re 8 providing here. And personally, I’ll defer to the ARB’s expertise on the upper story setback. In 9 their [extent of 113:34] discussion from their meeting in December, they’d expressed this 10-10 foot setback at 55 feet with the 70 percent façade, and I am inclined to believe that that as 11 well. And then I had a question about on Packet Page 213, on the rear and anterior side 12 setbacks. It says here that the base regulation is based on Code 18.13.040. I’m just trying to 13 understand − and this is a question probably for staff. What is the most – like what is the most 14 restrictive and least restrictive for the zones provided on the right, right now anyway? So for 15 example, I think my question is if we’re going to set everything abutting a low-density 16 residential 20 feet, what’s the range of possibility that is for – if you were to build it right now, 17 for that section for the abutting and other residential zone – basically for each of these 18 subsections. I just want to know what we’re changing it from to this value here. 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. Jean Eisberg: Yes. So what we’re trying to do here is standardize the setbacks for the focus area 1 and what we’re showing in the right-hand column are the setbacks that currently apply to the 2 CS, CN, CC zones. And that is generally the zone you see along El Camino and in the focus area; 3 however, we do have a site that’s zoned Research Park (RP), and within the Research Park, 4 there are 20-foot setbacks required everywhere. So that – for that parcel, that’s an example of 5 a setback that would be going from 20 feet at the streetside and the front and the rear and the 6 anterior to these setbacks that is shown here. 7 8 Commissioner Ji: Thank you. That’s helpful. So just to clarify, is that the only instance that we’ll 9 see exceptions? Or what is the range, right? So for example, let’s say – I don’t know. There’s 10 another zone that says that we could [inaudible 115:37] against that – against low-density 11 residential has a 50-foot setback. Like I’m just trying to understand what we’re changing from 12 to whatever the set is here. 13 14 Jean Eisberg: All the other sites in the focus area that are on – there’s some PC Zones on El 15 Camino, so that’s a little bit different and would vary. And then the RM Zones are generally on 16 the back side of – like they don’t front on El Camino; they’re on the back side of the 17 commercial-zoned parcel. So those setbacks could currently be 10 or 20 feet on the RMs. I 18 would have to look it up actually. But some of those RM Zones – and I could tell you might be 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. changing but it wouldn’t be the front − it wouldn’t be any of the front setbacks. It would be a 1 rear or an anterior or streetside yard. 2 3 Commissioner Ji: So the answer of the question is it’s – the only main one is the RP Zone? 4 5 Chair Chang: No, I think she said she was going to look it up. It… 6 7 Jean Eisberg: Yeah, I’m going to… 8 9 Chair Chang: Which vary for some of the RMs because the setback for like a medium-density or 10 higher-density set-, might be changing from [inaudible 116:58]. So she’ll look it up. 11 12 Commissioner Ji: And then… 13 14 Jean Eisberg: Yeah, I can [look it up 117:00]. 15 16 Commissioner Ji: …another question also. I think, Chair, you had mentioned something about 17 12-feet sidewalk and then 5 seats – 5-feet streetside setback, how do those interplay? 18 19 Chair Chang: I think staff has it figured out. I mean maybe staff… 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 Ji: So… 2 3 Chair Chang: …should answer. 4 5 Commissioner Ji: Oh, sorry. So I guess my question is – so it’s like 12 feet of sidewalk and then a 6 5-feet setback beyond the 12-feet sidewalk? No? 7 8 Jean Eisberg: No, so the El Ca-, on El Camino, there’s a requirement that the setback can vary 9 but it needs to create an effective sidewalk width of 12 feet. So depending on where the 10 property line lands, it just – it requires a 12-foot sidewalk and the proper-, excuse me, the 11 property line could land somewhere in that sidewalk and maybe you have some kind of public 12 access easement if you needed it. The streetside setback, which would typically be around the 13 corner on a street that’s perpendicular to El Camino, would be a 5-foot setback. 14 15 Commissioner Ji: I see. Okay. That’s helpful. Thank you. I think those are all of my comments. 16 Thank you. 17 18 Chair Chang: While we’re asking about the setbacks and the variations, for the streetside 19 setback, was it – what was it before? H-, or is it – or what’s the range that it was before? Like – 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 right now we’re saying it’s going to be just a uniformed 5 feet for any street that 1 comes off of El Camino, it’d be a 5-feet setback on that side. What would it have been? 2 3 Jean Eisberg: Well so that’s the general – that’s the setback that applies in the CN, CC, and CS 4 Zone. So for most of those parcels, that’s the current streetside setback; however, for that RP 5 Zone − the RP Zone otherwise requires a 20-foot setback. So these focus area standards modify 6 that and say streetside setback on the RP can be 5 feet instead of 20. 7 8 Chair Chang: Okay. And then the staff recommendation or the ordinance as written on Page 9 213, when it says streetside setback, it’s not making reference to anything like the special 10 setback on Hansen, which we will discuss later, is that correct? 11 12 Jean Eisberg: That’s right. So any other special setbacks would still apply. 13 14 Chair Chang: Okay. Perfect. Thank you. So then we’ll go – Commissioner Ji, did you finish? Okay. 15 So then Commissioner Templeton and then Hechtman. 16 17 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. This is a question for staff. As I listen to the discussions 18 about what we’re going to do here, I hear a lot of differentiation between building next to R-1 19 or low-density housing and other areas. And I’m looking here at the existing focus area, and as 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Vice-Chair Akin mentioned, this includes a major development that is planned in a 1 neighborhood. Why is that there? Why is that part of this original group? Do you have any 2 history about that? Why do we want to – why is staff asking us to create a blanket uniformed 3 zoning along El Camino when some of the properties are commercial and some are abutting 4 low-density housing? 5 6 Jennifer Armer: Well I can start by pointing to the daylight plane as actually one of those 7 regulations that’s being proposed that is specifically for those sites that are adjacent to low-8 density residential. That that is the reason and where this daylight plane would apply. 9 10 Commissioner Templeton: And it… 11 12 Jennifer Armer: [Given 121:00] that there’s… 13 14 Commissioner Templeton: … wouldn’t apply to the other parts of like the northern two-thirds 15 of that? 16 17 Jennifer Armer: I am – I’m going to pass it back to Jean Eisberg to see what else she might have 18 to share on this. But my understanding is that that is particularly meant to add that extra level 19 of protection and transition for those low-density housing neighborhoods. 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: Okay. 2 3 Jean Eisberg: That’s right. And part of this is – was written into the Housing Element Program 4 that we wanted to look at height – that calls for looking at those height transitions or daylight 5 planes. And the setback is sort of similar; there’s a distinction between adjacencies to low-6 density residential in the existing CN, CS, and… 7 8 Commissioner Templeton: I’m sorry to interject here. I’m not asking what a daylight plane is or 9 where are we going to use it. I’m asking why is something that’s adjacent to R-1 being in this 10 existing focus area block? And I know that we’re talking about expanding it but I’d like to 11 understand is it just because it happens to be along El Camino and next to these other things 12 that are… 13 14 Albert Yang: No. It – so I can respond to that. 15 16 Commissioner Templeton: Thanks. 17 18 Albert Yang: The reason it was in the original focus area and it remains is there’s a builder’s 19 remedy project on that site. And so under the builder’s remedy, we wouldn’t be able to enforce 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 transition or daylight plane. And so we created this focus area to try to entice them to 1 provide one. 2 3 Commissioner Templeton: Okay. And would this apply to any other part – would this daylight 4 plane question apply to any other part of this existing focus area? 5 6 Albert Yang: It’s proposed to apply only when there’s an adjacency to low-density residential. 7 8 Commissioner Templeton: A direct adjacency, not like it would be visible from the back yard 9 kind of thing? 10 11 Albert Yang: No. 12 13 Commissioner Templeton: Okay. And then part of this discussion then is these other properties 14 that happen to also be along El Camino, some of which are builder’s remedy, but some of which 15 are just other stuff? 16 17 Albert Yang: Yeah. So those are included because if we were going to be allowing all dense con-, 18 development on one parcel and then maybe two parcels over, it didn’t make sense to skip over 19 the other ones along El Camino. 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: Yeah, this is interesting because it really puts the City in a bind if we 2 were to paint the entirety of El Camino with one brush. And I understand that’s what you’re 3 asking us to do but I think you can also preview from the discussions we’ve been having that 4 that’s going to be a pretty long battle and substantially different than perhaps what you had in 5 mind. So I’m just trying to think this through if we have any kind of ways forward here. And it 6 sounds like we don’t because the idea is to make sure everyone who has a property on El 7 Camino has the same rights to build. But the other side of that coin is everybody who bought a 8 property that they’re living in a block off of El Camino is going to have less rights to how they’re 9 enjoying their property. And so it’s a bit of a difficult situation because we won’t have the 10 ability to customize as necessary and we will all be able to think of a bunch of edge cases. So 11 now I’m thinking about Vice-Chair – is another question for staff. I thought Vice-Chair’s 12 presentation – did you guys vet any of that? Because as Commissioner Ji mentioned, I mean if 13 that’s cool, I think we’re all going to bring our stuff. So like what is the process here for how we 14 make our decisions? Are – is staff providing the kind of analytical tools that we need in order to 15 make good recommendations? 16 17 Albert Yang: So I think Ms. Eisberg can speak to how the 45-degree recommendation came 18 about. I understand it was a compromise to get – for that staff recommendation to be 19 developed. 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 Jean Eisberg: Right. And a lot of it came out of the conversation with the Architectural Review 2 Board who we look to for some of these details and the Planning Commission asked to look at 3 some of these details. So we had a 60-degree daylight plane and the height transition 4 previously, and so again, removing that height transition and creating a more strict daylight 5 plane by reducing it to 45 degrees was seen as that balance between the two. 6 7 Commissioner Templeton: Sorry, I’m not asking about that. I’m asking if we are making 8 recommendations based on the presentation of Vice-Chair Akin or based on staff and if we’re 9 basing it on that presentation, did staff verify and validate what we’re looking at? Which I think 10 he’s a great engineer and I have no reason to doubt him but I can imagine scenarios in the 11 future where this could get out of hand. So I’m just trying to understand what is the 12 relationship here because I’m confident, know this man, I’m sure he has asked you this stuff. 13 And he ended up providing this material because he couldn’t get it from staff. I’m speculating. 14 15 Vice-Chair Akin: Yeah, maybe I should step in in staff’s defense. So we did talk about this at pre-16 meeting and I sent questions in several… 17 18 Commissioner Templeton: 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. Vice-Chair Akin: …days before. So it wasn’t a surprise but I saw this as a way for me to explain 1 to the rest of the Commission what I had in mind. 2 3 Commissioner Templeton: Oh, I think it’s fabulous. And I wish… 4 5 Vice-Chair Akin: But… 6 7 Commissioner Templeton: …that we would have more things like that from staff and that’s sort 8 of where I’m going here. 9 10 Vice-Chair Akin: [Inaudible 127:00]. 11 12 Commissioner Templeton: But I need to know if I can rely on those and to what extent – so if 13 there was a follow-up and we made a decision based on those graphs, there’s no repercussions 14 or consequences for you because you’re not staff, right? How do we own what data we’re 15 basing our decisions and recommendations on? 16 17 Vice-Chair Akin: Yeah, I guess it’s no different from any other quantitative decision that we 18 make, right? We could say we like the 45-degree daylight plane or we like the 60-degree 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. daylight plane better. And in any case, it’s a recommendation that goes on to Council regardless 1 of vetting by staff. 2 3 Commissioner Templeton: Well I understand that and I think that’s – that goes without saying. 4 So I understand that we own our votes. What I’m asking is does staff own the material that’s 5 being presented. And I’m pushing back a little bit on this, not because you did anything wrong, 6 which I actually really like graphs and charts. I love it. I wish we could have more of this but I 7 feel just for a moment – because we’re going to spend the next how many ever hours talking 8 about this particular chart, that I regret that it is not something that staff has provided and/or 9 vetted. 10 11 Jennifer Armer: And I will step in now and just share from a staff’s perspective, There are 12 infinite options for any situation like this and it is very common for us to come to a meeting and 13 to have a suggestion from a member of the public, an advocate, a neighbor, or one of the 14 commissioners and that is why we’ve got a diversity of experience among the Commission. And 15 so staff does work to provide you a staff report with information and data and if we get 16 comments ahead of time, we do work to be prepared to respond to those and have as much 17 information as we can. But we aren’t able to vet everything. And so we may not… 18 19 Male: [Inaudible 129:10]. 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 Jennifer Armer: …be able to confirm the information about 90 percent of the building volume 2 that was in one of those graphs, but the way that it was shown, based on my experience with 3 graphs, does appear to be accurate. And I think it gives − rather than a precise analysis, it still 4 can be used to inform at the discussion among the Commission. And we would be happy to 5 take your recommendation forward with the 30 degree. And if there’s some investigation… 6 7 Commissioner Templeton: We’re not recommending it. We’re discussing it. 8 9 Jennifer Armer: Oh… 10 11 Commissioner Templeton: So just [to be 129:46]… 12 13 Jennifer Armer: …absolutely. 14 15 Commissioner Templeton: …clear about that. So let’s… 16 17 Jennifer Armer: No. If we get there. And… 18 19 Commissioner Templeton: …move on. 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 Jennifer Armer: But if there is work that staff can do to verify something as part of then 2 presenting a recommendation to Council, as we have done in the past, we are happy to do that. 3 4 Commissioner Templeton: So Vice-Chair said he showed you this information before in the pre-5 meeting? 6 7 Male: [Inaudible 130:03]. 8 9 Jennifer Armer: So he did provide us some of his questions in advance, as some of the 10 commissioners have done in the past, when he had questions from reviewing it. And we did 11 take a look – we did talk a little bit about the possibility of the 30-degree daylight plane as he 12 knew that that was something he was going to suggest to me. 13 14 Chair Chang: So I’m also just going to cut in here for a moment. The fact that this is a 15 presentation – I mean I think that’s a bit extreme. It’s not a presentation. It’s a aid just as City 16 Council sometimes has the motion shown up on screen, so that we all know what we’re talking 17 about. This particular idea, I encouraged Commissioner Akin to show it because a picture says a 18 thousand words and ex-, that way he can talk to it. So I don’t think 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: So… 1 2 Chair Chang: …the intention in this case ever was that staff was going to vouch for the 3 information. This is information that Commissioner Akin is vouching for and he is using to try 4 and explain to us why he would put forward a particular recommendation. 5 6 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you, Chair. I completely… 7 8 Chair Chang: Yeah. 9 10 Commissioner Templeton: …understand that. That is not the question I’m asking. What I’m 11 trying to ask is thinking about forecasting forward what Commissioner Ji said is we should all 12 bring it. Should we all? Like is this what we’re going to do now? And so we need to think about 13 that and it’s worth having a little five-minute discussion about it. And so I appreciate your 14 indulgence in having this commentary because I like this kind of discussion and having 15 something factual to base our discussion on is helpful. The question is in these − this day and 16 age, we have to determine what is factual, right? If I didn’t know Commissioner Akin, if it was 17 some person I hadn’t had a relationship with over years of understanding that he’s very good at 18 this stuff, how would I know what to do with this information? So I wanted to put the question 19 out there and spend a few minutes on. We can move on. 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. And we – the staff has also asked us about a retreat and this is 2 something that we could also discuss in a retreat. All right. Where were we? So I think we have 3 Commissioner Hechtman next and then Commissioner Peterson. 