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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2025-04-09 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: April 9, 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’m calling to order this regular meeting of the Planning 9 and Transportation Commission for Wednesday, April 9, 2025. 10 11 ROLL CALL 12 13 Chair Chang: Ms. Dao, could you please take the roll? 14 15 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 James? 2 3 Commissioner James: 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 Templeton? 14 15 Commissioner Templeton: Here. 16 17 Veronica Dao: We have a quorum. 18 19 Oral Communications 20 The public may speak to any item not on the agenda. Three (3) minutes per speaker.1,2 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: Before we do our first officially agendized item, I just wanted to welcome 2 Commissioner Todd James who is here to join us tonight for his first meeting. Welcome. And 3 our first order of business is public comment. This is public comment on items that are not on 4 the agenda. Ms. Dao, we have any speakers? 5 6 Veronica Dao: I have none for Oral Communications. 7 8 Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions 9 The Chair or Commission majority may modify the agenda order to improve meeting management. 10 11 Chair Chang: Great. Okay, thank you. And then do we have any agenda changes, additions, and 12 deletions, Ms. Armer? 13 14 Jennifer Armer: No changes. 15 16 Chair Chang: Great. 17 18 City Official Reports 19 1. Directors Report, Meeting Schedule and Assignments 20 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. Chair Chang: On to City Official Reports. Take it away, Ms. Armer. 1 2 Jennifer Armer: Good evening. We will quickly take a look at what’s in our upcoming Planning 3 and Transportation Commission meetings. Right now we have 2 items scheduled for the April 4 30 meeting. We will do the discussion of the El Camino Real retail nodes that was continued 5 from a previous meeting. And we are working to bring the application for 660 University to you 6 for the continuation of that discussion. Still working with the applicant to make sure we have 7 the information requested. And then a tentative agenda for your May 14 meeting, we have 8 South Palo Alto bike/ped connectivity and a review of the Capital Improvement, the CIP plan. I 9 also wanted to note here that the City has transitioned the web address and emails that we 10 have for the City from cityofpaloalto.org to paloalto.gov. Otherwise, email addresses for City 11 staff are still the same in terms of first name dot last name. That transition actually started 12 today so we are working on updating handouts and online documents to the new links. But 13 everything should be working at this point. We just go through and do that update. Next slide? 14 So then in terms of recent and upcoming Council meetings on items that came to the PTC 15 previously, we had a discussion of the lighting ordinance on Monday of this week. They 16 requested some changes to what was brought forward to them and so they continued it to a 17 future meeting with specific direction. And then next week the City Council will be considering 18 the planned community, the PHZ, for the project at 70 Encina Avenue. And that completes my 19 report for this evening. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 any Commissioners have questions for Ms. Armer before we move on to 2 Transportation? Yes, Commissioner Ji? 3 4 Commissioner Ji: Yes. Thank you, Ms. Armer. I was wondering, I’m looking on Packet Page 7 5 that it’s scheduled that the parking program update is supposed to come for April 30? Could 6 you talk... 7 8 Jennifer Armer: Yes. 9 10 Commissioner Ji: ...to that? 11 12 Jennifer Armer: Yes, thank you for that request. As you know from our last meeting, there was a 13 brief update and discussion at the beginning of the meeting to that. Working with the data 14 that’s been collected and how to present and summarize that, I am working with the 15 Transportation Division to bring that to you but it does look like it will likely be May that that 16 comes forward. We are also discussing the possibility of having that be an annual update, so 17 that you will have the expectation of seeing that once a year. Thank you. 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: I do have a question also. You noted that 660 University Avenue is going to come 2 back to us again and that it was continued? We didn’t continue it. At least that’s not what I 3 recall. 4 5 Jennifer Armer: We will renotice it. 6 7 Chair Chang: Okay. 8 9 Jennifer Armer: You continued it to a date uncertain. 10 11 Chair Chang: I thought we moved it on to Council. But maybe I just don’t remember [inaudible 12 21:47]. 13 14 Jennifer Armer: For 660, you requested additional information. For example, about the flood 15 zone and the encroachments underground into the special setback, some of those details as 16 well, including the comprehensive plan proposal. And so all of that will come back... 17 18 Chair Chang: Okay. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Jennifer Armer: ...for future consideration. 1 2 Chair Chang: Thank you for refreshing my memory. All right, is Mr. Rius here for 3 Transportation? 4 5 Rafael Rius: Yes, I am. Can you hear me okay? 6 7 Chair Chang: Yes, we can. 8 9 Rafael Rius: Okay. Rafael Rius, Senior Engineer with the Office of Transportation. Just some 10 minor updates. Mr. Armer mentioned the South Palo Alto bike and ped connectivity coming in 11 May. We did want to point out there’s an opportunity to take an online survey. We had the link 12 emailed to the Commission. For members of the public it’s available on the Transportation 13 Projects webpage. And that survey will be open until April 30 so we invite everyone to 14 participate in that. And also, the bicycle, pedestrian transportation plan project page has an 15 online comment form that we’re also seeking input on and that’s also open through April 30. 16 Those are the only updates I have for tonight unless you have questions. 17 18 Chair Chang: Anybody have questions for Mr. Rius? 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. Action Items 1 Public Comment is Permitted. Applicants/Appellant Teams: Fifteen (15) minutes, plus three (3) minutes rebuttal. 2 All others: Five (5) minutes per speaker. 3 4 2. Review of the Final Concept Design for the Permanent Installation of the Crescent 5 Park Traffic Calming Project 6 7 Chair Chang: Okay, so then on to our first action item tonight. The first one is review of the final 8 concept design for the permanent installation of the Crescent Park Traffic Calming Project. 9 Could we start with the staff presentation, please? 10 11 Shahla Yazdy: Good evening, Chair Chang, Commissioners. I’m Shahla Yazdy with the Office of 12 Project Engineer with the Office of Transportation. To my left, I have Chirag Panchal, the 13 associate engineer with our department as well. And to my right, Steve Davis from Fehr & 14 Peers. He’s the consultant that’s been working on the project with us. Having said that, I will 15 start off the presentation and then hand it over to Steve. Tonight we’re discussing the – review 16 the final concept design for the Crescent Park Traffic Calming Project. Next slide, please? The 17 agenda for the evening. We’re going to go over the purpose, project overview and background, 18 final design concept layouts, next steps, and also discussion afterwards. Next slide? Just a brief 19 reminder one of the purpose for tonight is to review the final concept plans for the Crescent 20 Park project. We have the updated revised plans. Per the PTC motion from June 14 meeting, it 21 was recommended to – the PTC motion from June 14 meeting was to recommend to City 22 Council for permanent improvements of the traffic oval at Center, Southwood, and Hamilton 23 with a condition that it be landscaped and also that the bulb-out at the corner of East Crescent 24 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. and Southwood to be refined with input directly from the adjacent property owners. Another 1 part of the motion was for staff to come back for PTC review of the concept designs. I will hand 2 this over to Steve to continue with the project overview and descriptions of the refinements 3 that we’ve done to date. Thank you. 4 5 Steve Davis: All right. Thank you for having me here tonight. Next slide? Thank you. We’ll start 6 out with just walking through a little bit of overview and background on the project and what 7 the path has been from when we started to where we are now. As I think probably most of you 8 here recall, the overall primary goals of the project were to improve safety and quality of life 9 based on feedback that had been heard from residents related to cut-through traffic along 10 several streets but particularly for folks who are using Hamilton as an alternate route during 11 times of congestion on University. And so we started looking at ways to try to address that cut-12 through traffic concern as well as minimize travel speeds where we could try to put in traffic-13 calming features that would address those issues. Next slide, please? The initial set of projects 14 that we’re really looking at still are the 2 locations that Shahla already mentioned. There’s a 15 traffic circle that’s a little bit elongated at the 5-leg intersection of Hamilton, Center, and 16 Southwood. And then there is the curb extension, or roadway realignment, that introduced a 3-17 way stop at the intersection of Southwood and East Crescent. Next, please? Just for those who 18 may not be familiar, though I think most here probably are, you can see images of those 2 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. things here. An overhead image of the traffic circle on the left, this is the Quick-Build pilot 1 version that is in place today. 