4 5 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. Thank you. So I didn’t mention standardized setbacks before 6 from the list on Page 206. I am supportive of standardizing those setbacks. I want to go back for 7 a minute to something I did discuss and that is related to the BMR distribution, which is 8 referenced on 208, and I had earlier commented I like the idea of limiting that to just the 9 existing builder’s remedy projects. Ms. Eisberg showed us a diagram where she circled − I think 10 there were eight stars. She circled four of them. Those are the builder’s remedy projects. The 11 others are for existing applications. And then Mr. Yang made an interesting point in response to 12 something else about how essentially we might want to have a level playing field with the rules 13 on this site should be the same as two doors down. And so I want to sort of amend the thought 14 here that maybe if we’re going to allow this new staggered BMR concept in a limited way, 15 maybe it should be for those eight stars. So the four builder’s remedy projects and the other 16 four applications, which I don’t know if all of those have been determined to be complete. But 17 anyway, it’s something to discuss because we saw they’re all in fairly close proximity. And so I 18 just think it’s something we should discuss. 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. And then the other thing I didn’t talk about earlier was the refined daylight plane. And if – Ms. 1 Dao, if you can pull up Vice-Chair Akin’s diagrams, actually, I think they’re very useful 2 notwithstanding the admittedly open question about their accuracy, which if we were going to 3 use them to make a finite decision, I think that would be important. I really took them as sort of 4 visual brainstorming by the Vice-Chair and I thought it was really interesting and helpful. But I 5 will mention before I go to the third one with the wavier lines – that one, yeah. I’ll start with 6 that one. But I did note that a number of my fellow commissioners indicated that the ARB got it 7 right when they talked about the 10-foot setback on the El Camino side but they got it wrong 8 when they talked about the steeper setback on the backside next to R-1, because they thought 9 it should be less steep, more setback. And, of course, what that does is that basically squeezes 10 the building from both sides, which has the effect of reducing the possible number of units 11 and/or the size of units that can be built there. And so since the purpose of the focus area is to 12 encourage residential units to be built, I think we have to balance these things. 13 14 And I think we have to recognize that all places in Palo Alto where there are R-1 residences are 15 not created equal. And in my house on Channing, I can hear the freeway from my bedroom 16 window. That’s just a product of its location. Other people farther in don’t hear that. But some 17 people are right next to El Camino and El Camino – and it’s always been the place where we’re 18 going to have more massing over time. It’s just the nature of that road that runs from San 19 Francisco to San Diego. So when we’re looking at the daylight plane − and this has been a fertile 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. area for discussion at many, many of our Planning Commission items. But when I look at this –1 what I see at first blush with the visual – with the item we’re looking at now is this – where the 2 green line is, this modified 30 percent line that Vice-Chair Akin has hypothesized for us. And so 3 when you look at this, what you see is, “Well look, you can build” − most of this box is 4 buildable, right? Everything under the green line. And the only thing you can’t build is what’s 5 above the green line. 6 7 Vice-Chair Akin: That’s not what this… 8 9 Commissioner Hechtman: Oh. 10 11 Vice-Chair Akin: …diagram is. 12 13 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 14 15 Vice-Chair Akin: That’s the earlier diagram. 16 17 Commissioner Hechtman: Do you want to take me… 18 19 Vice-Chair Akin: Back 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. 1 Commissioner Hechtman: Well isn’t it the percentages though? 2 3 Vice-Chair Akin: Yes, it’s percentage of… 4 5 Commissioner Hechtman: Right. 6 7 Vice-Chair Akin: …the 45-degree daylight plane. Not the percentage of – well you have to have 8 some denominator for the ratio that you’re choosing to represent. And I could have used the 9 60-degree daylight plane as the basis but I think that one is defunct now. 10 11 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. But if you go back to the wavy one, didn’t you say that the 45 is 12 – isn’t that a flat line across the top? 13 14 Female: Yes. 15 16 Vice-Chair Akin: Yeah. 17 18 Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. 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. Vice-Chair Akin: For – so versus 45 degrees… 1 2 Commissioner Hechtman: Right. 3 4 Vice-Chair Akin: …that would be 100 percent all the way. 5 6 Commissioner Hechtman: So the point I want to make is that what we’re missing here is the 7 difference between costs and profit. And what if I told you that that green line represents the 8 cost to build this thing and the area between the green line and the flat line on top, which is the 9 red line, that’s a builder’s profit. And if they can only build up to the green line, they won’t build 10 because there’s no profit. Now I’m not saying that’s true. I don’t know. But what I do know is 11 we have received a number of public comments from builders that talk about the feasibility of 12 projects. And so I think it’s risky for us to pick any daylight plane without understanding 13 whether we are creating a surmountable or insurmountable obstacle to actually having the 14 development, which is the whole purpose of us spending the last two hours and maybe another 15 1½ hours talking about just this item. So other thing that struck me here, if you go back to the – 16 that one, is what Vice-Chair Akin has done is shown us sort of one possible other way to do this. 17 And there’s a whole range of things in between and on either side and that I think is fascinating. 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. ARB recommended the red line; I’m not wedded to it but I do think in the limited area here of 1 this El Camino Real Focus Area, we should be thinking a little more call it a higher degree than 2 we might in other areas because of the density we’re trying to pack along El Camino. So I don’t 3 know that the answer is 45 or 30. I think it may along El Camino be something in between and I 4 don’t know that we can get there tonight. Because I think we might need more information 5 about finding something that does strike the right balance between protecting the R-1 6 neighbors behind and having a standard that developers can and will build to. 7 8 Chair Chang: So I’m just going to interject right here before we go on to Commissioner 9 Peterson, just to remind us all of the context of this staff recommendation, which is that this 10 would apply only to lots that back onto R-1, of which they’re exactly one right now on the table. 11 So – and the reason we’re even discussing that one is because it was included in the El Camino 12 Real Focus group because of the builder’s remedy application. So I just wanted to remind us, 13 right? Because it doesn’t affect all the other parcels; it’s just this one that has the unique 14 situation of impacting the neighbors. And so – and kind of – granted, who knows what’s going 15 to happen in the future and whether we expand the El Camino Ro-, Focus Ar-, El Camino Real 16 Focus Area to other sites. But at least the City Council excitement about this was like, “Here’s 17 an area. But we’re really happy to give this 85 – highest buildings in the City essentially, 18 because it doesn’t abut R-1.” So I just wanted to provide that context. It’s not necessarily as for 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. reaching the recommendation, at least at this stage in time, with the El Camino Focus Area 1 being defined as it is. So. Commissioner Peterson. 2 3 Commissioner Peterson: Thank you. So this is a question for staff and it’s essentially like my 4 other question. It’s just a data question. And I’m assuming maybe a G-I-S or GIS or whatever 5 you call those, is an overlay. And what I’d like to see is the pedestrian traffic overlaid with the 6 corridor. I assume it’s El Camino, so I’m pretty sure it’s probably completely saturated with the 7 pedestrian planning. But we had the – was it two meetings ago? We looked at the pedestrian 8 plan; I don’t think it’s finalized or any where like that but maybe if he has the preliminary that 9 we can just – just to verify that yes, there is – it does overlap. 10 11 Jennifer Armer: Thank you for that question. This is the kind of request that I’d suggest you 12 send in advance. It’s not the kind of thing that we can present kind of – or prepare or pull up on 13 the fly during a meeting. We can look into it. I also don’t know if we have volume numbers. 14 There was some information I know in the Bike Ped master plan about what routes were going 15 to be used for different purposes, bike lanes, other kinds of things like that. But I’m not sure the 16 exact volume information that’s there. So. 17 18 Commissioner Peterson: And then, of course, the – I’ll send another email with the request. Is 19 the – specifically, is that overlap? Because the pedestrian walkway is going to cross into the 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Mountain View jurisdiction at the south end to be able to access the San Antonio Railroad, 1 which usually the jurisdictions, a lot of times you just paint an invisible line at the boundary and 2 you wouldn’t necessarily map through the Mountain View jurisdiction the pedestrian walkway. 3 I mean if you did, that’s really good. But that’s probably the walkability path I’d be most 4 interested in seeing because it does note in the map that that is the only section that’s probably 5 applicable to residential development because of its proximity to the Cal Train Station from the 6 south side. 7 8 Jennifer Armer: Right. And that south side near to Mountain View, that’s not part of what’s 9 recommended tonight. That’s pretty far away from California Avenue, right? 10 11 Commissioner Peterson: Oh, are we out – we’re just on the California Avenue? 12 13 Jennifer Armer: I mean it’s – the proposed area for the expansion of the focus areas – so the El 14 Camino Real Focus Area is really – is those sites that are near to California Avenue with some 15 expansions but we are limited at this time due to the… 16 17 Chair Chang: Ms. Eisberg, could you… 18 19 Jennifer Armer: …environmental review. 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: …just pull up the map again to… 2 3 Jean Eisberg: Yeah. 4 5 Chair Chang: …refresh us all? So that… 6 7 Commissioner Peterson: Yeah. 8 9 Chair Chang: …members of the public who are listening… 10 11 Commissioner Peterson: The green boxes, right? 12 13 Chair Chang: …can also… 14 15 Jennifer Armer: Yeah. So we… 16 17 Commissioner Peterson: We’re focused on the green boxes? 18 19 Jennifer Armer: Right. So we can bring the map back up as to what’s proposed… 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 Peterson: Yeah. 2 3 Jennifer Armer: …but it really is a minor expansion at this time because if we go beyond what 4 was discussed in the Housing Element… 5 6 Commissioner Peterson: Yeah. 7 8 Jennifer Armer: …then environmental review would have to be expanded. 9 10 Commissioner Peterson: And then while you’re bringing up the map there, I did ask this 11 question on purpose because I knew your answer would probably be that these are questions 12 to bring up before. And I am hearing from my colleagues that this is a question where – and I 13 did notice you have a degree in computer science that − there is – we have incredible talent 14 here but we’re essentially – I think if it was 2005, I’d be looking at the same slide in front of me 15 of an outline of a street. And I don’t know if − Commissioner Akin, I guess we’re all using your 16 example of your great data work but [inaudible 146:30] been worked on staff as well. I 17 understand the resources are always limited but if there’s some way that if we could assist staff 18 in making the case that you have more of a tech budget or something like that to help out. I 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. mean even like a GIS overlay, you don’t even have that necessarily on the fly, which is the 1 easiest. 2 3 Jennifer Armer: Yeah. And I guess the additional context that I would provide is it is – there are 4 certain regulations in terms of efforts to provide information in advance of the meeting both 5 for the Commissioners and for the public to be able to have time to think about it and review 6 and so making sure that we get as much as possible into the Packet. If there is additional 7 information that’s requested and we have the capacity to prepare something, we’re always 8 open to those requests and providing them if possible. 9 10 Commissioner Peterson: Okay. Maybe something for the retreat that was mentioned earlier. 11 Okay. The expansion area. 12 13 Jennifer Armer: So you can see here that the area outlined in blue is the existing, so we’re not 14 proposing any changes to that except for the development regulations. And then the areas that 15 are filled in in pink are the expansion areas. So you can see that while it is south of Page Mill 16 Road, there’s the area expanding up to and around California Avenue, and then a few parcels 17 farther south of the existing but not near the Mountain View border. 18 19 Commissioner Peterson: Got it. Thank you for that clarification. 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: Commissioner Templeton and then Ji. 2 3 Commissioner Templeton: Thanks. Yeah, I really appreciate the engagement we’ve had on this 4 and especially the – I’m thinking about the comments from Commissioner Hechtman and Chair 5 Chang, like trying to understand this recommendation in the context. One of the concerns that I 6 have that Chair Chang alluded to is what does it mean if we make a recommendation now for 7 the future recommendations and how do we deal with that? Because we’re about to 8 experience a knowledge loss on our Commission with the – Commissioner Summa leaving, and 9 so we have to think about that’s always going to happen. We’re always going to have that 10 rotating knowledge base, so we have to think about that and understand it in those terms. And 11 that’s just one of the reasons I’m asking. I’m trying to look ahead. And then to Commissioner 12 Hechtman, I just wanted to say I really appreciate your comments too because it helped me 13 articulate what I’m trying to get at with the discussion about who is owning this part of the 14 presentation that we really like and are engaged with, the presenter or staff. And the reason is 15 because the presenter can only do what they have envisioned and one thing that staff does is 16 can show it from multiple angles, so to speak. Anyway, so – and then to Commissioner 17 Peterson, like what if this was a tool that we had that we could play around with. What are the 18 different numbers if we change this input and that output. 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. And I realize that’s a complete stretch for staff and I’m not asking you to do it but I’m trying to 1 explain why it’s important to think about how this information is presented because right now 2 we’re all going to be talking about one vision that was presented to us really well. And that is 3 competing with the vision in staff report and not intentionally, it just happens to be those are 4 the pieces of data we have, right? 5 6 Jennifer Armer: And I will say that I do believe that similar diagrams with the daylight plane and 7 the step-backs, that that has been part of information that staff has provided in the past. 8 9 Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 10 11 Jennifer Armer: But I agree that this… 12 13 Commissioner Templeton: And we like it. 14 15 Jennifer Armer: Right. And so this great feedback. We always welcome that feedback. 16 17 Commissioner Templeton: That is the intention. Thank you for helping us all arrive at that 18 particular point. So that’s what I wanted to say for now about that. The last thing here is one of 19 the things that Co-, my friend, Commissioner Hechtman said has raised my hackles a bit. While 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. everybody does have issues and all properties are not the same in terms of how they’re 1 enjoyed, one thing that people that live close to El Camino or in South Palo Alto experience is 2 less care can be taken on doing the zoning in these areas because they are not necessarily 3 bringing the same cachet to the decision makers. So I just – the reason that we need to talk 4 about it is because it is sometimes the less represented voices, right, are in certain areas. If I 5 look at El Camino and I look at the houses that are going to be disrupted and I look north of 6 Page Mill, there’s not as many houses that are going to be affected by building on El Camino 7 that – than in the south part of Palo Alto. And that doesn’t – I’m not applying any intention to 8 your comment but just wanted to say it’s important to talk about that because this is a 9 historically underrepresented group of homeowners or occupants. And so we – that’s why I 10 want to make sure we’re taking extra care on this decision making that will affect them 11 differently than other people in Palo Alto. Thanks. 