2 3 And then on the right you see the current extension and roadway realignment that’s in place – 4 looks like the text got cut off but it’s Southwood and East Crescent. This is looking from East 5 Crescent headed what would be southbound into Hamilton. Next slide, please? We won’t dwell 6 here but this is – when we came to you last and talked to the Commission was part of the 7 meeting of June 2023 that Shahla mentioned. But you could see that this started quite a bit 8 earlier than that. There were several touchpoints with the community as well as PTC and 9 Council. If you can go to the next slide, please? I wanted to just also highlight what’s been 10 happening since then. After we were here, City Council then approved the idea of going ahead 11 with permanent [inaudible 27:53] developing the project, so that’s when we began work of 12 starting to refine the previous preliminary concepts that we had and looking at the traffic pilot 13 projects again. We then had a few meetings. We had a community meeting but before that, we 14 also had an on-site field meeting with the residents adjacent to the curb extension at East 15 Crescent and Southwood, specifically the residents of 590 East Crescent. Then we continued 16 with design refinement and that brings us up to the present today where we’re sharing those 17 refined designs. Next slide, please? 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. What we’ll do now is just for each location, the 2 locations, walk through what we’d heard as 1 part of the feedback and those 2 touchpoints that we referenced before, what has been 2 adjusted as a result, and then we can share an image of what the concept is looking like at this 3 point. A lot of the feedback previously on the circle, there was some concern about plant and 4 irrigation, which was something that had been noted by this Commission as well. There was a 5 request for crosswalks to be added. There were not crosswalks in the existing condition at the 6 intersection across all 5 streets, so that was something that there was interest in having added. 7 And then also a few concerns about the visibility and function of movements for drivers coming 8 to the intersection. In particular, where there are some places where going around the circle 9 seems a little more onerous, that people were making the undesirable left turn instead of going 10 around like you would with a circular roadway feature. And then also with the alignment and 11 vegetation, particularly between southbound Center Drive and eastbound Hamilton, that it’s a 12 little bit challenging to have line of sight between drivers at both of those stop signs at the 13 same time. Next slide, please? Based on that, we did adjust the actual alignment of the circle. 14 It’s not too different in terms of size but it’s a little bit different in terms of shape. It did move a 15 little bit further north in the intersection than it was before, partly to try to discourage the 16 wrong-way maneuvers by also making the correct circulation less circuitous for those 17 maneuvers. 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. There will be additional signage that will be added as well. You’ll see in the plans that there are 1 now raised medians on all 5 of the approaches to the intersection, kind of the way you would 2 expect at a normal circular intersection with splitter islands guiding you in the correct direction. 3 And then there’s also some improvements to the ADA compliance. Some of the ramps that are 4 present out there today are not compliant and then, as mentioned before, some crosswalks 5 don’t exist so that will be refreshed for all of the crossings. And then we worked in coordination 6 with a landscape architect both inside the city as well as from the consultant team to identify a 7 planting palette that is drought resistant and generally sustainable but with positive aesthetics. 8 Has been used elsewhere in the City before. Next slide, please? Those are all just words that 9 probably didn’t mean a whole lot until you looked at this picture now. What you have in front 10 of us is the actual adjustment. As we’re oriented here, north is almost directly to your right 11 along Center Drive. The traffic circle, the part that you would see in gray, is an apron that trucks 12 are able to mount to go over. We wanted to make sure that emergency vehicles as well as trash 13 pickups, since those are required necessities here, that those are still always going to be able to 14 circulate. But it did move a little bit to the right compared to before. 15 16 You do see the new splitter islands on all 5 approaches and then you can also see several places 17 where there are either entirely new curb ramps in the corner. Those are in a little bit lighter 18 color. Some of the ones that you see in the dark gray, dark gray is existing sidewalk. A few of 19 the ramps do have compliant grades so we can just make incremental improvements to achieve 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. accessibly requirements there. Next, please? Going to the second intersection, the curb 1 extension and roadway realignment at the intersection of Southwood and East Crescent. In 2 terms of aesthetics, we received some of the same feedback in terms of wanting to see a bit 3 more appealing design for it, wanting to see some landscaping and something that would fit 4 better there. There is concern about parking loss in the immediate vicinity of the intersection 5 with the addition of the alignment really, the curb extension that changes the direction of East 6 Crescent. And related to that is pick-up, drop-off as well and how that can be affected both in 7 terms of available space but also accessibility. And then also tying into that in terms of parking 8 is the enaction of AB 413 during the course of this project. Just is a brief primer, AB 413 was a 9 bill that restricted parking near crosswalks on the approach side of intersections. That is now 10 codified in the California Vehicle Code, Section 22500. 11 12 And so what that basically says, the intent of that new regulation is to make it so the 13 pedestrians that are about to step out from the curb are more visible than they would’ve been 14 if there are parked vehicles blocking the line of sight. And the way the law is worded is that 15 there’s no parking within 20 feet of the near side of the crosswalk if there is no curb extension 16 or within 15 feet if there is a curb extension. So that actually would affect parking availability 17 relative to the curb ramp that is there today. Technically speaking, the curb ramp that is 18 present now is part of an unmarked crosswalk and the California Vehicle Code did apply AB 413 19 to both marked and unmarked crosswalks. Anywhere that is a designated pedestrian route 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. through the intersection is covered by this, so just a note that that portion of it would apply 1 regardless of the project. Next slide, please? Based on that feedback, we did also hear some 2 feedback that while the road is not necessarily as it is in the pilot condition too narrow, it can 3 be a little challenging with the curve to have people navigate past each other so the curb 4 extension alignment was adjusted a little bit and is now 5 feet narrower to provide a little bit 5 more space. The same planting palette has been applied to this intersection as well so you’ll see 6 that on the plan. 7 8 The original plan involved removing the location where the current curb ramp is and installing a 9 new curb ramp at the intersection. The plan now still installs that new curb ramp to establish a 10 new crosswalk at the location of the realigned intersection but does plan to maintain a 11 concrete path in the location now so that there would still be a connection between the 12 sidewalk and the curbline there for street access. As mentioned, the crosswalk is being 13 realigned into the intersection. It both reduces the crossing distance, which is just generally a 14 safety countermeasure. You’ll see that as something that’s actually in the safety action plan, for 15 example, as well. But then it does make the pedestrian crossings occur where you would expect 16 them to be. And then generally speaking, the whole approach to this was to try to balance the 17 input against the legal requirements of the design, so that’s what the refinements are seeking is 18 the balance between accessibility requirements, resident input and needs, and then also the 19 project goals that really are driving the placement of the curb extension in the first place. Next, 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. please? Again, all of the things that I just said very long-windedly are now present on an actual 1 drawing in front of you. You can see the 3-way stop is still maintained. The gray paths, again, 2 here are the existing sidewalk locations. And so you can see the new shorter crosswalk that 3 goes to a longer connection to the sidewalk inside the curb extension. 4 5 Where you see those white stripes, parking would not be allowed for the first 15 feet behind 6 that. That takes you to just a little bit shy of where that concrete path is. Up toward the top of 7 the screen where you see a concrete path that’s a little bit shorter connecting the new curbline 8 to the old sidewalk, that is the location of the current ramp. Parking would be allowed directly 9 adjacent to that up to a point where you’re at 15 feet from the crosswalk stripe. Since we’re at 10 a curb extension, we can use the crosswalk distance of 15 feet instead of 20. Next, please? 11 Really the next steps at this point are, obviously after discussion, completing the final design 12 and preparing construction documents and then downstream from that is to procure funding 13 and actually move on toward construction of improvements once final design has been 14 complete. With that, next slide? Any questions and discussion? 15 16 Jennifer Armer: And through the Chair, just to make note for the record that Bart Hechtman has 17 joined us. 18 19 Chair Chang: Yes, 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 Jennifer Armer: [Inaudible 37:05] he has a statement to make of his remote participation. 2 3 Chair Chang: Go ahead, Commissioner Hechtman. 4 5 Commissioner Hechtman: Yes, thank you. I am participating remotely tonight from 6 1 Old Ranch Road in Carmel, Room 317. And currently there’s one adult in the room with me. 7 8 Jennifer Armer: Thank you. 9 10 Chair Chang: Thank you. All right, so do we have clarifying questions for staff before we take 11 public comment? Go ahead, Vice-Chair Akin. 12 13 Vice-Chair Akin: Thank you, Chair. Just a quick one. I wanted to get some clarification about 14 how close parking is allowed to the proposed concrete path. If I were to take a van with a 15 sliding side door, could I park that van so that the door opens onto the path? Is there sufficient 16 room for that? 17 18 Steve Davis: I’ll take that. We actually need to check the exact dimensions of the design vehicle. 19 It would depend on the model and where the door is in the van. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Chair Chang: Okay. Commissioner Hechtman? 2 3 Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. Two quick questions. In the staff report, the staff 4 recommendation was that the PTC review the final design per Council direction. It didn’t 5 specifically say that it was desirous that we make a recommendation to Council. I presume that 6 that’s within our purview tonight but I wanted to confirm. 7 8 Shahla Yazdy: Council had directed us to work with PTC to refine the design concept plans so 9 we are here. And so per the last PTC meeting on June 2023, we were directed to work with the 10 residents and come back with refined designs at the oval and also at the bulb-out at East 11 Crescent and Southwood. 12 13 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. [Inaudible 39:27]. 14 15 Shahla Yazdy: Did I answer your question? 16 17 Jennifer Armer: And so yes, a recommendation would be appreciated. 18 19 Shahla Yazdy: 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 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. Thank you. And then the other question I had, the traffic circle 2 oval will have landscaping, drought-resistant plants that will be watered until established? I was 3 just curious about the watering method anticipated for the duration until they’re established. 4 5 Shahla Yazdy: The plan is to work with our city parks and have the water truck water the 6 landscaping at both locations until they are established, like you said, and then after that, no 7 watering will be needed. And of course they will be maintained but from what I understand, 8 they are like low plants and slow growing. But of course as needed, they will be trimming as 9 needed. 10 11 Commissioner Hechtman: All right. Thank you. Those are my questions. 12 13 Chair Chang: Commissioner Ji? 14 15 Commissioner Ji: Thank you, Chair. I had a quick question about the data. I’m looking at Packet 16 Page 10 and I see that there’s data collected from October 2022. Is there any data that’s 17 collected more recently than that? 18 19 Shahla Yazdy: No, we did not collect additional data since October of 2022. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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. And then I had another question about the T, the Southwood and 2 East Crescent. I remember during the staff presentation you mentioned that the – we’ll just call 3 it the noncompliant ramp that exists currently – is a couple feet away from that 15-foot no-4 parking zone. Do you have an estimate about how far that difference is between the existing 5 noncompliant ramp and the end of the no-parking zone? 6 7 Shahla Yazdy: The 15 feet would start approximately in the middle of the new crosswalk ramp 8 where the truncated domes are, so I think from there you go about 15 feet. And then like Steve 9 mentioned, it would bring us a little shy – just right before the... 10 11 Commissioner Ji: My question is how shy? Is it like... 12 13 Shahla Yazdy: Oh. 14 15 Commissioner Ji: ...2 feet? Five feet? Do we have a... 16 17 Shahla Yazdy: Do we have a number or... 18 19 Male: I can get it but I don’t [inaudible 41:46]. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Shahla Yazdy: We can look that up and provide that. 2 3 Commissioner Ji: Yes, we can wait [until after 41:49] public comment. 4 5 Shahla Yazdy: Yes. 6 7 Commissioner Ji: We can just get that [inaudible 41:51]. 8 9 Shahla Yazdy: Okay. 10 11 Chair Chang: Yes, that’d be great if you look it up for us. 12 13 Shahla Yazdy: Sure. 14 15 Commissioner Ji: Those are all my questions. Thank you, Chair. 16 17 Chair Chang: Commissioner Peterson, then Commissioner James. 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: Thank you, Chair. Quick question. I’m on page – think that’s 96. And 1 it’s not super important but is this design by staff, by the City? Or is this a design that’s 2 contracted out? I’m not familiar with the process for the City. 3 4 Shahla Yazdy: So... 5 6 Chair Chang: Can... 7 8 Shahla Yazdy: Oh. 9 10 Chair Chang: Commissioner Peterson, what page are you on again? 11 12 Commissioner Peterson: Ninety-six. 13 14 Chair Chang: Ninety-six? 15 16 Commissioner Peterson: Oh. I think that’s in the packet. [Inaudible 42:25] 96... 17 18 Chair Chang: Are you looking at... 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: ...of 184. 1 2 Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 42:26] a little bit [inaudible 42:28]. 3 4 Commissioner Peterson: Ninety-five? 5 6 Commissioner Templeton: No. He’s looking at a different [inaudible 42:32]. 7 8 Chair Chang: Okay. 9 10 Shahla Yazdy: But I can still answer your question, I think. We have retained the services of Fehr 11 & Peers. Steve Davis is the project manager. They are assisting us with the design of the project 12 and of course it’s being managed by City staff. 13 14 Commissioner Peterson: Thank you. 15 16 Chair Chang: Commissioner James? 17 18 Commissioner James: Yes. Thank you. I have questions on both intersections. It seems to me 19 that a lot of the feedback that was critical of this on the 5-way intersection was aesthetic. And 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. can see that from some of the berms and some of the things that were – the design changes. 1 The vertical lane dividers, will those go away once these like polygons are in there to separate 2 the lanes? 3 4 Shahla Yazdy: Yes, so the delineators that are currently out there will be removed and... 5 6 Commissioner James: Mm-hm. 7 8 Shahla Yazdy: ...will be replaced by the median islands. And they’re not very high. I think... 