12 13 Vice-Chair Akin: Chair Chang has left briefly but we can move along. She said to. Perhaps let’s 14 hear from Commissioner Ji and then [inaudible 152:23] be a good time. 15 16 Commissioner Ji: Thank you, Vice-Chair Akin. I actually really want to echo Commissioner 17 Templeton’s comments. As someone who lives in South Palo Alto, I definitely have a lot of 18 strong feelings about this. In particular, that’s one of the reasons − I feel like everyone – almost 19 everyone except Commissioner Peterson knows that I have myself literally brought diagrams 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. daylight planes as a member of the public to this Commission. So I’m ver-, extremely sensitive 1 towards daylight plane issues and also the importance of a very good diagram. I think those are 2 incredibly useful visual aids. So those are my comments around that. And I also − kind of 3 segueing into the upper-story setback, I’m – I don’t have any particular numbers on it but – and 4 I’ll defer to the ARB’s expertise. But as someone who walks a lot on El Camino because I live 5 near El Camino, I do think I am a little bit worried about the canyon effect and if the ARB is 6 saying that this is the amount of upper story setback that they’d recommend, that’s what I’m 7 using there on the front side. And on the back side, Co-, referring to Commissioner Hechtman’s 8 comments, I’m using my lived experience behind a 45-degree daylight plane as the reference as 9 opposed to the ARB recommendation there. So just in summary, using the ARB 10 recommendation for something I’m not familiar with and I’ll defer to their expertise. And for 11 the daylight plane, using my personal experience. Thank you. 12 13 Chair Chang: Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Ji. I think it’s time to – for us to take a quick 14 break. So let's take a – it’s 8:34. Let’s take a 7-minute break and we’ll be back soon. Okay. 15 Welcome back, everybody. So I’m – I had a comment before we called our little break and 16 where I wanted to respond to things that a couple different Commissioners said. One, I think 17 Commissioner Templeton had said in my next round of comments to please expand a bit on my 18 heartburn over the – on waiving development fees for parc-, for units that are 120 – are at 125 19 percent of AMI. And so that is because broadly if the units are very small, the re-, whether the 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. unit is very small or very large, assuming it’s the same number of bedrooms, the same amount 1 of rent can be charged based on State Affordability Law – the state definition of the amount of 2 rent that is allowed to be charged. So what we found and what we’ve seen is that 120 – 3 providing incentives in Palo Alto specifically for 100 – for affordability at a 120 percent of AMI, 4 that the rent that can be charged is actually – can be higher even than the rent that will be 5 charged for a larger unit by virtue of the number of bedrooms and how the rent is set. And so 6 that’s my – what – but what we want for Palo Alto, I believe, is like a wide range of types of 7 units, right? 8 9 We might want some studios but we also want some three-bedrooms and – gee, it’d be 10 fantastic if we had affordable housing with four bedrooms. And so I am concerned that if we – 11 because Palo Alto is different from the State as a whole where area median income is set based 12 on the county’s area median income and our county has a very high area median income. And 13 we also – because we have so many high-tech jobs here. And then as a result, all sorts of other 14 valuable numbers of society cannot afford to live here at that 120 percent of median if they 15 don’t have that tech job, for example. That’s – so that’s a generalization. And so my concern is 16 that for us as a – what the State decides to do, we can’t do anything about but the waiving of 17 development fees is something that Palo Alto specifically does in its own ordinance to 18 incentivize below-market rate housing. But because of where our median income is I think that 19 we need – I’m leery of the 120 percent of area median income because in our rental market 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 with our area median income, what we see is that 120 percent is often effectively market 1 rate if the unit is a small unit. But it’s different if it’s a 4-bedroom unit versus if it is a studio 2 unit. So that’s – that was just what I was saying there. Okay. My other comment – there were a 3 couple other comments made by Commissioners. 4 5 I’m a little bit concerned about eliminating – there was a public comment about eliminating 6 setbacks for underground parking. I think I would need more staff evaluation on that because 7 we saw in our last PTC meeting that there can be implications that we don’t understand. And 8 then there’s a suggestion − like an idea, not a suggestion. I wouldn’t go far as – so far as to say 9 a suggestion − from Commissioner Hechtman suggesting that perhaps we would want to – if we 10 extended the AB 1893 affordability thresholds to the builder’s remedy sites, that we might 11 want to do so for any other application that’s in process. And I wouldn’t support that primarily 12 because those other applications that are in process indicated – kind of indicate to us that they 13 can do something that’s plenty feasible without builder’s remedy. So I don’t see the need to 14 give them what people who have builder’s remedy would have. So that would be my rationale 15 for that. And let me see. There’s one more comment here. There’s one more comment that 16 Commissioner Hechtman made, which I think is interesting. He said that – there’s one comment 17 he said where he – we were looking at the wavy line that Co-, that Vice-Chair Akin had drawn 18 up. And he said suppose the green line – we – what’s missing form that is the cost and that we 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. don’t have it and that we don’t know what it is. That is absolutely correct. I completely agree 1 with your statement there. 2 3 We don’t know and we never do see the financials of any projects that are here. And yes, we do 4 hear over and over again from applicants or public comments that it’s not feasible without; 5 however, in the same way that we were sort of saying, “Well, how can I trust what somebody 6 says if I don’t have a long history with them?” Have – without the information, I don’t – I’m not 7 going to say whether it’s true or not true but I don’t know. And if I were a public commentor, I 8 certainly am going to make a public comment that is in my favor. So I just take all public 9 comments with a grain of salt but I do think there’s a difference when you have somebody who 10 has a significant financial incentive. So that’s just – I take it with a grain of salt. So with that, I’m 11 not seeing other lights and what I wanted to do… 12 13 Jennifer Armer: Through the Chair… 14 15 Chair Chang: Oh, yes. 16 17 Jennifer Armer: …if I may I was going to offer to summarize kind of the general co-, areas of 18 general consensus that I have heard from the PTC so far. 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: Great. Yeah, so I was going to try and do that in the hopes that we can move a 1 motion along and if you’ve been taking better notes than I have, please go ahead. 2 3 Jennifer Armer: I will go ahead and take a stab at it and then you all can correct me on anything 4 I’ve missed. So… 5 6 Commissioner Ji: Sorry. Wait. Ms. Armer… 7 8 Jennifer Armer: Go ahead. 9 10 Commissioner Ji: …may I just ask a question about the ordinance quickly? Is the setback that’s 11 listed currently in the ordinance, does that also apply to underground? I just – I’m piggybacking 12 off of Chair Chang’s comment. 13 14 Jennifer Armer: Correct. So the way that the City currently implements setbacks, it does apply 15 both to above and below-ground structures. 16 17 Commissioner Ji: So the public comment that’s asking for us to remove it, would ask for a 18 deviance from what we’re – what is already presented here? 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: It would be a modification to what’s there… 1 2 Commissioner Ji: Okay. Thank you. That’s all. 3 4 Jennifer Armer: …to specifically allow that. All right. So in going through the discussion items 5 that we had up as a slide but is also on Page 209 of your packet from the last meeting, the 6 proposed expansion area. I’ve heard general agreement that that’s appropriate at this time. 7 Future discussion of additional expansion potentially in the future. Under the development 8 regulations, and I’m going to go back to the summary we provided on the previous page – or 9 two pages back at – on 206 in the staff report. Most of these – there does seem to be general 10 agreement. There’s ongoing discussion about refining the daylight plane and – but removal of 11 the height transition, there was agreement on that. There’s some discussion of the upper story 12 step-back. But there was then general agreement for the standardized setbacks, the incentives 13 for consolidation, and incentives for BMR units. 14 15 Chair Chang: Quick question. Did we ever hear back from – I don’t think we heard back from 16 Ms. Eisberg about the setbacks, did we? Because I think she was going to look them up and 17 [inaudible 171:02]. There was a question from the Commission about what the variance was 18 from what’s proposed in the ordinance, like what the current state of variance. 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: Okay. So potentially some additional discussion of setbacks. 1 2 Chair Chang: I think it was just informational piece. So… 3 4 Jennifer Armer: Okay. 5 6 Chair Chang: Ms. Eisberg. 7 8 Jennifer Armer: I’ll pause for a moment to see if she has that; otherwise, I’ll finish my summary 9 and then we can come back to that… 10 11 Chair Chang: Okay. 12 13 Jennifer Armer: …question. Thank you for remembering that. So then back at the list of items, 14 there was still this discussion of affordability housing requirements, the 20 percent required to 15 be affordable. Is that something that the Commission wants to recommend to change to and 16 there have been a number of ideas that have been put forth on that. So that’s what I have as 17 listed as remaining, the daylight plane, the step-back, and the affordable housing requirements. 18 But general consensus in agreement with staff recommendation on the others. 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: Yeah. Ms. Eisberg, did you want to answer the question? 1 2 Jean Eisberg: Yes, so in addition to the RP Zone that I mentioned, the other setbacks that would 3 change are in the RM Zone and that would really just be the side yard and the rear yard. And so 4 those depend – and the RM Zones depend on lot width, so they’re generally 6 to 10 feet 5 currently. And what we’re talking about here, depending on whether it’s a residential use or it’s 6 adjacencies, are 10 to 20 feet. 7 8 Commissioner Ji: So does that mean that would be an increase? 9 10 Jean Eisberg: Generally about the same. So it’s generally 10 feet if abutting a residential zoning 11 district, 20 feet if it’s abutting a R-1 district. So that would actually be an increase. 12 13 Commissioner Ji: Thank you. I get the gist. Thank you. 14 15 Jean Eisberg: Yeah. But it sort of depends on the condition. 16 17 Chair Chang: Okay. So does… 18 19 Albert Yang: [Inaudible 173:08]. 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: Go ahead. 2 3 Albert Yang: And I also just had a follow-up on your earlier question or when I indicated I would 4 look into the commercial FAR that’s allowed. It’s not as clearly stated as we would like but it’s 5 staff’s intention that it not exceed the base district commercial FAR, so we will make that more 6 clear in the next draft. 7 8 Chair Chang: So would it make sense for us just to quickly make a motion to address the things 9 that we already have agreed on, so we can take those off the table. And then we can go back 10 and resume discussion about the rest? 11 12 Commissioner Templeton: That’d be great. 13 14 Chair Chang: All right. So do we have a motion? Would somebody like to make that motion? 15 16 Commissioner Ji: I’ll make a motion. So going off what was recently said, I motion that on this 17 item we move to remove the height transition pending our next motion on daylight plane. We – 18 and we move to standardize the setbacks that are provided here. And we also move to provide 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. incentives for consolidation. Are those the three items, Ms. Armer, that we had reached 1 consensus on? 2 3 Chair Chang: I think the fourth one was just on the expansion… 4 5 Commissioner Ji: Oh, on the expansion of the… 6 7 Chair Chang: …according… 8 9 Commissioner Ji: …zone. Of… 10 11 Chair Chang: We agree with the expansion. Yeah. 12 13 Commissioner Ji: Yeah. We agree with the expansion of the – that’s proposed about the Tier 1 14 sites. 15 16 Commissioner Templeton: So staff recommendation on all those items? 17 18 Commissioner Ji: Yes, that’s my motion. 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: All right. So I had four development items. I had the height transition, 1 standardized setbacks, incentives for consolidation, and incentives for BMR units. 2 3 Commissioner Hechtman: [Commissioner 174:59]. 4 5 Commissioner Ji: Commissioner Hechtman, did you have any additional discussion on that or 6 did you want to add that to this motion? 7 8 Commissioner Hechtman: No, this is a different one that she’s talking about than I was. This is, I 9 think, the waiver at 80 percent or below. 10 11 Commissioner Ji: Okay. So yes… 12 13 Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. 14 15 Commissioner Ji: …I’ll add the 80 percent and below to this motion. 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: I – do we have a second? Or actually I – let me just help with this motion. I would 1 also like to explicitly add what Mr. Yang was talking about where we want to emphasize that 2 the office FAR is subject to the underlying… 3 4 Jennifer Armer: Correct. FAR. 5 6 Chair Chang: …FAR. 7 8 Jennifer Armer: [Regulations 175:44]. Yeah. 9 10 Commissioner Ji: I accept the amendment. 11 12 Chair Chang: But we actually need a s-, I think that was… 13 14 Commissioner Ji: Sorry. 15 16 Chair Chang: …part of the motion. 17 18 Commissioner Ji: Oh, 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. Chair Chang: Now we need a second. 1 2 Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. So I will second that motion, mostly described by 3 Commissioner Ji and augmented by our Chair. 4 5 Chair Chang: Okay. Do we have – oh, looks like there – Commissioner Templeton. 6 7 Commissioner Templeton: I just wanted a clarification. It’s – so I – at first, I thought we were 8 doing staff recommendation but it sounds like we made some changes and I kind of got lost in 9 the discussion. Was there any changes? 10 11 Chair Chang: We – it’s staff recommendation on everything but there was also an unwritten 12 staff recommendation that Mr. Yang suggested, which was that it’s staff’s intention that office 13 built on these – within the El Camino Real Focus Area is subject to the FAR limitations and the 14 Bay Zoning. 15 16 Commissioner Templeton: Okay. Thanks. 17 18 Chair Chang: I don’t see any lights, so why don’t we vote on that. Please, Ms. Dao? 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Veronica Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 1 2 Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 3 4 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Peterson? 5 6 Commissioner Peterson: Yes. 7 8 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Ji? 9 10 Commissioner Ji: Yes. 11 12 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 13 14 Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 15 16 Veronica Dao: Chair Chang? 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. Veronica Dao: Vice-Chair Akin? 1 2 Vice-Chair Akin: Yes. 3 4 Veronica Dao: Motion carries 6-0. 5 6 Chair Chang: Great. Okay. So now we have – why don’t we just take them one at a time? The 7 first item to speak about is the daylight plane in the El Camino Real Focus Area when the parcel 8 is adjacent to an R-1 and probably just to be safe, we should just say low-density residential 9 property. If anybody has comments? Commissioner Hechtman. 10 11 Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. Question. So running off of something that the Chair 12 mentioned a little bit earlier, that this is really a very limited universe and I’m wondering if Ms. 13 Eisberg can pull up that map with the stars on it again. Because I think the Chair is right that 14 there’s only one piece in the potential expansion zone. One edge] of it that’s next to R-1 and 15 then across El Camino, there’s one that’s next to R-2. I was able to look at that and I just want 16 to see if we can locate where those are. 17 18 Chair Chang: You might need to zoom in a bit. 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. So what I’m curious about is whether in either of those – first 1 of all, I’m curious − the one that’s next to R-1, is that the subject of a currently pending builder’s 2 remedy application? And I think it’s the one that’s farthest to the right on the bottom side of El 3 Camino. Yeah. Oh, that’s not – the one in orange is – which one – yeah. Where is the R-1 in 4 relation to these projects? 5 6 Jean Eisberg: So the beige areas… 7 8 Commissioner Hechtman: Right. 9 10 Jean Eisberg: …on the small – those are all R-1 Zones. So this is the only site right now that’s 11 abutting R-1 and this an existing builder’s remedy application. 12 13 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. So what we’re talking about here is in our regulations, what 14 should our daylight plane be regarding that site? And there’s an existing builder’s remedy 15 application. And I’m curious about what is proposed in that builder’s remedy application in 16 terms of its interface with the R-1. Is there any daylight plane? Is it a 45? Is it 30? Is it something 17 different? Do we have that information? 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. Jean Eisberg: So what they’ve submitted in their comment letter to the Commission is a 1 proposal that they resubmitted, my understanding is at the beginning of March, and so that’s 2 designed around this 60-degree daylight plane that currently exists within the Draft Ordinance. 3 4 Commissioner Hechtman: Six… 5 6 Albert Yang: [Inaudible 180:12]. 7 8 Commissioner Hechtman: Help me out. Is that… 9 10 Albert Yang: [Inaudible 180:14] builder’s remedy application, there’s a three-story townhome 11 development that’s proposed near that end of the parcel that’s adjacent to R-1. But I don’t 12 know what the setback height is, so we couldn’t speak to if there’s any daylight plane or what 13 kind of daylight plane it conforms to. 14 15 Vice-Chair Akin: Yeah, just to resolve an ambiguity, there have been several different proposals 16 with different daylight plane configurations. So I don’t know which one is most current nor do I 17 understand exactly the implications of the public comment. But I know I’ve seen a 45-degree 18 measured at 10 feet above the property line and a 60 degree measured at 16 feet above the 19 property line, and there may be others because I didn’t check them all. So it’s a little hard to tell 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. what is essential in order to make the project financially feasible. And I didn’t understand the 1 public comment in that respect. Perhaps someone else did. 2 3 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. So I guess my point is as to this site, if we’re talking about 45, 4 30, something else, and it really only applies to this site, the builder’s remedy doesn’t have to 5 have any daylight plane. And so we should think about it in that context. That – and whether 6 we’ll just draw a line in the sand that a majority of this Commission just doesn’t like 45 and so 7 we’re going to say something lower even if it means on this site, the builder will choose not to 8 take the incentives, right? And so that’s a choice we can make. And then across El Camino, 9 slightly to the south, is another blue star. That is next to R-2, I think. And so I wanted to find out 10 if in the staff report, we’re only looking at this daylight plane in relation to R-1. But staff just 11 mentioned R-2, so I just just want to clarify do we also need to be concerned about the one 12 across the street that’s next to R-2 but not R-1? 