9 10 Commissioner James: Right. 11 12 Shahla Yazdy: ...[they’re rolled 43:37]. But again, they are meant to guide the cars in the correct 13 direction. 14 15 Commissioner James: But they will go away, [inaudible 43:44]. 16 17 Shahla Yazdy: Yes. 18 19 Commissioner James: 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 Shahla Yazdy: Yes, [we will] [inaudible 43:45]. 2 3 Commissioner James: And then I understand it’s a prototype but seemed to me like the 4 directionals were also very conspicuous. They seem much higher than some of the other 5 roundabouts that I’m familiar with in the Town. And I just wonder if they can come down? I’m 6 just trying to address the neighborhood concerns about the aesthetics of this and just 7 wondering other than the planting, can it kind of – can we not only calm down the traffic but 8 can we calm down the aesthetics a little bit in terms of the directionals? Many of the 9 roundabouts have directionals that are much smaller and if there’s planting behind them, I 10 think they... 11 12 Female: Yes. 13 14 Commissioner James: ...might be more appealing to the neighborhood. 15 16 Shahla Yazdy: Correct me if I’m wrong, Steve, but those directionals, the sign heights are per 17 requirement. But I think they are higher. Because we have no landscaping so we did place them 18 higher. But I think the height is about 3½ feet from the surface of the traffic circle. Is that 19 correct or...? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Steve Davis: Yes. It can potentially be a little bit lower. Part of it was we wanted to make sure 2 that the signs for the pilot were more conspicuous because there’s not much physical circle to 3 see to grab a driver’s attention so you’re really reliant on the signs. The intent is to actually 4 change the signs over to the type that has the circle arrows like the other ones in town have. 5 They’ll have the little [inaudible 45:13] marker under it that’s retroreflective and they’ll be 6 probably a little bit lower than they are now. But as Shahla said, part of that is also driven by 7 the fact that it’s an optical illusion of the planting creating – a foot or two of height makes the 8 signs less prominent. 9 10 Commissioner James: I’m just hoping that we can be as respectful of the neighborhood’s 11 comments on aesthetics as possible. The other intersection. It does seem to me like it’s 12 improved from where it was last time. Am I reading this correctly that the curbline on 13 Southwood Drive comes down – does it align with that that edge of the bulb-out? 14 15 Chair Chang: Staff, could you please pull up the schematic so that we can all look at it and 16 members of the public who are joining online can also see? Can we zoom in a little bit or full-17 screen mode? Thank you. 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 James: That aligns with the curbline. I’m coming to this like in the third act of a 3-1 act play so I don’t want to go too far back but I guess there’s been a lot of comment over time 2 about that particular bulb-out. And I guess my question is a more fundamental one is that how 3 do you determine what the minimum viable structure is that’s going to give you the change you 4 want? Do you understand the question? It’s like what is the least we could do and still get the 5 outcome we want? 6 7 Steve Davis: Yes. I would say it’s iterative in nature, so without going through all of the process 8 of history, even since the last time that we were in this Commission and had gone through the 9 design refinements, we looked at a wide array of options because obviously your potential case 10 ranges from nothing to more or less something slightly larger than what you see here that 11 would allow the street to be wide enough to still be a street. Technically there’s also the option 12 of doing the curb extension from the other side. And we even evaluated those options at a high 13 level and basically tried to figure out given that our goal was particularly to make the cut-14 through route less desirable and to address speeds for people traversing the path from 15 Southwood onto East Crescent going around the curve, was to make that not seem like a curve. 16 You can see – obviously if you were do the complete opposite of what we have done here, you 17 would not be addressing that goal at all, so that led us to knowing that it needed to be 18 something that comes off of this side of the street. And so it’s trying to strike the balance 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. [inaudible 48:18] an iterative process, and some of the evaluations are frankly qualitative, that 1 what is the benefit between shorter pedestrian crossings, speed reduction with a stop sign? 2 3 If you start to make the intersection larger, then it makes it appealing to actually still do the 4 turn pretty quickly, especially if someone is willing to not obey the stop sign, so trying to 5 evaluate what all the potential outcomes are there. We heard what the feedback was that the 6 present size in terms of the opening for East Crescent at the intersection felt a little bit too 7 narrow so we addressed that with the refinements in the design compared to the pilot. But by 8 and large, going back to the full universe of potential solutions led us to a pretty similar place. 9 10 Commissioner James: Thank you. 11 12 Chirag Panchal: If I may add [inaudible 49:10] the design also includes the large vehicles and 13 emergency access vehicles and garbage truck to turn around so that’s why it’s the size the way 14 it is. 15 16 Chair Chang: Okay. I’ve got a couple questions. The current drawing that’s on-screen is the 17 planned condition, not the existing condition, so what are the 2 white stripes along the bulb-18 out represent again? 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. Steve Davis: Sorry. When you say 2 white stripes, are you referring to the ones that are 1 wrapped all the way around? 2 3 Chair Chang: Correct. The ones that are wrapped around the edge of the bulb-out. 4 5 Steve Davis: Got it. What you’re actually seeing is 3 black stripes that are encompassing the – 6 what looks like white. I apologize because that’s essentially construction details that are 7 showing up. The dashed line, now that you’re zoomed in, is the edge of where you would have 8 to saw-cut the pavement to remove pavement. The line next to that is then the edge of the 9 gutter so that you would bring drainage around. Because with the plan, we will actually not just 10 add this on to the existing condition. The curb will be fully removed across the front of the 11 house and the drainage flow will now be directed all the way around East Crescent here. And so 12 the second white stripe, wider spot there, is the gutter pan. And then where you see another 2 13 parallel lines pretty close together, that is the front and the back of the 6-inch-wide curb. 14 15 Chair Chang: Thank you. That really helps me because I was trying to figure out if they were 16 showing the old version or what it was showing. But... 17 18 Steve Davis: I apologize for 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. Chair Chang: ...there is no current version pictured here, correct? 1 2 Steve Davis: Correct. 3 4 Chair Chang: Okay. And then I did have a question about how we got here because I thought 5 that the direction, when I reread the transcript from the PTC and also according to my 6 recollection, was to consider not only redesigning the bulb-out but also some entirely different 7 options such as no bulb-out or speed bumps. And it doesn’t – were those ever considered as 8 part of this redesign? 9 10 Shahla Yazdy: So the motion from the last PTC, I believe, was to refine, not so much redesign as 11 in go back to the community and since we gotten Council approval for staff to move forward 12 with the permanent improvements while working with PTC. When the project first started, like 13 Steve mentioned, we did look at a lot of alternatives. Speed humps was not considered because 14 at this corner we were trying to slow the traffic down, get them to make the maneuvers right 15 into East Crescent and also right from East Crescent to Southwood, to slow that down, so 16 basically convert it into a T intersection. Speed humps are for slowing traffic down more in the 17 interiors of the street, not at the intersection. Basically, long answer short, is we did not look 18 into any further design since the last PTC. 