13 14 Jean Eisberg: So what the Draft Ordinance says, it creates this new daylight plane when 15 adjacent to an R-1 Zone... 16 17 Commissioner Hechtman: 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. Jean Eisberg: …but for other locations, references existing standards. So the existing standard 1 when you’re adjacent to an R-2 would default to that standard. 2 3 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. All right. So it does seem like this is a single site. 4 5 Jean Eisberg: Right. 6 7 Commissioner Hechtman: The issue. Okay. 8 9 Jennifer Armer: And I can provide additional input that the current, most recent proposal on 10 that site is proposing townhomes at the rear end. And so it is stepping up to be taller, closer to 11 El Camino. And so how that exactly would relate to these different daylight planes, I don’t have 12 that information but I can say that that already is at least in part being accommodated by what 13 currently is proposed. 14 15 Commissioner Hechtman: Thanks. 16 17 Chair Chang: Yes, Commissioner Templeton. 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: Thank you. Yeah, I remember this coming before us and we looked 1 at the first slide that Commissioner Akin brought in with the square with the current rules. So 2 I’m going to very confidently postulate that if we make a decision tonight, it will change that 3 proposal, right? Like the rules would change and they wouldn’t have to be putting townhomes 4 in the back, right? 5 6 Jennifer Armer: So I believe – so while there are townhomes, I think they are still at least 3 foot 7 – 3-story townhomes and so relying on the 60-foot – or 60-degree angle. 8 9 Commissioner Templeton: I see. 10 11 Jennifer Armer: And so if we were to implement a lower angle, then that – and they chose to 12 use this process – or these new regulations, then yes, it is likely to affect the design. 13 14 Commissioner Templeton: Okay. So thank you for that. What I’m trying to get at is – 15 hypothetically, is this an end run around the kind of discussion we were having before? And if 16 so, are we being asked to design – to input on the design of one aspect of a project − a single 17 project and we’re making this decision tonight affecting a single project without the whole 18 project in front of us. Is that what’s happening? 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: I’ll let Mr. Yang… 1 2 Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 185:38]. 3 4 Jennifer Armer: …step in because as you all know, talking about a project that will be coming 5 before you in the future is not something that we should be getting into. It has been a useful 6 example in terms of knowing the current… 7 8 Commissioner Templeton: But that’s exactly my point. 9 10 Jennifer Armer: …[inaudible 185:53]. Yes, I agree. 11 12 Commissioner Templeton: Because that’s what you’re asking us to decide tonight and I’m 13 concerned about the legality of it. So please do weigh in, Mr. Yang. 14 15 Albert Yang: Yeah, so we are asking the Commission to decide what standards they would like 16 to offer in this scenario where you have a property that is adjacent to R-1. It’s true right now 17 there’s only one property but we’re not discussing the specific project. It’s okay. You can have 18 that project in mind as you’re considering these standards and it makes sense to because as 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. with the original iteration of the focus area, this one – the expanded version also is seeking to 1 incentivize people to not use the builder’s remedy. 2 3 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you for that answer. There are two Commissioners up here 4 who haven’t seen that project and so I’m just throwing that out there as a piece of information 5 because if this is only – the only site that this applies to and there’s an existing project and we’ll 6 be seeing it again, it feels like this is very dangerous for us. And I don’t understand why – I 7 heard your legal response and I accept that that is the position of the City. But my concern is 8 that we’re being asked to make a decision now that affects only one property without looking 9 at the project on that property and it seems very special. 10 11 Albert Yang: Well I guess I’ll just say I don’t believe that this project has ever come before the 12 Commission and I’m not sure that there is a route by which it will in the future. 13 14 Chair Chang: So I just wanted to comment that right now up on the screen, there is actually – 15 there is several tiers listed, right? Tier 1, which is the darkest pink all the way to Tier 4, which is 16 one of the greys. And in the future, staff is going to be examining implications for potentially 17 extending the El Camino Real Focus Area to the other tiers. So tho-, there are plenty of sites on 18 the other tiers that do back onto R-1. 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: But we’re being told that… 1 2 Chair Chang: But – right. 3 4 Commissioner Templeton: …the decisions tonight won’t affect any of that. 5 6 Chair Chang: They don’t affect it right now. This is… 7 8 Commissioner Templeton: Well it – does it or does it not? 9 10 Chair Chang: If they were added to the… 11 12 Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. 13 14 Chair Chang: If those sites were add-, what we’re deciding right now are the rules for the El 15 Camino Real Focus Area. I see your point though. 16 17 Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 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: Well − and are we deciding on just this little bit that we’ve been 2 talking about the whole night and been told numerous times not to worry about the light pink 3 and the Tier 2, 3, and 4 stuff and – like is it in or is it out? Because that would affect a lot of 4 things in our decision making. 5 6 Chair Chang: It – I mean – I’m not – I can’t answer because we don’t know but it could be in, it 7 could be out. Yeah, but that’s what – but − so we could also decide for example, that we don’t 8 want to make a decision on this. We don’t want to make a change right now. But then we can’t 9 eliminate the height transitions because it has to go to something. So that definitely is 10 something we could do. 11 12 Commissioner Templeton: I was not expecting you to answer. I was hoping staff could tell us 13 whether it’s in or out. Like we make a decision tonight on Tier 1, does that then somehow 14 propagate to Tiers 3 – 2 through 4… 15 16 Jennifer Armer: No. 17 18 Commissioner Templeton: …in the future? 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: So we can switch back to the map that shows the area that your previous 1 motion included. So actually you had it on that previous page, I think, here. That works as well. 2 So the blue area is now recommended to be expanded to those properties filled in with pink 3 and so those – it would apply to those. Now at − if at some point in the future, there is an effort 4 to expand this focus area more, then these rules would apply to those but that would be 5 another opportunity to look at the rules and how they’ve working. And so if it does get 6 expanded to other properties that are adjacent to R-1, at that time, there would likely also be a 7 discussion about whether the daylight plane as, however it ends up being adopted by Council, is 8 appropriate. 9 10 Commissioner Templeton: Will staff commit to bringing that back as part of the future 11 agendized items for the future tiers? 12 13 Jennifer Armer: If we expand to future tiers, I agree that we should be talking about whether 14 the regulations should be staying the same as well. 15 16 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you for clarifying. 17 18 Chair Chang: Commissioner Peterson and then Commissioner Ji. 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 Peterson: Is it possible to zoom in on the – because that’s the site that has a 1 creek running through it. I think it’s going to be changed by the Riparian Corridor whenever that 2 comes back as well; I think it’s out of compliance. 3 4 Jennifer Armer: A reminder that that is an existing part of the focus area as well. So that’s 5 already in… 6 7 Chair Chang: In. 8 9 Jennifer Armer: …the focus area with the modified regulations. 10 11 Commissioner Peterson: What do you mean? The new creek setback? 12 13 Jennifer Armer: So, no. The – if we were going to zoom in on this map, the property that we’ve 14 been talking about that is adjacent to single-family residential as you can see is within the blue 15 area. And whether the new creek setbacks will apply to a redevelopment project on this site or 16 not depends on the timing of completeness of that project’s [inaudible 192:04]. 17 18 Commissioner Peterson: And then another question. Those adjacent residential sites, are those 19 actually built with permanent structures or are those temporary module structures of some 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. kind? Because those are incredibly strange looking lot lines. I mean I’m not sure how they have 1 access to the… 2 3 Jennifer Armer: Those are flag lots, which is pretty common at the end of a bulb cul-de-sac 4 there. 5 6 Commissioner Peterson: What are they called? 7 8 Jennifer Armer: They’re called flag lots. So basically you have a corridor that accesses the 9 building area for the site and − so that the houses would be on the wider portion of those lots; 10 it’s pretty common at the end of a cul-de-sac with a bulb like that. 11 12 Commissioner Peterson: So those are permanent structures that are on those sites? 13 14 Jennifer Armer: I do not know what’s developed on those sites but… 15 16 Chair Chang: Yes, they are homes. 17 18 Jennifer Armer: …that is what it looks like, 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. Commissioner Peterson: Because if they were [inaudible 192:53], it would make it kind of a 1 little different. 2 3 Chair Chang: Yeah, I don’t think anybody knows about the [inaudible 193:02] but they are R-1 4 sites. Okay. So Commissioner – does that conclude your – okay. Commissioner Ji. 5 6 Commissioner Ji: Thank you. I just kind of want to bring it back to the discussion that we’re 7 having about the daylight plane. I recognize Commissioner Templeton’s comments about what 8 are − are we just talking about a single project or are we talking about a group of projects. And 9 in my opinion, I think that we should be make-, like – I want to explicitly express support for the 10 30 degree that’s been provided by Vice-Chair Akin. And I would like to see that applied here 11 today because for me in principle, I think that that’s the best way to preserve the daylight for 12 the R-1 neighborhood. So I’m just going to end my comments there. Regardless of the existing 13 builder’s remedy, whether or not there’s one project, I’m sticking to my personal belief in that 14 in general. 15 16 Chair Chang: I don’t see other – go ahead, Commissioner Templeton. 17 18 Commissioner Templeton: I’m sorry. Would you be willing to reconsider that for future 19 projects? 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 Ji: Can you be more explicit about the question? 2 3 Commissioner Templeton: Do you want the 30-degree angle to apply to all projects on El 4 Camino? 5 6 Commissioner Ji: I think that are abutting on R-1. That’s my opinion right now. 7 8 Commissioner Templeton: Okay. So not just this one project but all projects? 9 10 Commissioner Ji: Yes, any of the future ones that are coming through that would abut an R-1, 11 that would get added to this focus area potentially, so Tier 2 through 4. 12 13 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. 14 15 Chair Chang: Okay. So this my rationale for where I think a 30-degree – where I’d like this 16 compromise. I understand that for R-1 that is abutting a commercial zone, it is always difficult 17 when a big building comes up next to it. That said, when people buy an R-1 home that is next to 18 a commercial zone, they know that it could always have the commercial – like whatever is 19 allowed in the normal commercial development. In the one other example that I can think 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. where we saw a project with R-1 abutting a commercial zone, what we heard from the public 1 comments from the neighbors – what we heard was that a 30-degree daylight plane was 2 something that they could live with. And so I’m basing my compromise data based on those – I 3 mean it was a different project but a similar situation. Granted, right now what’s in existence is 4 probably what most R-1 folks would prefer, which is the height transitions, so nothing can − for 5 a much larger distance, can be as high. So this – the 30 degrees is “not as good” for the R-1 6 neighbors. But I think it’s a pretty good compromise and we know that as a City, we do need to 7 be able to densify. 8 9 And so that’s where I k-, if this were applied to the other parts of the El Camino Real Focus 10 Group, I think it’s a reasonable compromise. And that said, I also only thought that the Teir 1 11 and Tier 2 sites should be added to the El Camino Real Focus Group. Not Focus Group – Focus 12 Area. So – but that’s why I think that with respect to wanting to remove the height transition, 13 that means that we need to put something else in place. So what’s the right thing to put in 14 place? And this is why I arrive at this 30-degree line. Commissioner Templeton. 15 16 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. So I think it sounds like we have agreement on removing 17 the height transition and replacing it with some other angle. The debate is what should the 18 angle be? And so far tonight, we’ve discussed 60, 45, and 30. And I feel like I’m back in 19 geometry class. Why not 40? Why not 39? Like what is the magic of this number? I don’t think 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 of us really know. None of us have actually thought it through. And we have had the luxury 1 of having a beautiful model prepared for us. But it has two numbers, right? So we need to think 2 about what are the alternatives and I would love to hear input from somebody who does 3 gardening who knows what happens when the sun goes to a certain angle. And what is that 4 angle? Does that affect your garden? We talk a lot about the light in the backyards, right? That’s 5 something we think about. That’s something my neighbor asks about. And I’ve heard public 6 comment about it, right? So is there a magic number? And is that 30? Is that 45? We need to 7 understand that, so I’d love to hear any thoughts on that. Thank you. 8 9 Jennifer Armer: If I may jump in and just provide an additional perspective. You did have a 10 recommendation from the ARB and they often do look at projects that have shadow studies. So 11 while it’s not specifically answering your question but that was part of the input… 12 13 Commissioner Templeton: That’s… 14 15 Jennifer Armer: …[inaudible 198:36]. 16 17 Commissioner Templeton: …exactly the kind of wonderful, helpful information that is great 18 input toward our decision-making process. Thank you very much. Anyone else want to chime in 19 on 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 Chair Chang: Yeah, we have a bunch of other comments here. So let’s go to Commissioner 2 Peterson, then Akin, then Ji. 3 4 Commissioner Peterson: You already stole the thought I had on the lighting study. I mean it’s 5 pretty common to do daylighting analysis on buildings. To do a daylighting analysis on an entire 6 corridor is probably not that far out of the question. This lot is on the south side of – well I 7 always forget which way El Camino is. But I think it’s on the south side of El Camino, which 8 means the sunlight would be coming from the other direction, so it probably wouldn’t be 9 blocking the light from the residences, I think. 10 11 Commissioner Templeton: Some parts of the day. 12 13 Commissioner Peterson: Well because the sun would always be from the south. Okay. That’s it. 14 15 Chair Chang: Go ahead, Commissioner Akin. Vice-Chair Akin. 16 17 Vice-Chair Akin: I’ll answer to either. So in fact, the code does have other daylight plane 18 specifications. And other than the 1:1, 1:2 is also common. So that is not 30 degrees; it’s very 19 close. But that’s the reason that I chose that one to examine because we already had existence 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. proof of that in the code. Let’s see, there was one other comment. Oh, yes. [Inaudible 200:17 1 comments from Commissioner Templeton and Commissioner Hechtman, I would love to have 2 the proformas from these developers, so we could see exactly what was financially feasible but 3 we never get them and the rare occasions when staff does, they’re not always able to relay that 4 information to us. So it’s very hard to tell where the borderline of financial feasibility is. I would 5 hope that if we are overly aggressive – oh, and – sorry, one more comment before I get to the 6 wrap. This is true of the ARB as well. So the 45-degree suggestion may not be financially 7 feasible either, right? We don’t know. They probably don’t know aside from the projects that 8 they’ve participated in themselves. So it’s all guesswork in that respect. 9 10 I would hope that if either 30 degrees or 45 degrees turn out to be absolutely unworkable, that 11 we can come up with a proper adjustment for the projects that are so affected. I’m a little 12 reluctant to get too aggressive about allowing much larger daylight plane angles based on the 13 economic situation that [inaudible 201:57] today. Because there are a lot of exceptional 14 conditions in play. So bottom line, we go for something that I think is what we would like to see 15 for aesthetics and privacy and if that turns out to be too aggressive, then we dial it back. But we 16 don’t give up too much up front. 17 18 Chair Chang: Commissioner Ji. 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 Ji: Sorry in advance, Commissioner Templeton, bringing you back to geometry 1 class but I did calculate the angle for the 1:2 that – yeah, it’s – so it seems like I didn’t need to 2 calculate it because Vice-Chair Akin already had it on hand and it’s correct that it is 27 degrees. 3 A+. 4 5 Commissioner Templeton: Look at us. Thank you for looking that up. That’s exactly what we 6 need to know. 7 8 Commissioner Ji: And the reason why I bring this up is because my – I feel like my house is 9 actually a very good example of what could happen behind one of these larger buildings. So my 10 – the house I live in currently is behind a three-story, step-backed building, which is parallel to 11 El Camino. And – it’s right behind El Camino Way. So it’s pretty parallel to El Camino. And based 12 on very extensive diagraming that I’ve previously done and showed in the Commission, I believe 13 that 45 is just – is quite large and looming behind the building. And I guess 30 is a little bit more 14 than 27 but I’m just going to say that’s a rounding error and call that approximately the same. 15 So I’m just going to reinforce my support for that. 16 17 Chair Chang: Commissioner Hechtman. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Hechtman: So the – what I see when I drive around the cities around us, 1 Mountain View, Redwood City, Menlo Park, I see a lot more buildings rising than are rising in 2 Palo Alto. And those aren’t better cities but they’re doing something that we’re not. And those 3 cities incidentally don’t require or get proformas either, but clearly, their structures and rules 4 are allowing for profitable development. And the reason we know it is developers are 5 developing in those cities more than they are here. And so I think when we have a parade of 6 developers, not just tonight, but just perpetually telling us that what is and is not feasible, 7 what’s harming them from doing what they want and what they want is to build in Palo Alto, 8 then I think we ignore that at our peril. And I think the longer we do that, the more we get what 9 we’ve gotten so far, which is our neighbors building at a faster pace than we are. I think – so 10 enough about that. I do know that it’s kind of simple math that if a project is not profitable at a 11 45-degree plane – daylight plane, that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be profitable at a steeper plane 12 but it does mean it wouldn’t be profitable at a deeper plane. So in this particular instance, I 13 think we need a motion in one direction or the other on the daylight plane. 14 15 My sense is that the motion would be for a deeper daylight plane, and I think, if I understood 16 Vice-Chair Akin’s drawing, it’s a 30 percent plane that starts at 16 feet. If I understood that. 17 Right? So I’m not going to make a motion but I would – I’m going to try one time to persuade 18 the rest of you that in this unique circumstance tonight, the best way we can serve – be service 19 to the community is to follow the ARB recommendation and go with the 45-foot plane, 16 feet 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 that is going to allow somewhat more development than the 30 foot, at 16 feet. And 1 since we only have one property with an existing builder’s remedy that can have no daylight 2 plane, we want to try to soften them to provide some protection to the neighbors directly 3 behind them. And it doesn’t harm us to do that. It’s only going to apply to the one property 4 because there are not going to be new R-1 neighborhoods behind El Camino. If anything, there 5 will be upzoning over time but probably not much of that. 6 7 But when the Tier 2s and Tier 3s and two Tier 4s − and we looked at the map, there’s a lot more 8 R-1 behind some of those, which is why some of those are back in Tier 4. If that ever comes 9 back to us, it’s not going to be, “Oh, and the rule for only El Camino is 45, 16.” It’s, “Hey, we’re 10 going to have to think about with all of this R-1 interface, what should the rule be?” So I think 11 the future actions are protected and we’re really only looking at a – can we provide some 12 protection to a small group of neighbors who are facing a builder’s remedy project that may be 13 worse than 45, 16. So that’s my pitch for going with the ARB recommendation. 14 15 Chair Chang: Okay. I just want to make sure we get the other comments in before we make a 16 motion. So Templeton and then Ji. And then I don’t see another lights. 17 18 Commissioner Templeton: Yes, I wanted to say I heard a few different reasons for prioritization 19 here today. And I think that for this purpose we should err in the side of building more units. I 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. think that the compromise – the obvious compromise between 60 and 30 degrees is 45. So I 1 think that is a good compromise. And I think if we look ahead to the future and we understand 2 that in some way we are setting a precedent for the rest of El Camino, we need to be thinking 3 about that and where are we putting the houses that we’re not going to be allowing to be 4 built? We need to think about that as well, right, in terms of what we’re think-, what people in 5 Palo Alto want. We need to make sure that we are dense in certain places, so that we don’t 6 have to keep expanding and keep building more and more large properties. So I think that in 7 terms of the angle, once the sun gets somewhat low, that even if the light is reaching your 8 property, it’s not growing your vegetables, so to speak. So I think that it would be acceptable to 9 me. I would be also happy with something that was 40 degrees if 45 degrees is not acceptable. 10 So we should think about it as much as we like things that add up nicely if we think that 45 is 11 not enough of a compromise. I do think that 30 is too much. Thank you. 12 13 Chair Chang: Commissioner Ji. 14 15 Commissioner Ji: Thank you. I want to address Commissioner’s Hechtman comments in our 16 neighbor’s building and I want to reference again this information from staff that Mountain 17 View at the maximum height on El Camino is 65 and Los Altos at 60. In addition, just [inaudible 18 210:28 measuring setbacks on Google’s street view, I’m seeing about like between 16 and 20- 19 feet setback as well on that. And referencing Commissioner Templeton’s comments about the 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. compromise, I don’t quite see it at – the daylight plane as a compromise between 60 and 30. I 1 see it as a compromise between something like 60 and transitions, right? The base status of this 2 area is this – the height transitions. And so in that regard, the 30-degree angle actually is a 3 pretty even compromise between the height transition and at 45 or 60 or what – whichever 4 Vice-Chair Akin provided. So instead of seeing it as – but that’s the way at least I view the 5 compromise here. And I just wanted to – yeah. So that ends my comment. Thank you. 6 7 Chair Chang: All right. Do we have a motion? Somebody? 8 9 Commissioner Ji: Sure. I’ll – on specifically the daylight plane, I’ll make a motion to move 10 forward with a 30-degree daylight plane. So − oh, sorry. 11 12 Chair Chang: [Inaudible 211:43]. 13 14 Commissioner Ji: What? 15 16 Chair Chang: They measured at 16 feet. 17 18 Commissioner Ji: Oh. Measured at 16 feet. 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’ll second. Do we have additional discussion on daylight plane? Let’s vote. 1 2 Veronica Dao: Vice-Chair Akin? 3 4 Vice-Chair Akin: Yes. 5 6 Veronica Dao: Chair Chang? 7 8 Chair Chang: Yes. 9 10 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 11 12 Commissioner Hechtman: No. 13 14 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Ji? 15 16 Commissioner Ji: Yes. 17 18 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Peterson? 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 Peterson: No. 1 2 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 3 4 Commissioner Templeton: No. 5 6 Veronica Dao: Motion fails 3-3. 7 8 Jennifer Armer: So we could do a second motion that is to move it forward with a split 9 recommendation as we’ve done on recent projects. 10 11 Commissioner Ji: Yeah. What Ms. Armer said. I’d like to mo-, make a motion now to provide a 12 split recommendation. 13 14 Commissioner Templeton: Second. 15 16 Chair Chang: No lights, so let’s vote. 17 18 Commissioner Hechtman: No. Discussion. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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, sorry. Go ahead. 1 2 Commissioner Hechtman: So I just raise it because this happened to us recently. We had a split 3 vote and so I just want to put it out there before we vote, does anybody feel like we should 4 have any further discussion? Is there something we should be talking about between 45 and 5 30? If nobody really feels it, then I think we proceed with the vote but I… 6 7 Chair Chang: Well what I will say is that while − Commissioner Templeton was saying that 8 there’s a lot between 45 and 30. I did do some back-of-the-envelope investigation of that and 9 compared it to the Palo Alto Commons site because I went to look at that site and I knew what 10 that looked like and I measured things on Google Maps, so I tried. I wanted something better 11 but it didn’t work for me. So it’s not that it’s a random number kind of pulled out of nowhere; 12 it's based on an actual building and actual comments of residents who live next to that building. 13 So it’s – sure, it would have been great to get more housing but this is where I landed. So 14 Commissioner Templeton and then Commissioner Peterson. 15 16 Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. And many of these folks that you’re referring to bought their 17 house after the property was built and so now we’re talking about a completely – a much less 18 palatable situation, right? Because they’re going to be having to have something that they – the 19 view they had is going to be interrupted. So it’s going to feel unpleasant either way but I worry 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. about what Commissioner Hechtman said because the alternative is no rules. And so we have 1 to think about what are we going to do that’s going to optimize this for our community. And so 2 I think about that. That said, I’m okay with having a split recommendation because we are split. 3 And ultimately the people deciding will be the Council, right? And so it’s okay with me for us to 4 say, “Look, we’re talking about up to 45, we’re talking about as low as 30, you guys run with it.” 5 And that’s okay. Like we’ve done our part. We’ve examined it very thoroughly and I think I’m 6 very satisfied with the amount of discussion we’ve had. 7 8 Chair Chang: Commissioner Peterson. 9 10 Commissioner Peterson: Okay. So I want to go back to the daylighting analysis and just point 11 out that El Camino essentially runs mostly east/west through Palo Alto, which means that the 12 north side of El Camino gets shaded going into the residential area and the south side of El 13 Camino does not get shade. The sun kind of hangs out in the south of the sky. In the winter, it’s 14 down lower and so that’s – I would – if we were really arguing over this, I mean I would say that 15 there should be more of a setback on the – say on the north side of El Camino than on the 16 south side because if we look at where the complaint came from, that was the north side of El 17 Camino that was talking about how they had this looming – they were – I mean it looks like 18 they’re in a cave almost because there is so little daylight in the winter on the north side of El 19 Camino and those residential areas. So I would kind of hazard to say that if we went to the 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. south side of El Camino, they might not even realize there’s a building on the other side of their 1 massive trees that are in that region. So just want to put that out there. We’re almost talking 2 about two different stories. So I’ll put that there. 3 4 Chair Chang: Commissioner Ji. 5 6 Commissioner Ji: I’m wondering if we want to explic-, like the no votes on the 30 degree want – 7 is your consensus 45 and if so, do you want to explicitly say that in the motion because right 8 now the motion just says that we would have a split recommendation on this specifically. But 9 should we be trying to just say that there are two separate tied consensuses. 10 11 Commissioner Templeton: Well normally we would do that with being able to respond, explain 12 our no votes. But we did it a different way this time. So I think that the discussion is evidence of 13 itself and that staff will represent it truly. 14 15 Jennifer Armer: Yeah, staff can summarize… 16 17 Commissioner Ji: Okay. Then… 18 19 Jennifer Armer: …what we heard. 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 Ji: …are there more comments or I can just motion to our split vote? 2 3 Chair Chang: I think you did make the motion already. 4 5 Commissioner Ji: Oh, okay. 6 7 Jennifer Armer: Motion and… 8 9 Chair Chang: And I think that… 10 11 Jennifer Armer: …seconded. 12 13 Chair Chang: …it was seconded already. 14 15 Commissioner Ji: Okay. 16 17 Chair Chang: So… 18 19 Commissioner Ji: 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: …there’s no other… 2 3 Jennifer Armer: Vote. 4 5 Chair Chang: …discussion. So we are ready for a vote, Ms. Dao. 6 7 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 8 9 Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 10 11 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Ji? 12 13 Commissioner Ji: Yes. 14 15 Veronica Dao: Chair Chang? 16 17 Chair Chang: Yes. 18 19 Veronica Dao: 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: Yes. 2 3 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Peterson? 4 5 Commissioner Peterson: Yes. 6 7 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 8 9 Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 10 11 Veronica Dao: Motion carries 6-0. 12 13 Chair Chang: Okay. So this is proving to be a very long night. The next area of discussion was 14 regarding the information on Packet Page 208, which is the – oh, no. Sorry. It’s this… 15 16 Jennifer Armer: Yeah, upper story… 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. Chair Chang: Upper story setback. I think we had a lot of agreement but I’m not sure. I mean we 1 never took a vote. So I don’t know how we want to handle it. It might be easier actually, maybe 2 potentially more efficient, if there’s a motion. 3 4 Commissioner Templeton: Hi. I move the staff recommendation on simplified upper story 5 setback. 6 7 Chair Chang: Great. Do we have a second? 8 9 Commissioner Ji: I’ll second. 10 11 Chair Chang: Okay. Let’s have discussion. Thank you. So if there’s something else that we would 12 like to propose or any comments about this. We’ve discussed it quite extensively. So I think 13 most discussion would probably be around a different proposal if somebody had a different 14 proposal. So does anybody have a different proposal and if – okay. Here we go. Commissioner 15 Akin − Vice-Chair Akin. 16 17 Vice-Chair Akin: Sure, I’ll take the extreme position, which is if building the maximum amount of 18 housing and making the things as financially feasible as possible is the guiding principle, then 19 the step-back should be zero. It should go away. 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: That’s fine with me. I mean if you felt that way, you should have 2 made the motion but I’m happy to adopt your amendment if Commissioner Ji is interested. 3 4 Commissioner Ji: No, I don’t think I’m interested in this. 5 6 Commissioner Templeton: Okay. And Commissioner Akin, are you solid enough to – on this 7 position or is that just a hypothetical? Do you want to change the motion? 8 9 Vice-Chair Akin: I have no strong feeling on this really. I just wanted to make sure that 10 everybody was analyzing things carefully. 11 12 Commissioner Templeton: Well I care very deeply about Chair Chang’s concern about the 13 canyon effect, so I want to make sure that we have the – at least the recommended amount of 14 step-back. So I think we’ll just keep it as is and vote. 15 16 Chair Chang: Commissioner Hechtman has a comment. 17 18 Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah, since we’re previewing, I won’t be supporting the motion. 19 Again, I’ve heard an actual applicant explain to us how they’re losing – we’re losing 24 units and 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. getting smaller other units as a result of this. I haven’t heard a strong enough explanation that 1 makes me believe there aren’t some alternatives. Two-foot setback, I know was mentioned. I 2 acknowledge the ARB who I respect for these things with support of the 10 foot. And I 3 acknowledge that I didn’t take the time to watch their video or read their minutes to 4 understand their rationale. But it seems like, I said it before, I don’t get the benefit of keeping 5 it. I see the detriment and so I won’t be supporting the motion. 6 7 Chair Chang: Commissioner Peterson and then Ji. 8 9 Commissioner Peterson: Thank you. Yeah, I also won’t be supporting the motion for similar 10 reasons. Yeah, I think a lot of these questions that we’re approaching, we’re approaching them 11 from a standpoint where you couldn’t have the knowledge of these things but I think we really 12 are in a situation where we could have the knowledge of these things. We could look at the 13 streetscape model in a virtual environment and we could walk down the street and not be 14 hypothetically trying to imagine in my head what it looks like. I could actually see what it looks 15 like. And I think that’s fairly common. I have seen… 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. Commissioner Peterson: …cities that are doing virtual representations of their cities. Some – 1 there’s a [Swiss 221:55] city that’s famous. They modeled the entire city for their Planning 2 Commission, so that they could come up with decisions based on really looking at it. Because I 3 mean a lot of people can’t visualize what we’re even talking about in their head. I have a hard 4 time with this sometimes, so that’s my reason for not supporting. 5 6 Chair Chang: Okay. I might also point out that we can abstain if we don’t know what we’re 7 deciding things on. So I don’t see other lights. Let’s take a vote. 8 9 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 10 11 Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 12 13 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Peterson? 14 15 Commissioner Peterson: No. 16 17 Veronica Dao: Vice-Chair Akin? 18 19 Vice-Chair Akin: Yes. 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 Veronica Dao: Chair Chang? 2 3 Chair Chang: Yes. 4 5 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Ji? 6 7 Commissioner Ji: Yes. 8 9 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 10 11 Commissioner Hechtman: No. 12 13 Veronica Dao: Motion carries 4-2. 14 15 Chair Chang: Would people like to speak to their no votes? 16 17 Commissioner Hechtman: I think I did in advance. Thanks. 