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. Since Mr. Davis is here – and I’m not sure if you were around for the first 1 iteration of this before. At the last PTC meeting, I don’t believe you were here and we asked the 2 question how did we arrive at the bulb-out and making a T as a solution? And the staff who was 3 here wasn’t around for that earlier discussion and so I’m wondering if that context could be 4 provided? Because it sounds like what staff is telling us tonight is well, the goal is to make this a 5 T and so that’s why we have the bulb-out as a solution. But the goal, as I understood it, of the 6 project overall was to reduce cut-through traffic and reduce speeds. Which doesn’t specifically 7 say it’s a T. So can you give us that context as to how we arrived at the T being the best 8 solution? Because I think that’s some of the questions that are going on here. 9 10 Steve Davis: Sure. I will do my best admitting that my memory can be faulty. I was around from 11 the beginning of the project. I’ve been working on the project since the start of it. We did in the 12 very beginning look at several different alternatives at each of the intersections. And I would 13 have to pull them up to remember the specifics of what they were at each location. And that 14 was what was originally brought to the community. And the feedback from the community at 15 large, obviously nothing is ever unanimous, but pointed in the direction of the T intersection. 16 From a professional standpoint, I would say that when we’re looking at intersections of this 17 shape – and I know if you look at the circles in a few other neighborhoods in Palo Alto have a 18 similar sort of shape that was in vogue design for neighborhoods at the time. The large, wide-19 open, angular intersections are generally undesirable from a perspective of safety and speed 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 they create multiple paths for vehicles that can be traversed at the same speed 1 without them having line of sight to one another. But it also makes it unclear what the through 2 direction is. And so one of the nice things about converting something to a T intersection like 3 this when you have these sort of very narrow angle intersections, generally in safety plans, you 4 would recommend converting those where you have the space because you will drastically 5 reduce the speed at the intersection. 6 7 In this case, with an all-way stop you hypothetically bring the speeds down to zero or zeroish 8 for at least a moment. The pedestrian crossing routes become very clear. It’s not explicitly the 9 purview of this project but trying to cross all the way across an intersection like this is 10 challenging, particularly for people with vision impairments that are reliant on nonvisual cues. 11 But there’s not enough traffic to provide them so it clarifies that and makes it so the curb ramps 12 directly align with where you’re headed. It’s sort of a mix of it being a solution among of suite 13 of potential solutions for the explicit charge of this project but also addresses several ancillary 14 concerns that would’ve been present at the same time. 15 16 Chair Chang: Okay. Thank you. One thing. I think that clo-, oops, one more. Commissioner 17 Peterson. 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: Thank you. Thank you to the Chair. You raised an important question 1 and made me realize – as young engineers, traffic corners is always the task we get so I’ve 2 probably done 300 of these in my life. There’s always 2 constraints in corners. One is the ADA 3 ramp, which looks like this is fairly flat. It’s probably fine. The other one is always where does 4 the water flow? And so I just realize as the question before, what are those lines going around 5 the perimeter, that’s the flow line. Which I hadn’t realized the flow line was going to follow the 6 perimeter. I assume under the tree somewhere there it was going to flow or maybe there’s a 7 underground drainage, sanitary sewer, something. And I realize because of the crown of the 8 roadway, it almost looks like maybe the water’s going uphill for a bit and it would create a 9 puddle? And I don’t know which way the water’s flowing. Is it going from left to right here or is 10 it right to left? 11 12 Steve Davis: Generally speaking, it is flowing right to left on the screen. We do have another 13 consultant on our team who’s a civil engineer. I am also a civil engineer but a different kind. We 14 did do drainage calculations as part of this to ensure that we would have positive flow all the 15 way around the extension. Because that was one of the considerations at the time before we 16 even came to our last round of engagement to share concepts is you end up with a very 17 different look and operational concern if you need to do a channel drain and maintain the 18 existing curbline and have basically a little tunnel for water going along the current curb and 19 then you have another curb extension next to that. You end up either with a gap between 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. or you have to put a cover along the whole thing. I know that operationally it’s always a 1 challenge to have that covered because it just collects everything inside of it. So we wanted to 2 understand for sure before we came back in the 2024 time period that it was actually feasible 3 to maintain positive drainage around the curb extension and the finding was that it is. So the 4 slope remains around 1 percent going from what would be the top of the page here on East 5 Crescent, around the curb extension, and then water flows to the west on Southwood. 6 7 Commissioner Peterson: And 1 percent. What’s generally – it’s been a while. What’s ideal flow? 8 9 Steve Davis: Probably slightly more than that. Generally speaking, on roads we would aim for 10 like 2 for crowning. And that is also why ADA law is written for 2 percent to be considered flat 11 because flat would actually hold water and you don’t want that. You need something but not 12 too much. Usually we would look at a half percent as the baseline for where it becomes no 13 longer a reasonable expectation that water will continue to flow. 14 15 Commissioner Peterson: And then does this area have sanitary sewers? Or storm... 16 17 Steve Davis: Storm? 18 19 Commissioner Peterson: ...sewer, sorry. 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 Steve Davis: I am sure that it does but I don’t know that off the top of my head where the 2 locations are. 3 4 Commissioner Peterson: Okay. That’s always in those neighborhoods. If there’s no storm 5 sewers, it makes like always extra difficult. 6 7 Steve Davis: Yes, I don’t know that for certain. 8 9 Commissioner Peterson: Okay. But if there’s one across the street, sometimes it makes it easy 10 to stretch it out. Okay. Thank you. 11 12 Chair Chang: Thanks. One thing I neglected to do at the beginning of the item that I think might 13 be helpful is – it’s not a legislative item and as Commissioner Hechtman pointed out, we need 14 our recommendation because City Council asked us to address this. But I do think that to the 15 extent any of us have any information or visited the site and learned anything, it might be 16 helpful to disclose that now or just to share it, more accurately, with the rest of the 17 Commission. I’ll start just because I have something that I thought I should share. I went to go 18 see the site today and it was about 2:30 and I saw maybe 20 vehicles at least go through. All but 19 one ran the stop signs. They rolled through. Maybe some of them slowed down kind of but all 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. but one rolled through. There’s still quite a lot of speed that people pick up coming from the 1 roundabout, which in this picture, the roundabout is to the left. And most of the traffic – well, a 2 hundred percent of the traffic was cut-through traffic. And most of it is going onto East 3 Crescent and then towards University. Just what I saw in terms of the existing – during non-rush 4 hour conditions. And if anybody has anything else to add? Let’s just start at the end with 5 Commissioner James and we’ll move down. 6 7 Commissioner James: [Inaudible 1:00:59]. 8 9 Commissioner Templeton: Chair? I’m sorry to interrupt, Commissioner James. Chair, can you 10 clarify? Are you asking for some kind of legal statement or are you just talking about... 11 12 Chair Chang: No, it’s not a legal statement. It’s just information. 13 14 Commissioner Templeton: That’s [inaudible 1:01:09] disclosure was confusing. 15 16 Chair Chang: Right. No, so it’s more information that you learned that you might be basing your 17 thoughts on that is important to share with everybody else because it’s not a public – it’s not in 18 here, right? It’s not available to all. 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 there’s no legal requirement to disclose anything. 1 2 Chair Chang: There’s no legal requirement and we’re not going to be recusing or anything like 3 that. 4 5 Commissioner Templeton: Okay. Thanks. 