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: Perfect. Okay. So then the – I think this is our last item of discussion before we 1 bring poor Commissioner Summa back into the room with us. This is regarding the AB 1890 – 2 the change in affordability requirements for builder’s remedy projects introduced by AB 1893 3 and staff’s question about whether or not we want to extend those affordability thresholds to 4 the El Camino Focus Area. Comments? Motions? 5 6 Commissioner Hechtman: I’m prepared to make a motion. 7 8 Chair Chang: Go ahead. 9 10 Commissioner Hechtman: I move that we recommend to the Council that these AB 1893 BMR 11 standards be applied to the focus area but only to the existing builder’s remedy projects. 12 13 Chair Chang: Second? No – okay. Yeah, let’s 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: Yes. 2 3 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 4 5 Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 6 7 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Ji? 8 9 Commissioner Ji: Yes. 10 11 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Peterson? 12 13 Commissioner Peterson: Yes. 14 15 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 16 17 Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 18 19 Veronica Dao: Motion carries 6-0. 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: Fantastic. Let’s welcome Commissioner Summa back. 2 3 Vice-Chair Akin: Sorry. 4 5 Chair Chang: There’s a ques-. 6 7 Vice-Chair Akin: So – I’m sorry to interrupt. Do we need to discuss the recommendation for use 8 of in-lieu fees? 9 10 Jennifer Armer: So I think that was a potential part of the affordability requirement that was 11 not included in the motion that was made. If… 12 13 Vice-Chair Akin: Right. 14 15 Jennifer Armer: …a member of the PTC would like to have that considered in part of the 16 motion, then maybe we want Commissioner Summa not to return just yet. 17 18 Chair Chang: So we realize that there’s one more item that we might need to discuss. 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. Female: Bye. 1 2 Chair Chang: Okay. So can I just – so before we embark into fully-blown discussion, can I just ask 3 staff to clarify. Is there any mention of in-lieu fees in the current ordinance? So like basically if 4 we want – what’s the baseline? Is it that if we want to have in-lieu fees considered, we would 5 need to add that to the ordinance? 6 7 Jennifer Armer: I’m going to see if one of our online… 8 9 Chair Chang: Ms. Eisberg…. 10 11 Jennifer Armer: …staff – yeah. 12 13 Chair Chang: …go ahead, please. Or Mr. Yang. 14 15 Albert Yang: That’s correct. There’s no provision for in-lieu payment currently. 16 17 Chair Chang: Okay. So that means that in order to do anything about this, we would need a 18 proposal from a member of the Commission right now. I am seeing no lights, which makes me 19 say there’s no proposal. Okay, here we go. Commissioner Hechtman and then 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 Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. I don’t have a proposal but I’m looking at Packet Page 208 2 where this concept of in-lieu fees posed as a possibility and it seems like staff was giving that to 3 us as one of a menu of options to deal with the fact State law was more generous, if you will, to 4 developers on BMR development than our code was. So we’ve just voted to address that by 5 using this stepped process. And so having done that, now we’ve matched State law again. So I 6 think if we’re talking about in-lieu fees, it’s only because we’d want to actually go farther than 7 State law and we may or may not want to do that. I’d like us to have incentives in other areas 8 and not so much this one. So I’m okay not wading into adding an in-lieu fee to giving them this 9 graduated scale. 10 11 Chair Chang: Ditto. Anybody else? 12 13 Vice-Chair Akin: Yeah, so I interpreted this a little more generally, which was that the – we 14 could apply the BMR standards of AB 1893 in the builder’s remedy case. But the in-lieu fees 15 might be a more general incentive. And I find that an interesting possibility but if there is not 16 sufficient interest at this time, then we don’t need to pursue it. But yeah, if I had been making a 17 proposal, I would have said, “Yeah, we should try and find some percentage of the BMR 18 requirement that could be satisfied by in-lieu fees because that has been brought up in public 19 comment from developers.” 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: Commissioner Peterson. 2 3 Commissioner Peterson: So in general, I’m not in favor of in-lieu fees. Not very many years ago, 4 I spent quite a bit of time fighting with the Stanford University’s plan to replace their affordable 5 housing [inaudible 229:09] requirement as their building permit in exchange for in-lieu fees, 6 which we won and then they managed to change it to in-lieu fees anyways. So I’m a little bitter 7 over that but I’m happy to go with the majority of the Commission. 8 9 Chair Chang: I’m not seeing lights, so I think that at this juncture, there doesn’t seem to be 10 incredible appetite for this. And what I would say, personally speaking for myself, is that let’s 11 give this El Camino Real Focus Area a chance to work or not work. We’re now matching State 12 law on this and so these − some of these sites on El Camino Real are some of the largest sites 13 that we have in the city and have the best chance of incorporating inclusionary housing, which I 14 think – I venture to say all of us would ideally like to have inclusionary housing kind of as a 15 public good. So. Commissioner Ji. 16 17 Commissioner Ji: Oh, it’s actually on an adjacent topic, not… 18 19 Chair Chang: Oh. 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 Ji: So we can close this out. And then I have… 2 3 Chair Chang: Okay. So I think we can close this out. And then can we bring Commissioner 4 Summa back in now or do we… 5 6 Commissioner Ji: Well so that was actually my question, which is like I don’t actually know if we 7 went over Item 2, which is the future action on the remaining of the corridor. Did we already 8 vote on – oh, that was in our collective motion, right? 9 10 Chair Chang: It wasn’t in our collective motion but the PTC in the past has had the corridor 11 brought to us and at that point, the PTC had consensus – had reached consensus that Tier 1 and 12 Tier 2 should be… 13 14 Commissioner Ji: Yeah. So I guess my question is for staff is do we need to reiterate anything or 15 can we just stand with our previous recommendation? 16 17 Jennifer Armer: I think that’s fine. I think we have heard pretty clearly that there is interest in 18 consideration of further expansion at some point in the future and then it’ll be up to Council to 19 decide whether to do that as an expansion of the focus area or as part of a broader area plan. 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 Ji: So the answer is we don’t have to – like basically, I’m just trying to make sure 2 we cross all of our… 3 4 Chair Chang: Yeah, I think we don’t have to discuss it. 5 6 Commissioner Ji: Okay. 7 8 Jennifer Armer: That’s fine. 9 10 Commissioner Ji: [Inaudible 231:18]. 11 12 Chair Chang: Okay. Thank you. Let’s bring Commissioner Summa back. Okay. So the – then the 13 next thing we’re going to discuss is the Hansen special setback. And we probably want to start 14 with any clarifying questions that we may have because – so we’re going to be discussing 15 Hansen and the 470 Olive components of potential future action or action tonight and we can 16 start by if there’s any clarifying questions to staff about this. Or if not, we can leap right into 17 comments. Commissioner Ji, then Commissioner Hechtman. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Ji: Thank you. I had a question for our representative from the Office of 1 Transportation, if they’re still on. I would take that as a no. 2 3 Jennifer Armer: I do not see them still on… 4 5 Commissioner Ji: Okay. 6 7 Jennifer Armer: …Zoom this evening. 8 9 Commissioner Ji: No worries. That’s okay. And then I had another question that – not for the 10 Office of Transportation. On Packet Page 208, at the very top of the page, there’s a trapezoid 11 on the left side of the diagram and then also, Ms. Eisberg, in your – in one of your slides – I 12 think I wrote the slide number somewhere. Slide 9. You indicated that there also is a trapezoid 13 building already there. Is this already in the works? 14 15 Jean Eisberg: So that trapezoidal shape is not intended to represent building per se. That 16 project sponsor has expressed – they haven’t approved office development entitle on the site. 17 They have expressed interest in a multifamily building on other portions of the site. The reason 18 that trapezoid looks like it does is just to symbolize the utility easement that runs diagonal 19 through the 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. 1 Commissioner Ji: So specifically, the easement is actually – I thought the easement was only 2 that little strip of a diagonal line, not the trapezoid. So you’re – are you trying to say that the 3 trapezoid is the easement or the… 4 5 Jean Eisberg: No, you’re correct. So it’s just a strip to the left or north of that trapezoid. And the 6 trapezoidal shape, I think this was a graphic that the developer had prepared to sort of indicate 7 what some of the constraints on the site were. And so I think they were just showing a 8 representative potential footprint but not an actual proposal. 9 10 Commissioner Ji: So to be clear, this – there’s no proposal right now for this trapezoidal-shaped 11 [inaudible 234:05]… 12 13 Jean Eisberg: No. 14 15 Commissioner Ji: …potentially what they could build. And then I would just want to clarify how 16 far the easement is from the street as well. Is – do you have the information on that? 17 18 Jean Eisberg: The utility easement? 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 Ji: Yeah. I just want to try to better understand approximately how much area is 1 in the kind of top left of the easement where you could potentially see some building. Because 2 they’re asking for a change to the setback, so I just kind of want to better understand the size of 3 that shape in the top left. 4 5 Jean Eisberg: I can try to see if I can find a… 6 7 Commissioner Ji: Yeah. So… 8 9 Jean Eisberg: …scaled… 10 11 Commissioner Ji: …that’s fine. 12 13 Jean Eisberg: …image and get you a measurement. 14 15 Commissioner Ji: Yeah. I just – I don’t need it right now. Just you can go look at that while other 16 folks have questions. That’s it [from my end 234:58] right now. 17 18 Chair Chang: Commissioner Hechtman. Then Commissioner Peterson. 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: So in our staff report for this item, which was, of course, issued 1 before March 12 − because it was supposed to be heard by us last time, on Page 207, in 2 discussing this issue, it says, “The Transportation Division is exploring whether to remove or 3 reduce the setback requirement.” Referring to the Hansen Way. And so I know Transportation 4 isn’t here but I’m wondering if Transportation happen to communicate with our Assistant 5 Planning Director since the staff report was written, what their position was. 6 7 Jennifer Armer: Thank you for that question. It’s not a clear answer at this point. There may be 8 some openness to reduced – total removal of the setback would – the special setback would 9 not be supported. But with no specific plans for changes to that roadway, it is difficult, as we’ve 10 seen on some other projects recently, to know how much space exactly would be needed. So 11 what we’re looking for – because we didn’t have a specific recommendation from staff at this 12 time, was to see whether there was support, openness to this. But the farthest that we were 13 able to get on this discussion was that total removal of the special setback would not be 14 supported; some reduction might. 15 16 Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. 17 18 Chair Chang: Commissioner Peterson. 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 Peterson: Thank you. So I’d like to now bring up my question on Hazmat sites 1 and Superfund sites. I want to thank staff for sending over the GIS link that you did. And then I 2 want to ask staff what’s the availability of that for the rest of the Commission or to discuss? 3 4 Jennifer Armer: So I don’t believe in terms of the Hansen Way special setback discussion − I 5 don’t think that has an impact on this particular site. And we have established that for the other 6 site on Olive that there is ongoing monitoring that is required there. Was there further 7 information that you were looking for beyond that? 8 9 Commissioner Peterson: Yeah, what’s the – I’m not familiar with the Olive site at all with − 10 what’s the issue there? 11 12 Jennifer Armer: So – Ms. Eisberg, if you’d be able to share what you did in your presentation as 13 to why this rezoning is being considered at this time. 14 15 Jean Eisberg: So yes. Let me pull up the slide again. So there is – this site is on the Cortese List 16 under – the State identifies the site with ongoing ground water monitoring due to a leaking 17 underground storage tank, not on the site, but off the site. And so there’s a plan in place to 18 continually monitor 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 Peterson: What is leaking? 1 2 Jean Eisberg: What is leaking? 3 4 Commissioner Peterson: Yeah, please. 5 6 Jean Eisberg: I mean I can look up specifics about the types of chemicals, is that what you’re 7 referring to? 8 9 Commissioner Peterson: Yes. 10 11 Jennifer Armer: Well so I think… 12 13 Commissioner Peterson: I’m assuming it’s not water. 14 15 Jennifer Armer: …in terms of potential uses – but the reason that this was brought up had to do 16 with the potential uses on this site. Because there is the situation where it is on one of these 17 contaminated sites, and so there is ongoing monitoring that often results in restrictions on 18 what kind of residential or other uses could be allowed. Things that involve digging 19 underground generally are discouraged without significant clean-up being needed. 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 Peterson: Right. 2 3 Jennifer Armer: So in this case, the information that we have at this time is because of the 4 particular situation, it is unlikely that this would actually be developed as a single-family home 5 as it currently is zoned. And so the request for consideration is that it might be more 6 appropriate to align it with what the current use is and have it be a commercial zone as the 7 adjacent parcel is. 8 9 Commissioner Peterson: And is – let me see. I’m pretty familiar with clean-up. I excavated 10 25,000 cubic yards of downtown Reno and had it incinerated. That’s been a while now. So I’m 11 just kind of curious what’s the – is this something where – I mean it sounds like the tank is still 12 underground or is this where the tank was removed but it’s leaking or is this an active tank? I 13 mean there’s kind of a lot of scenarios. 14 15 Jennifer Armer: Well – and I would ask – I mean I think it’s interesting to explore some of those 16 details but I’m not sure that that affects kind of the decision that’s being considered here this 17 evening. 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 Jennifer Armer: And given… 2 3 Chair Chang: I just wanted to… 4 5 Jennifer Armer: …that it is… 6 7 Chair Chang: If you… 8 9 Jennifer Armer: …getting later. 10 11 Chair Chang: Yeah, if you could just – I mean if it’s important and material to whatever you’re – 12 the bearing on this issue, if you could just clarify and explain to the rest of us where you’re 13 headed on this. 14 15 Commissioner Peterson: So first I just wanted to know if there are sites within our 16 consideration that are contaminated. I mean it’s El Camino. El Camino’s been there for quite a 17 while, so I’d imagine there’s – this could be a gas station that’s a leftover tank or something, 18 who knows? And if that is and it’s in a – within the demand of where there is affordable 19 housing, I think that is important because oftentimes, brownfields are known for being reused 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 affordable housing. There’s a large case in San Jose that’s – it’s an issue. So I just want to be 1 aware of that. And if this is the opportunity to make that public and to air it, I think that’s a 2 good opportunity. 3 4 Jennifer Armer: So in this case, the suggestion is that it be changed to commercial, not 5 residential. And – but that is the type of analysis that we bring forward as part of a particular 6 development review. And so you would definitely have that if there was a proposed 7 development on the site. 8 9 Commissioner Peterson: Okay. And then I understand there’s also a Superfund site related to 10 this that’s, I guess the term is [kitty-corner 241:40], from across Oregon where the playing field 11 is. That’s the HP site, which employees were getting sick whose office were in the basement of 12 the building over there – the new building. And they – I think they had to evacuate the 13 basement and move everybody to the first floor. 14 15 Chair Chang: So I just want to remind us all that tonight we are being asked and what’s been 16 agendized… 17 18 Commissioner Peterson: Right. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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: …is a discussion of our thoughts on rezoning potentially the 470 Olve property… 1 2 Commissioner Peterson: Right. 3 4 Chair Chang: …specifically as well as the Hansen setback. So – but we’re not talking at this time 5 at least about the inclusion or non-inclusion of all these other areas that you’re asking about. 6 7 Commissioner Peterson: Well I think the – that contamination crosses the street and because… 8 9 Chair Chang: Into the Hansen? 10 11 Commissioner Peterson: Yeah. Because the ventilation site for where they’re aerating it to get 12 the BOC’s out is actually located at the bottom of Oregon Expressway. It’s a fairly – I mean it’s a 13 massive site. It goes from somewhere over by Cal. Ave., down under Oregon, and somewhere 14 over by Hansen. And the reason why I bring that up is because you mentioned a commercial 15 site, which means that that could include subgrade office space. 16 17 Chair Chang: Yes, it co-, go ahead, Commissioner Templeton. 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: I just wanted to say you can find the description of what’s happening 1 there on Pages 208 and 209 in the Packet from the… 2 3 Commissioner Peterson: Yeah, it’s pretty… 4 5 Commissioner Templeton: …previous time. 6 7 Commissioner Peterson: …concerning. 