6 7 Commissioner James: I’ll just say that I did visit on the evening this past Sunday just to kind of 8 get a lay of the land and a sense of what it looked like from the street view. And then I went 9 back for an hour the next morning during morning rush, 7:30 to 8:30, which I’m considering 10 rush. But I will say it’s spring break and I don’t know that it was a very accurate representation 11 but I could kind of see behaviors. 12 13 Commissioner Ji: I’ll say that for the 5-way intersection, I both drove through it in its current 14 state as well as walked around it. And I’d say that as previous comments have mentioned, if 15 you’re coming from Center on the – I guess on Packet Page 15, the right, the top side, making 16 that left, it’s not super obvious in its current state that you have to go around the circle. So I 17 want to confirm that from public comment. And then also for what is now the T intersection, I 18 went once during non-rush hour and once during evening rush on a Thursday at around 6 p.m. 19 And I still did notice quite a bit of cut-through traffic, what I believe is cut-through traffic. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. There’s a bunch of cars piled up on East Crescent about to turn onto University. I also want to 1 note it’s not super clear in the image if you haven’t gotten a chance to go but East Crescent is 2 actually really, really narrow. If you park cars on both sides of the street, only one car can 3 actually fit through. And I think that should be taken into consideration when looking at the 4 diagram because I think that on Packet Page 16 and what’s provided here on the slides doesn’t 5 – it seems if you use your normal judgment to think of it as a street but I think it’s important to 6 also emphasize how narrow the street and the intersection is already right now. Thank you. 7 8 Chair Chang: I spoke already but there’s one more observation that I made. As vehicles are 9 coming from the left and turning left onto East Crescent Drive, a hundred percent of those 10 vehicles crossed over what would be the median of the line, which is, I believe, why staff is 11 talking about shrinking the bulb-out back by about 4½ feet. It was a difficult turn for people to 12 negotiate and they were doing so at high speeds. You know where the word stop is on the 13 pavement? They were fully driving over the S and the T. 14 15 Vice-Chair Akin: I also spent about an hour observing traffic at both of the locations that are 16 under consideration tonight and in years gone by, I have also been involved in traffic 17 measurement projects on Center, so I have some background knowledge about traffic direction 18 and loads 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. Commissioner Peterson: Outside of just walking around Palo Alto, no, I have not been to the 1 intersection. 2 3 Commissioner Templeton: I have nothing to disclose. However, I just want to make sure for the 4 benefit of our new commissioners that this is an abnormal amount of disclosure conversation 5 for something like this. I’ve been through this neighborhood many times in my nearly 20 years 6 living here. I’ve also been there recently with the temporary stuff that’s set up so I have pretty 7 comfortable familiarity with the area. Thank you. 8 9 Chair Chang: Commissioner Hechtman, did you want to say anything or...? 10 11 Commissioner Hechtman: Sure. Similar to Commissioner Templeton, I’m familiar with both of 12 these intersections. I’ve passed through them a number of times both before any temporary 13 improvements and since. And beyond that, I really don’t have anything to share. Thank you. 14 15 PUBLIC COMMENTS 16 17 Chair Chang: Okay, so onto public comment. Ms. Dao, do we have speaker cards or anybody 18 online? 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: Yes, I have 3 speaker cards and 2 raised hands on Zoom. First is from James 1 Girand. 2 3 Chair Chang: Okay, so we’ll have 3 minutes for each speaker. 4 5 James Girand: Thank you for the opportunity to speak. There you go. Thank you for the 6 opportunity to speak and you can hear me now. I’ve lived in Palo Alto for 60 years. I’ve lived at 7 590 East Crescent for 45 years. And I’m no longer able to drive. Period. [Inaudible 1:06:11]. I 8 have caregivers who drive me to my doctors’ appointments, grocery stores, and the Y. I’ve had 9 a disability cutout in front of my house leading to the pathway to my front door for longer than 10 I can remember. I use this cutout multiple times a day to get in and out of my caregiver’s car. I 11 have a hard time walking long distances and have had some falls lately. Parking in front of the 12 disability cutout is essential to my safety and accessing my home in the least dangerous way 13 possible. We need a solution to this, will allow me to park in front of my house and access the 14 disability cutout. We also need a solution that will look attractive in our neighborhood. I’ll be 15 the first to admit that. I have noticed that since COVID, far fewer cars are traveling along East 16 Crescent. I don’t think this has anything to do with the berm that was installed but is instead 17 because people are now working from home. [Although 1:07:28] Planning Commission 18 previously directed the Transportation staff to consider less-extreme traffic-calming measures 19 like speed bumps, the Transportation [inaudible] [the use of 1:07:37] speed bumps. Instead, 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. only design the Transportation Department has ever considered is a giant berm in front of my 1 house. 2 3 As the Planning Commission previously observed, this design unfairly forces me alone to bear 4 the sole brunt of this unattractive project. I’ll just go off script a little bit. If I could just speak 5 one-on-one with the proper representative from the Planning and Transportation Department, 6 I would appreciate that very much. Would mean a lot to me. And we can work out something. 7 And I would really appreciate that opportunity. 8 9 Chair Chang: Thank you. Did you... 10 11 James Girand: I’m sorry? 12 13 Chair Chang: Are you finished? 14 15 James Girand: Yes. 16 17 Chair Chang: Okay. Thank you. 18 19 Veronica Dao: Next is John Hanna. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 John Hanna: [Inaudible 1:08:37] excuse me. I think [Lisa Russett 1:08:40] is online. I’d like her to 2 be able to speak first. 3 4 Veronica Dao: I don’t see a Lisa online. 5 6 John Hanna: [Inaudible] [daughter 1:08:52]. 7 8 Veronica Dao: On Zoom is either Juanita or Amy. 9 10 Female: Juanita. 11 12 John Hanna: Juanita. 13 14 Veronica Dao: Oh, okay. So then on Zoom, Juanita. 15 16 Juanita: Hello? 17 18 Chair Chang: Hi. Go ahead. 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. Juanita: Hi. I’m one of the owners of the house. I wanted to make 3 points about this situation 1 and try to convince the Planning Commission to reject the Transportation Department’s 2 calming measure. First point is the Transportation Department decision to move forward with 3 constructing a permanent berm was based on the assertion that the traffic had been reduced 4 on East Crescent after the installation of the temporary berm. This assertion is misleading at 5 best. The Transportation Department collected traffic data on East Crescent before COVID 6 when traffic was high. They then installed a temporary berm and then collected traffic during 7 COVID lockdown. The Transportation Department then used this data comparison to convince 8 the Planning Commission that the installment of the temporary berm was effective in curtailing 9 traffic, failing to note the relevant time frame for collecting the data and by extension, not 10 allowing the Commission to make a fully formed decision. Two, the Transportation Department 11 seems to be counting on the Planning Commission to not remember its original directives from 12 2 years ago. I appreciate that Commissioner Chang did actually mention these directives which 13 were completely ignored by the Transportation Department. These 3 directives were as follows. 14 One, consider alternatives to address the traffic like speed bumps that do not require the 15 construction of a berm. Two, redesign the berm so that it is smaller. Three, redesign the berm 16 so that it is aesthetically pleasing. The Transportation Department did none of these things. 17 18 The design of the berm today is essentially the same as that proposed by the Transportation 19 Department in 2023. We have been told by the Transportation Department that the plan is now 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. final and City staff is proceeding with these final construction plans basically ignoring the 1 directives of the Commission previously and moving forward. My third point is that the 4 years 2 that the temporary berm has been in place, our disabled father has struggled to access the path 3 to his house. The berm has severely curtailed the ability of his caregivers to park close enough 4 to the cutout in the curb for him to easily get in and out of a vehicle and get to the sidewalk. By 5 the way, I really appreciate Commissioner Akin’s point about disability access. We’ve had 6 probably 20 conversations with the Transportation Department about this. They ignore them. 7 Nothing’s been done about it and we’re very concerned about my father’s safety at this point. 