8 9 Commissioner Templeton: And one thing it talks about is that the economics of changing − 10 rebuilding a property − a single-family home on that site don’t work. But the mitigations that 11 are required that you were describing would be much more suitable to a larger development, 12 and so that’s what we want to encourage people. Because it may need to be redeveloped and it 13 may need – if it is, it needs to be done well. And people need to have the ability to implement 14 those safety procedures. So obviously, you’re right. We want to make sure that those 15 procedures are actually happening and that they’re good and people aren’t digging 16 underground, basements and all of that stuff. But that’s outside the scope for tonight. Tonight 17 is can we make it where some commercial person who might have the money to redevelop it 18 safely is able to buy this property. So that’s the – is that right? The scope? 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. Chair Chang: Correct. Thank you. 1 2 Commissioner Peterson: And somewhere in there, I’m pretty sure environmental contaminates 3 plays an important role. 4 5 Chair Chang: Yes, they do. As stated in the staff report, the environmental – like the mitigation 6 that would be needed to deal with the environmental contaminants is expensive. And so that’s 7 why we’re considering rezoning this so that something could be built there in a safe manner. 8 9 Commissioner Peterson: Or maybe nothing could be built there in a safe manner. That’s always 10 a scenario as well. 11 12 Chair Chang: Potentially. 13 14 Commissioner Peterson: Okay. I’ll let it go [inaudible 244:47]. 15 16 Chair Chang: Sorry. There’s a whole bunch of… 17 18 Commissioner Peterson: That’s perfect. 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: So we have Commissioner Templeton, then Ji, then Summa. 1 2 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. I know we got a lot of people. 3 4 Chair Chang: Sorry. 5 6 Commissioner Templeton: Oh. 7 8 Chair Chang: Let me just – I – so Commissioner Summa had something that was relevant to the 9 – so let’s go there first. 10 11 Commissioner Summa: So I wonder if anybody on staff knows if this is a COE, the COE Plume, 12 and there’s the Hillview Porter Plume, which is under the variance site, the whole thing. We 13 have built tons and tons of housing over these plumes. Typically, the only mitigation that is 14 required is a vapor barrier and then additionally, in Stanford Research Park, which is where the 15 COE Plume originates near California Avenue, the houses there had to put little fans – of single-16 family homes that were built in upper Mayfield were required at the suggestion of the College 17 Terrace neighborhoods − Residents Association, actually originally, to put additional little 18 venting fans under the houses. So the idea that we don’t build housing over either on – over 19 either of these plumes, whether it’s TCE or some kinds of contaminants can be dug out and 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. they were but there were hot spots still where they were digging over single-family home – 1 building over single – building single-family homes. So it is not, in my experience − and we’ve 2 heard a lot about my experience sadly this evening − that is not prohibitive in any way of 3 building housing. The entire large project, the Hohbach’s project that’s kind of Mondrian colors, 4 blue, yellow, and red, on Park is built with vapor barriers. And so it’s just – it – you may 5 disagree about whether we handle that correctly but it is standard practice and it does not 6 prohibit housing. As to the cost, I’m not familiar with that. 7 8 Commissioner Peterson: I am intimately familiar with the cost of that. I’ve… 9 10 Commissioner Summa: But it’s… 11 12 Commissioner Peterson: …supervised it. It’s actually – yeah, it’s a great – yes, it is possible to 13 build housing, to excavate it out, but that’s – it’s also important to… 14 15 Commissioner Summa: And… 16 17 Commissioner Peterson: …ask the questions. 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: …by the way, this is well established. And there are those two plumes 1 and then there’s the other issue at the [variance 247:10] site of the process that we’re 2 amortizing out. So I just thought that might be helpful. 3 4 Chair Chang: All right. Commissioner Templeton. Then Commissioner Ji. 5 6 Commissioner Templeton: It was very helpful, Commissioner Summa. Thank you. So I had a 7 question about this PG&E easements. Can you please bring up the slide? I want to know two 8 things. One thing you said, they’re not willing to go down to no easement and I want to know 9 like what is it that’s still happening there. So is there underground pipeline or like what’s 10 happening and why is this something we’re talking about today? 11 12 Jennifer Armer: So mostly the reason we’re talking about this today is that when we did receive 13 public comments about – from developers who are interested in building sites on some of these 14 parcels within consideration for the El Camino Real Focus Area, we – because we as staff saw 15 them in the public comments, we knew that we wanted to have some additional information 16 on them for context for your discussion. So this is something that was specifically identified as a 17 constraint on their site. It is unusual to this site given that this is technically in the Research 18 Park but it is on the corner with El Camino Real, and so that kind of special setback is unusual. 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: But what is it? What is it for? 1 2 Jennifer Armer: The special… 3 4 Jean Eisberg: So… 5 6 Jennifer Armer: …setback? 7 8 Jean Eisberg: There’s two separate things. So there’s the utility − there’s the PG&E utility 9 easement that we really can’t – the City can’t really weigh in on. The project sponsor or the 10 owner would need to work with PG&E to move the easement and to relocate the utility. Our – 11 what we’re asking about is this Hansen Way special setback, which is on the – in the right of 12 way and on the private property, in order to potentially allow for future expansion of the right 13 of way to accommodate pedestrian or bicycle facilities, for example. 14 15 Commissioner Templeton: Okay. So that’s unrelated to the PG&E thing? 16 17 Jean Eisberg: Unrelated. 18 19 Commissioner Templeton: Okay. 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 Jean Eisberg: It just happens… 2 3 Jennifer Armer: And so… 4 5 Jean Eisberg: …to be the same site. 6 7 Jennifer Armer: They’re both constraints on the site. 8 9 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. I just want to know what it’s for. 10 11 Jennifer Armer: So the special setback – this 50-foot special setback is actually something that’s 12 broadly throughout the Research Park and it may be [inaudible 249:48]… 13 14 Commissioner Templeton: Hold on. 15 16 Jennifer Armer: …[some here 249:49]… 17 18 Commissioner Templeton: I’m going to take a step back. 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: Yeah? 1 2 Commissioner Templeton: What does PGE doing that they have this… 3 4 Jennifer Armer: Oh. 5 6 Commissioner Templeton: …right of way for? 7 8 Jennifer Armer: The PG – no, the – okay. So there are two things. There’s the PG&E easement, 9 which is that diagonal line through… 10 11 Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. 12 13 Jennifer Armer: …the site. 14 15 Commissioner Templeton: What’s it for? 16 17 Jennifer Armer: I don’t know. Do we – does staff know? Are there power lines going through 18 there? 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: Yeah, I believe it’s for like a very high-power transmission line that needs to be like 1 actively cooled. And so there’s like − that compressurized line underground that is very difficult 2 to move. 3 4 Commissioner Templeton: Okay. And PGE is running it through our city, which has its own 5 utility, because we’re somehow working with them to get that? 6 7 Albert Yang: I don’t know. 8 9 Commissioner Templeton: Interesting. Okay. So – and what is the reason it’s included in our 10 staff report if we are not weighing in on it? 11 12 Jennifer Armer: So there’s no suggestion of discussion of that; it was more that that is a 13 constraint on the site and the combination of that with the 50-foot special setback significantly 14 constrains that part of the site. And so the applicant was asking whether there was any room to 15 reduce the 50-foot setback as had been done across Hansen Way. 16 17 Commissioner Templeton: So what is the physical relationship between the 50-foot setback and 18 the PG&E setback? Are they related? I can’t tell because 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. Jennifer Armer: It… 1 2 Commissioner Templeton: …keeps switching slides and I don’t… 3 4 Jennifer Armer: [Oh 251:19]. 5 6 Commissioner Templeton: …know what we’re talking about. 7 8 Jennifer Armer: All right. Well let’s see if we can find a good image that shows both… 9 10 Jean Eisberg: Let me… 11 12 Jennifer Armer: …at the same time. 13 14 Jean Eisberg: …refer to Packet Page 208. 15 16 Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. 17 18 Jean Eisberg: Which the applicant has done this drawing of the two – the combinations of the 19 two easements. 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 Jennifer Armer: And you can see that there’s the 50-foot wide setback from the Hansen Avenue 2 and how that shrinks to a trapezoidal area what could be developed when it’s sandwiched 3 between the PG&E easement. And then to the left is the 50 foot and so what the applicant was 4 – or the property owner was asking the PTC to consider was whether a reduced special setback 5 – whether we really, as the City, wanted to maintain a 50-foot setback or… 6 7 Commissioner Templeton: I see. 8 9 Jennifer Armer: …if a reduced setback might be considered because of the situation of this 10 property on El Camino Real and with the constraint of the PG&E easement. 11 12 Commissioner Templeton: But the position of the de-, the random developers that we’ve heard 13 opinions from has been if we didn’t have a 50-foot setback, we would build over this high-14 powered, supercharged electric highway underneath the ground? 15 16 Albert Yang: Well so I think it’s that the property owner here would like to be able to build on 17 both sides of that PG&E easement but due to the 50-foot setback, there’s not very much space 18 on the other side. 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: Okay. All right. Thank you. 1 2 Female: I don’t see [inaudible 252:53]. 3 4 Chair Chang: Commissioner Ji. 5 6 Commissioner Ji: I had a follow-up question to Commissioner Peterson’s question about the 7 chemicals. So in the Packet Page 209, we’re saying that it would not be conducive to 8 construction of a single-family R-1 site. But I did notice that all of the sites adjacent to 470 Olive 9 are also R-1. Is staff saying that all of those sites are also not conducive to having an R-1 house 10 there? 11 12 Jennifer Armer: So I believe those are farther away from the source. I don’t know if we… 13 14 Commissioner Ji: I mean but they’re adjacent [inaudible 253:34]. So they’re like a couple feet 15 away. 16 17 Chair Chang: So is the question − that does – is the question whether the next parcel over has… 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 Ji: Yeah. Like my question is where would staff say it’s no longer – like is staff 1 basically saying that this whole space here is not go-, expected – not conducive for construction 2 of a single-family home? 3 4 Jennifer Armer: So the suggestion is more that because there is a – an existing nonconforming − 5 legal, nonconforming commercial use on this site, that rezoning it to a commercial use as is 6 requested as proposed could be appropriate given the circumstances. 7 8 Commissioner Templeton: It’s not being used as a home. 9 10 Jennifer Armer: It’s not currently being used as a home whereas we believe the other sites are. 11 12 Chair Chang: Is it a legal use? Because it – it was my understand-, I mean is it a legal, 13 nonconforming use? Or is it just a nonconforming, illegal… 14 15 Jennifer Armer: You got me. I probably would… 16 17 Chair Chang: …use? 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. Jennifer Armer: …need to do a little more research to confirm the legal status of it. But it is 1 nonconforming – oh, it is – it’s actually part of a larger kind of shopping center or business 2 center. 3 4 Commissioner Ji: Oh. You… 5 6 Jennifer Armer: Yeah, we’re looking at the… 7 8 Commissioner Ji: …[inaudible 254:56]… 9 10 Jennifer Armer: …aerial photo here on the laptops but… 11 12 Chair Chang: Commissioner Summa, did you have a… 13 14 Commissioner Summa: I… 15 16 Chair Chang: …comment? 17 18 Commissioner Summa: This came to the Planning Commission some years ago, in 2020, as a 19 preliminary because the 2951, I believe it is, El Camino Real owns that parcel and they also own 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. 470 Olive. And they at one point – they had used it – to my understanding, it is not necessarily a 1 legally, nonconforming use; it was kind of a shock to everybody that it was not being used 2 legally as residential. And at one point, the buildings were joined is my understanding of it. So 3 regardless of whether it’s legally nonconforming, I don’t think they were required to return it to 4 its residential state. And that’s – that was 2020, which is noted in here, I think, some place. 5 6 Commissioner Ji: Yeah. I guess my – it’s – I think it’s based on Packet Page 208. It says that it has 7 retained its [R-1 256:01] designation despite [being continuous 256:11] commercial use. I feel 8 like that kind of implies it’s not meant to be a commercial use but I’ll defer to staff. 9 10 Female: It’s not. 11 12 Chair Chang: In the interest – I mean I think we’re all getting pretty tired here. Because we’re 13 not moving forward on this. So I have a question for staff in terms of what you want from us 14 regarding Hansen. It’s not currently in the ordinance. I understand that there is a public 15 comment asking for it to be put into the ordinance, and yet, I’ve also heard from staff that staff 16 – that the Transportation Department has said their recommendation would be to potentially 17 reduce but not remove the setback. But we don’t know why nor do we know how much. So 18 that’s with respect to Hansen. And then respect to Olive, is staff asking us for action tonight? I 19 think it was about future action, is that correct? 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 Jennifer Armer: Yes, there was the potential that this could have been part of the current action 2 but it actually would require public noticing to the adjacent parcels. So an action on rezoning, 3 we don’t have that rezoning before you but we did want to get an indication as to whether that 4 was something that you would generally be supportive of… 5 6 Chair Chang: Okay. 7 8 Jennifer Armer: …and therefore, we should bring it back. 9 10 Chair Chang: So then 470 Olive, we just need kind of a straw poll… 11 12 Jennifer Armer: Yes. 13 14 Chair Chang: …from each Commissioner as to whether we would be interested in bringing it 15 back, such that it would be rezoned and then become part of the parcel – or have the same 16 zoning as the parcel next to it. Is that correct? 17 18 Jennifer Armer: That’s correct. 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. Can we just do a straw poll then? Unless there needs to be additional 1 discussion. Oh, okay. Commissioner Summa has a light. 2 3 Commissioner Summa: Thank you very much. Sorry. Because I chimed in specifically thinking it 4 might be of use but I’d like to share my comments and questions about both of them. One is – 5 so I’ll do Hansen first. The Transportation Department, at this point, does not recommend 6 removing it completely but they think that some reduction may be appropriate. So I would like 7 to wait and see what they say to make any final decision. And I believe that the 50-foot setback 8 could not be removed completely if the map on Packet Page 208 is accurate. It may not be a 9 very accurate map but maybe more representational than − of the situation generally. Because 10 the PGE easement protrudes into the 50-foot setback at the – well I’ll call the lower corner for 11 this from El Camino. So that’s something to remember – think of, I mean. And then also with 12 regards to the 50-foot setback, which was an initial feature of the Stanford Research Park in 13 1950 and is throughout the Research Park. The reason we relaxed it specifically for the Parmani 14 Hotel − because if you look at the configuration of their parcel, it took like half of their parcel. 15 So that did not seem reasonable at all at the time. And this is a very differently configured 16 parcel. That being said, I don’t think – I think for parcels along El Camino, it isn’t as important to 17 maintain the 50-foot setback. But I think Stanford should also weigh in on this, to be honest. 18 And I think they would probably agree but I think we should get some feedback from Stanford. 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 think we may have had a speaker from – representing them that 1 was not − public comment was not affiliated. 2 3 Commissioner Summa: I wasn’t… 4 5 Chair Chang: We heard from Sand Hill who… 6 7 Commissioner Summa: They have a lease. 8 9 Chair Chang: …is leasing it. 10 11 Commissioner Templeton: Got it. Okay. 12 13 Chair Chang: But the Stanford Research Park is… 14 15 Commissioner Templeton: Okay. All right. 16 17 Chair Chang: Yeah. 18 19 Commissioner Templeton: Okay. 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: So – and then – so those are my thoughts there but I do not think it 2 would be in any way injurious to remove it since it’s an El Camino site and – visually as far as it 3 goes with the uniformity of the look in the Stanford Research Park. But it’s just really waiting to 4 see what the Transportation Department thinks is viable. And also to point out the difference in 5 the two situations across Hansen Way and Parmani Hotel. And then the 470 Olive, I would not 6 be in favor of doing that at this time unless there was a project – a housing project specifically 7 that would – that was brought forward and the application was made. I think to upzone that 8 property, it – at – with the – in the absence of a project does not make any sense to me. And as 9 an R-1 property that is – abuts commercial zone, mixed use zone, and in that neighborhood 10 actually, it is one of the more affordable R-1 properties in terms of if it was sold or – I just think 11 it’s premature to do it in the absence of the project. And I haven’t heard – maybe staff knows 12 something more about this, but I haven’t heard about this project resurfacing since we first saw 13 it for a preliminary sort of hearing in 2020. 