8 Once again, Transportation has not been responsive to our concerns in this area. Lastly, we 9 believe that installing 1 or 2 speed bumps in lieu of the berm would address our concerns and 10 would help reduce traffic speed in front of our house and would be fully responsive to the 11 Commission’s original directive. Speed bumps would be far less expensive and far less unsightly 12 and were never even tried as an alternative to the berm when traffic flow was being studied. 13 Thank you. 14 15 Chair Chang: Thank you. 16 17 Veronica Dao: Okay, next is John Hanna. 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. John Hanna: Thank you. The Commissioners stated their opinions about this back at one of the 1 earlier hearings. These are their words, not mine, that this giant bulb-out is ugly, large, visually 2 distracting, bizarre, not acceptable, needs to be thought completely through, and needs more 3 work. So what do we have? Here we are couple years later and we have essentially the same 4 design. They took a few feet off of one edge of it. A meaningless alteration. The current design, 5 we are told – I was told this by staff – ensures the existing walkway path to your – Mr. Girand’s 6 – front door which facilitates easy pick-up and drop-off access, is retained as part of this 7 project. That’s absolutely not true. It’s not. This plan deprives Mr. Girand of his right to park or 8 have his caregivers park in front of his house so they can pick him up and drop him off, which 9 has been going on for years that he’s lived there. And when I remarked to a person on the staff 10 that what you’re doing is depriving him of his right to park there, they said no, [inaudible 11 1:14:11] doing that. The state of California is doing this. Now, this small adjustment to the front 12 leg of the bulb-out does nothing. If you want to control speed, you can put up speed bumps, 13 stop signs. You can enforce the law. 14 15 I might end just by saying this, that I looked at your Planning and Transportation Commission 16 procedural rule. Under General Requirements, Section 1, Accessibility, Palo Alto makes every 17 reasonable effort to accommodate the needs of the disabled. Your rules. I hope that you will be 18 mindful of this when you make your recommendations and that we don’t have to take this any 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. further because this is not really up to speed here, in my opinion, in having taken into 1 consideration the alternatives and the effect on Mr. Girand and his home. Thank you. 2 3 Chair Chang: Thank you. 4 5 Veronica Dao: Next is Greg Welch? 6 7 Greg Welch: Hi. Good evening. Thank you all very much for continuing to look at this project 8 which has been going on since my kids, who have now graduated from college, were entering 9 Paly. Commissioner Chang, I’m glad that you came out to the neighborhood and witnessed 10 firsthand the cut-through traffic in our neighborhood. You can imagine what it would be like if 11 the temporary measures were not in place. To the comment that was made earlier, I live in that 12 neighborhood. I know exactly when the data was collected because it was collected literally in 13 front of my house. It was not during shutdown. I would also say I don’t – it is a little 14 questionable. It was put out for about 48 hours. I don’t know that that’s a scientifically 15 representative sample. But those are in fact the codes that apply to engineering projects of this 16 type in the city of Palo Alto. The overwhelming majority of the residents in this neighborhood 17 support this project. I certainly sympathize with and understand the impact that this has had at 18 the intersection of Southwood and East Crescent but I would think that it would be terrible if 19 those issues were to drag out further the permanent implementation of the roundabout design 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. at the 5 corners where there continue to be dangerous conditions for pedestrians as well as 1 confusing situations for motorists. I do think that the design improvements that the staff has 2 made will largely address those. 3 4 I do think that the size of the center roundabout should be extended a little further to the north 5 so it is absolutely clear to cars coming in from the north on Crescent that they too are expected 6 to go around the center, not cut a left and view the center as an island merely applying to 7 people who are heading further south along Center Drive. But I do think that overall, the design 8 at that 5-corner intersection has been very responsive to both the Planning Commission’s input 9 as well as neighborhood input. And I think it looks like it will be very successful. And it would be 10 a real shame if the issues at the Southwood and East Crescent were to bog down the 11 permanent installation of that roundabout. Thank you very much. 12 13 Chair Chang: Thank you. 14 15 Veronica Dao: And then last is from Amy on Zoom. 16 17 Amy: Hi. Can you hear me okay? 18 19 Chair Chang: Yep, we can. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Amy: Okay. I live one block from the intersection of Center and Hamilton. I’ve lived here for 23 2 years and so I know that intersection very well. I’m glad that there’s a roundabout there but I 3 have a couple questions and I want to just address them with you guys. One is the way the 4 directional signs were described earlier in the meeting, I may have misunderstood. I think 5 somebody said that they were no higher than 3½ feet? They’re actually taller than 6 feet. And 6 my other neighbor went out just during the time of this meeting and took a picture of herself 7 next to them to show the height and I emailed that to all of you guys. Well, I sent it to the City 8 Council, so I don’t know if you’re getting those real time or what. But they’re definitely over 6 9 feet, so that’s one thing, that they’re way too high and I don’t want anybody thinking that 10 they’re any lower than that because they’re not. And the plantings that look to be planned for 11 the center of the oval look very small and not filling up the whole oval. And I know you say we’d 12 have emergency vehicle access, which is fine, but if you look at the traffic circle at Fulton and 13 Lytton that the City put in, we have – there’s much less space there and that must 14 accommodate for emergency vehicles as well and they’re able to have plantings go all the way 15 to the edge of it and it looks really nice and lush. 16 17 And that’s how I want ours to look, not like this little circle of plantings in the middle of this 18 larger, kind of random oval-looking roundabout. If you could please look at that photo. I also 19 emailed that to City Council. And I’m wondering what the yellow trapezoids are that are on 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. plan there on Center and Hamilton? I don’t know what those are. Are those going to be like 1 raised curb trapezoids? I’m not clear on what that is. I’m also wondering whether the yellow 2 line around the oval of the traffic circle itself is going to be yellow or if that’s just indicating 3 definition for the sake of the photo. And then lastly, I think part of the reason people run the 4 stop signs there is that generally when you approach a roundabout, you don’t expect to have a 5 stop sign. Usually it’s either you have a stop sign or have a roundabout, so I think people see a 6 roundabout and they’re not even looking for a stop sign. That’s just my feeling living at that 7 intersection. I’m hoping you guys can address all those issues and particularly really make that 8 center planting area larger and make it lush like the one on Fulton and Lytton. Thank you so 9 much. 10 11 Chair Chang: Thank you. Staff advised me here at this juncture that if any of us have questions 12 about anything that any of the public commenters have that now would be the time to ask it 13 rather than asking them later on. Before we close out the public comment section, if anybody 14 has any questions of any of the public commenters, now is the time. 15 16 Commissioner Templeton: Chair, are you saying we can directly ask questions to the public 17 commenters? 18 19 Chair Chang: 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 Commissioner Templeton: I’ve been told in the past that’s forbidden. Are you sure that’s what 2 you want us to do? 3 4 Jennifer Armer: That is something that has been allowed in the past, that if there is a question, 5 we do want to keep it within the part of the meeting where we have... 6 7 Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 1:22:43] applicants but I’ve never seen it in a situation like 8 this. You’re saying it’s completely okay? 9 10 Jennifer Armer: Yes. 11 12 Commissioner Templeton: I would like to ask some questions. 