14 15 So I just don’t see – I understand why they would ask since they’ve been using it commercially 16 for – I forget how many decades. But it seems more valuable the way it is right now as a 17 residentially-zoned property. And if they had a project or if somebody else had a project to 18 bring back including that property, then I think it could be considered. So that’s where I stand. 19 Thanks. 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: Commissioner Peterson. 2 3 Commissioner Peterson: So I do want to go back to that – the question. So Commissioner Ji 4 brought up that there’s only one lot that has known contamination and I am pretty familiar 5 with the idea of property lines and knowing where contamination is. And when you don’t know 6 where it is, you don’t – you can’t make an assumption that it’s across the property line. But 7 oftentimes, that’s simply predicated on that nobody has looked. And also not knowing if this is 8 surface contamination. I don’t know if this is ground water contamination. It doesn’t sound like 9 there’s a lot of information on what exactly the issue is. But if one lot is being rezoned due to 10 the contamination, it does seem like this would be an issue that could potentially impact more 11 lots that would have a similar reason to rezone from their current designation. And it does 12 seem important. And a lot of times, the property owner isn’t necessarily motivated to be 13 searching for contamination on their own property for a lot of reasons. What are the – for staff, 14 what’s the options available to us in a scenario like that? 15 16 Jennifer Armer: So at this point, we don’t have a specific application for rezoning; however, 17 because it was brought up as part of the discussions of this item, if you did wish for us to come 18 back for an item that’s been properly noticed for consideration, we could do that. If it is 19 something broader than this one parcel, then I think that becomes a larger effort and we’d 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. want to do that through a full process with separate environmental review and other 1 considerations because it’s more than just a single site that kind of fits within some of the other 2 changes we’ve been making here this evening. 3 4 Commissioner Peterson: Thank you. That’s informative. Just from my background, I was 5 environmental engineer. A lot of times, it does seem like these things move around and are – 6 cover a larger area. So I’ll leave that there – the information there for the rest of the 7 Commission if somebody else wants to take that up. 8 9 Chair Chang: Commissioner Hechtman. 10 11 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. So I’ll start with Olive. So I’m not sure that the rezoning is the 12 right thing but I think it is worth bringing back to us with some analysis. I think the issue is not 13 really the extent of the plume; it’s that the plume is here and we’ve got a commercial building 14 which while − you’re right, you can build residential on top of that but there are extensive costs 15 that may not be justifiable for one single-family house to tear down this and build something 16 new. But when I think about that, if we were to consider rezoning 470 to NVMXM, that would 17 leave 473 Pepper directly behind it, right? I think facing Pepper backyard to 470 Olive with two 18 sides of this NVMXM designation. And so what I’d actually like if this does come back, I’d like to 19 look at the possibility of rezoning both of those. It’s an upzoning, so 473 Pepper can stay in 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. residential for as long as they want but we’re actually giving them increased valued and you can 1 see the way that the existing commercial zone is pushed out there. It’s just extending a little 2 farther. So I’d be open to looking at it but I think it should come back even though that other 3 one is a different setting because it’s not in commercial use currently. 4 5 But I think in a rezoning, it’s a straighter line, it makes more sense, and I’d like to look at both of 6 them together. On Hansen, it feels a little premature because I don’t see how you build 7 anything substantial in the setback area that you want to get rid of unless you get rid of that 8 PG&E easement. And you just don’t get rid of those, of course. If there’s a line there, you have 9 to relocate it. If it’s a major line, that’s going to be hugely expensive. But if that’s what they 10 want to do, then I think this should come back to us at a point where they can say, “Hey, here’s 11 our plan. We’re moving the line over here. We want the 50-foot setback to go to 35. Here’s 12 why.” We don’t have that information now, so we are as I think Commissioner Summa 13 mentioned, we’re operating kind of in a knowledge vacuum. We’ve got the Transportation 14 Department – may be open to it but they haven’t settled and maybe for the same reasons. It’s 15 what are we accommodating? We just don’t know. So for this one, I’m sort of comfortable 16 making no recommendation at this time to reduce the setback until we have more information, 17 if ever. It may never come back to us. But tonight, I don’t feel like I can make an informed 18 decision. 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. Thank you. Commissioner Templeton. Then Akin. 1 2 Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. I think we’re all kind of along the same line here. I just want to 3 say about – I agree with Commissioner Hechtman about if it’s not going to be proven to be 4 helpful, why are we changing this? Because we could be guessing and not changing it in the 5 right way. And then for Olive, I remember something similar and I don’t know if it was the same 6 one that Commissioner Summa was mentioning or not but the thing was – that was going on 7 there is they were waiting for the NVCAP to kind of congeal and finalize and be approved. And 8 then, I guess, this part didn’t get addressed. I’m not exactly sure. But it sounds very specific. 9 And I agree with Commissioner Summa like unless we’re getting housing in return, why are we 10 giving this away? We need to make sure we’re going to get what we want in exchange for that 11 rezoning. So associate it with a project seems to be the most advantageous for the City’s best 12 interest; however, I agree that that’s what the person who owns the lot wants. So… 13 14 Female: [Inaudible 269:41]. 15 16 Commissioner Templeton: …I think we need to see a project happen and perhaps there was a 17 reason holding him back. I think he said he couldn’t get a project together until it was zoned 18 properly or something like 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 Summa: So… 1 2 Commissioner Templeton: Do you remember? 3 4 Commissioner Summa: …that was in 2020. I forget when you started. 5 6 Commissioner Templeton: 2018. 7 8 Commissioner Summa: Yeah, okay. So you were there. Yeah, so there were three parcels 9 between Pepper and Olive on El Camino. The people that came forward with the project owned 10 the middle one and 470 Olive. And they wanted to build something on Olive but they didn’t 11 own all of it. So it was kind of – we weren’t able to move forward. 12 13 Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. So I don’t know what we would gain by doing this now but – 14 go ahead. 15 16 Jennifer Armer: Just through the Chair, doing a quick time check because it is 10:30. 17 18 Commissioner Templeton: 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. Jennifer Armer: And given that and what we’ve heard of the discussion so far – I know we 1 haven’t heard from all of the Commissioners but it seems like there’s a growing consensus that 2 if these two changes are desired by the property owners, that it could be – they could be 3 requested as part of a future development proposal. 4 5 Commissioner Templeton: Yes. Thank you so much. That’s exactly the point I was trying to get 6 to. Are we – do we need to do a poll or a motion or anything? But I think… 7 8 Chair Chang: I don’t think we do. 9 10 Commissioner Templeton: …we have all come close to agreement on this. 11 12 Chair Chang: I think we have discussed enough that staff has – and it sounds like that’s what 13 staff is telling us. So unless somebody has something – a burning desire to say something 14 additional, I think we can move onto the next item. All right. And we need to do a time check. 15 So it is 10:30. What is the Commission’s pleasure with respect to the next item, which is – sorry, 16 while I get there. 17 18 3. Recommendation on a Resolution Amending the El Camino Real Retail Node Map for 19 Purposes of Palo Alto Municipal Code Section 18.40.180: Retail Preservation. CEQA 20 Status: Addendum to the Comprehensive Plan Environmental Impact Report (EIR), 21 adopted November 17, 2023 (SCH #2014052101). 22 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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: Retail – the recommendation on a resolution to amend the El Camino Real Retail 2 Nodes. And I’m just going to chime in really quickly and say I was concerned when reading this 3 that this was not something that we would easily be able to vote on nor come to consensus in a 4 7-person meeting unless we were all in complete agreement with the staff recommendation. 5 And so let’s go from there. And so I think it could be a long discussion. Commissioner – yeah. 6 7 Jennifer Armer: Just a quick suggestion that based on that comment, that if the Commission 8 chose to say designate an ad hoc to look into this further and come forward with some 9 suggestions, that is an option. But if you were going in a direction like that, I would recommend 10 that we still get a brief presentation and staff presentation on it and open for any public 11 comments. I don’t think we still have anyone on − before just closing the item for the – in the 12 meeting tonight. 13 14 Chair Chang: Okay. So… 15 16 Commissioner Hechtman: Before we do that, if what we really want to talk about is whether we 17 want to continue it before starting, shouldn’t we have that conversation first? 18 19 Chair Chang: Yeah, that’s what we’re… 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 Jennifer Armer: Yes. I… 2 3 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 4 5 Jennifer Armer: …guess I wanted to provide that opportunity to do something really quick this 6 evening. 7 8 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 9 10 Jennifer Armer: If we were going in a direction of a long discussion. 11 12 Chair Chang: Okay. So we’ve got Commissioner Hechtman and then Summa. 13 14 Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. Thank you. So this is estimated to take an hour and 20 minutes 15 and in advance, I thought that that’s probably pretty fair, maybe a little short. We’ve got full 16 Commission tonight. Just looking at sort of how I was looking at things and kind of the detail 17 that I was going to bring to the discussion, I’m feeling like if anything it’s an underestimate. And 18 so it’s going to take longer than an hour and 20 minutes. And I hate to cut short Commissioner 19 Summa’s last night on the Commission –I’m willing to stay till 2 if that’s what she wants to do 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. wring every last minute out of this position. I’m going to vote with Commissioner Summa on 1 this. 2 3 Commissioner Summa: I should let you know that I have no desire to stay here till 2 in the a.m. 4 5 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 6 7 Commissioner Summa: But I was going to say – and really honestly, I won’t be here for the 8 discussion. But I was going to say that I felt like it would take me way more than 4 or 5 days to 9 really do justice to this topic because it really requires a map with additional information on 10 pipeline projects and already approved projects to try to understand fully what the area looks 11 like and to really understand what we need most there. And that can’t be done in 4 days. 12 Because you really have to walk it. And nobody had time to do that. And I am thinking that this 13 is a perfect sort of thing for an ad hoc to do. So that would be my recommendation to have an 14 ad hoc look at this. And as to whether we continue it after taking the presentation or taking the 15 presentation, I will leave that up to the Chair and Vice-Chair. But I do have general comments 16 about it if you want it. 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. Chair Chang: Were there other thoughts about wanting to continue it versus hear the 1 presentation and then have a short discussion and then continue at – Commissioner 2 Templeton. 3 4 Commissioner Templeton: I would continue it. I don’t think there’s any point in having the 5 presentation so far away from the actual discussion. 6 7 Chair Chang: Anybody else? Okay. Then it sounds like – I mean – and staff did you want to give 8 us the presentation right now or… 9 10 Jennifer Armer: No, that’s fine. If that’s what you wish, that’s fine. But there is – I heard some 11 support for the idea of an ad hoc, so would ask whether that is what’s mo-, or whether we’re 12 just moving it to another meeting to start at that time? 13 14 Chair Chang: So this is what I would say, I looking at this was thinking, “My goodness. This is 15 going to be a pretty long discussion and it wouldn’t do it justice.” I actually think an ad hoc 16 would be a really good thing to do because we saw with the Retail and Housing Element that it 17 was really helpful actually to have ad hocs. If that is something that we do want to do, I’m a 18 little bit loathed to wait – well I don’t know. We have a new Commissioner. Maybe we create 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. the ad hoc with the new Commissioner. That’s the way we’d do it if that’s the Commissions’ 1 pleasure. So let’s – Commissioner Templeton. 2 3 Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. I just want to share my experience on the ad hocs is that I 4 think that a lot of good discussion happens in private and we don’t get the benefit of it and the 5 report backs are anemic at times. And that’s the idea of having the ad hoc is, right, to shorten 6 that discussion but if we don’t get to have that discussion, then it feels difficult to have the 7 right kind of vote like I – we’re missing out on a lot. So if we do that, I would hope that it would 8 be either recorded or good notes taken to share back because that’s just been something I feel 9 that I’ve lost unless I’m on the committee, in which case, I get the information. But then it’s – 10 still have to take the time to share it back out. 11 12 Chair Chang: Okay. So we’re not deciding on that though right now. We’re deciding on whether 13 we continue it or not. So… 14 15 Commissioner Templeton: A hundred percent clear on that, I think. 16 17 Chair Chang: Yeah. So do we have a motion specifically with respect… 18 19 Commissioner Templeton: 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 Chair Chang: …to continuing… 2 3 Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 4 5 Chair Chang: …the item or not. 6 7 Commissioner Templeton: Can we please continue this to… 8 9 Chair Chang: Next… 10 11 Jennifer Armer: So if we were doing a date certain, I would not recommend the first meeting in 12 April because we already have two items there. We have one, maybe two items for the 30th, so 13 you could continue it to… 14 15 Commissioner Templeton: To… 16 17 Jennifer Armer: …April 30. 18 19 Commissioner Templeton: 30th, that’s my 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: Do we have a second? 2 3 Commissioner Hechtman: Second. 4 5 Chair Chang: Discussion? Commissioner Hechtman, I see a light. But I think that it’s not – I think 6 it’s a ghost light. 7 8 Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 9 10 Chair Chang: Okay. All right. Let’s take a vote. 11 12 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 13 14 Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 15 16 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Ji? 17 18 Commissioner Ji: Yes. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Veronica Dao: Chair Chang? 1 2 Chair Chang: Yes. 3 4 Veronica Dao: Vice-Chair Akin? 5 6 Vice-Chair Akin: Yes. 7 8 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Peterson? 9 10 Commissioner Peterson: Yes. 11 12 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 13 14 Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 15 16 Veronica Dao: Motion carries 6-0. 17 18 Commissioner Templeton: Did Doria… 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: Oh. 1 2 Commissioner Templeton: …get to vote? 3 4 Veronica Dao: Sorry. Commissioner Summa? 5 6 Female: {Inaudible 278:54]. 7 8 Veronica Dao: Commissioner… 9 10 Commissioner Summa: Yes. 11 12 Veronica Dao: Motion carries 7-0. 13 14 Chair Chang: Okay. 15 16 APPROVAL OF MINUTES 17 Public Comment is Permitted. Three (3) minutes per speaker. 18 19 5. Approval of Planning & Transportation Commission Draft Summary & Verbatim 20 Minutes of February 26, 2025 21 22 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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 then I think our final item is approval of minutes. So we’ve got Draft Summary 1 and Verbatim Minutes of February 26 before us. So… 2 3 Commissioner Hechtman: [Inaudible 279:22]. Did the Vice-Chair make a motion? 4 5 Vice-Chair Akin: I am happy to do so. I move we approve the minutes as revised. 6 7 Chair Chang: Could I have a second? 8 9 Commissioner Summa: Second. 10 11 Chair Chang: Do we have any discussion? Okay. All in favor? 12 13 Vice-Chair Akin: Aye. 14 15 Chair Chang: Aye. 16 17 Commissioner Hechtman: Aye. 18 19 Commissioner Peterson: Aye. 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: Aye. 2 3 Commissioner Ji: Aye. 4 5 Commissioner Templeton: I’m abstaining. 6 7 Chair Chang: So I’ll get there. All in favor? 8 9 Commissioner Summa: Aye. 10 11 Vice-Chair Akin: Aye. 12 13 Commissioner Ji: Aye. 14 15 Commissioner Peterson: Aye. 16 17 Chair Chang: Aye. 18 19 Commissioner Hechtman: Aye. 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: All opposed? Any abstentions? 2 3 Commissioner Templeton: Cari. 4 5 Chair Chang: Great. It passes 6-0-1. Okay. 6 7 Commissioner Questions, Comments or Announcements 8 9 Chair Chang: Commissioner Questions, Comments, Announcements or Future Meetings and 10 Agendas? Commissioner Ji. 11 12 Commissioner Ji: Just one last thank you for Commissioner Summa as we wrap up this meeting. 13 14 Commissioner Summa: Woo-hoo. Thanks. 15 16 Chair Chang: Okay. We are adjourned. 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. Adjournment 1 10:40 PM 2 3 /ls 4