13 14 Chair Chang: Okay. I did see lights for Commissioner Templeton, then Peterson, then James. 15 16 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. In respecting your mobility issues, if you want Mr. Hanna 17 to answer for you, Mr. Girand, my questions are for you, but you implied that you’re open to 18 speaking with staff. Have you spoken with staff yet? Have they met with you to discuss your 19 concerns? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 James Girand: No. [Inaudible 1:23:26]... 2 3 Commissioner Templeton: Sir, you’ll need to use the microphone. I’m so sorry. 4 5 James Girand: No, that’s fine. 6 7 Commissioner Templeton: Okay. 8 9 James Girand: We had a brief meeting back in October. Can’t remember what year it was. And I 10 expressed my concerns with the plan, which was somewhat different. And then that’s the last 11 we’ve heard from them. And then one iteration after another with small changes and then 12 we’ve been coming back and forth to these meetings. [Inaudible 1:24:01] one more time that I 13 will be happy to meet with members of staff whenever they’re willing to do that. And I’m a 14 reasonable person. Period. 15 16 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. Staff, did you meet with Mr. Girand with this iteration 17 and get his feedback before it came to us? 18 19 Shahla Yazdy: Yes, we have met with any resident that has requested to meet with us. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: Oh, I’m so sorry. I’m really specifically focused on him and this 2 design. 3 4 Shahla Yazdy: Yes. 5 6 Commissioner Templeton: It affects him solely. 7 8 Shahla Yazdy: We met with him in the field with himself and couple of his family members in 9 February, I believe, of 2024. That was just personally with them to hear their concerns, which 10 they shared with us. And similar to what you’ve heard tonight. And also – was that it or... 11 12 Male: [Inaudible 1:24:56]. 13 14 Shahla Yazdy: In October we had the community meeting and we had prior community 15 meetings as well. But there’s been letters, emails that we’ve responded to. But we didn’t get 16 any other requests to meet in the field other than the February field meeting that we had with 17 them. 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: Do you feel that you’ve sufficiently captured his feedback about the 1 current design that’s in front of us since he is the person whose property is most affected by 2 this design? 3 4 Shahla Yazdy: Yes, we have. 5 6 Commissioner Templeton: And how did you do that without meeting with him? 7 8 Shahla Yazdy: By not meeting with them? We did meet with them. 9 10 Commissioner Templeton: You said you haven’t met with them since October. That’s been six 11 months. 12 13 Shahla Yazdy: No, we met with them in February. We received emails from them. Oh. And then 14 prior – I think prior [inaudible 1:25:43]... 15 16 Commissioner Templeton: Was it a meeting or was that an email exchange? 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. Shahla Yazdy: Meeting. It was out in the field in front of their property in February of 2024. I 1 can go over how we’ve changed the design since we’ve heard from the residents and also from 2 other community members. For the bulb-out location. I can go over what we’ve done. 3 4 Commissioner Templeton: Are you surprised that this resident is here today speaking out 5 against the current design given that you’ve gone over it with him and gotten his buy-in? Or did 6 you not actually get his buy-in? 7 8 Shahla Yazdy: Well, we made the changes from the comments that we received and I believe 9 the new concept designs do address a lot of their concerns. 10 11 Commissioner Templeton: Did he say so to you in a meeting? 12 13 Shahla Yazdy: October we had a community meeting where we shared the revised plans and 14 went over the changes. And they still did not find – well, I think one thing I’d like to comment 15 on, the aesthetics and what’s out there, those are just temporary, so we [can’t 1:26:54] go and 16 do some plantings and make it aesthetically pleasing because it’s only a temporary measure. 17 18 Commissioner Templeton: I think they have enough imagination for that. I think the concern 19 that I have sitting up here and reviewing this and hearing this feedback is that what is before us 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. does not have buy-in from the person that’s primarily affected. And I don’t understand why is 1 that happening and I’d like you to explain that to me. 2 3 Jennifer Armer: If I may jump in and suggest. It sounds like we have heard from the member of 4 the public about what their concerns were and their interest in meeting. [Inaudible 1:27:34]... 5 6 Commissioner Templeton: You want me to not direct questions to you yet. You want me to go 7 back to the community member? 8 9 Jennifer Armer: I was going to suggest that we can have more full... 10 11 Commissioner Templeton: Sure. 12 13 Jennifer Armer: ...response from staff about what... 14 15 Commissioner Templeton: Sure. 16 17 Jennifer Armer: ...changes have been made in response to [your comments later 1:27:45]. 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: Sure. If you don’t want to have the ability to fact-check what we’re 1 hearing from staff in real time, I’ll go ahead and ask. Did they meet with you to talk about the 2 plan that we’re reviewing tonight? 3 4 James Girand: I have to say that the meeting we met, I said I thought the berms were ugly. 5 6 Commissioner Templeton: Mm-hm. 7 8 James Girand: And I haven’t heard from anybody since then. And I’m willing to talk in a more 9 constructive manner if we can just do that. [And we want to do it 1:28:14] in front a my house, 10 that’s okay, or we can meet in my house. But I think the give-and-take you normally have in a 11 process of discussion, negotiation is something we should really strive for. 12 13 Commissioner Templeton: Did you ask for that directly and did they give it? 14 15 James Girand: Absolutely. 16 17 Commissioner Templeton: Okay. Did they meet with you after you asked that? 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. James Girand: To my knowledge, I think it was in February. I can’t remember the month it was 1 but it was a relatively short meeting and I think times have changed. I’d like to sit down and try 2 [inaudible 1:28:53] some type of agreement. Period. 3 4 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you for answering my questions. That’s all for now, Chair. 5 6 Chair Chang: Commissioner Peterson? 7 8 Commissioner Peterson: Thank you, sir. Appreciate your time. I want to apologize that this has 9 been hanging over your head for 5 years. I know with these property things it’s – right? I am 10 sorry. I recognize your house now. You have a beautiful house. Couple years ago I was walking 11 out and I don’t know if it was your daughter or one of your neighbors was out there trimming 12 your trees for you and I stopped and was chatting with her. It’s a beautiful corner you live on. 13 14 James Girand: [Inaudible 1:29:28]. 15 16 Commissioner Peterson: Thank you. The goal is to keep it a beautiful corner. And one of que-, I 17 don’t know the details here. Is the City giving you this land? Are they extending your yard? 18 19 James Girand: 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 Commissioner Peterson: Is this extending your yard? Is your property line following this? 2 3 James Girand: [Inaudible 1:29:44] understand. 4 5 Commissioner Peterson: They’re not deeding the land to you... 6 7 James Girand: No. 8 9 Commissioner Peterson: ...for this [inaudible 1:29:49]. 10 11 Chair Chang: No. There’s a lot of head shaking from staff, so the answer is no. I want to make 12 sure we speak it into the record. 13 14 Commissioner Peterson: Right. Okay. I wanted to see first are they giving you land, a section of 15 the street, but it sounds like they’re not. They’re just trying to do a city improvement. Maybe 16 put like a small park in front of your house? Is that the... 17 18 James Girand: 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: Okay. My question for you is what would you like to see done? I mean, 1 it’s your street, it’s your house. I know it’s Palo Alto’s street but still the person who lives there 2 obviously usually has the best idea what to do. If I can give you a couple minutes, how would 3 you like to see this solved? 4 5 James Girand: I’d like to see when I pass to the next world that my 3 daughters will have a 6 beautiful home that we’ve kept in just a wonderful manner. And I just don’t want [inaudible 7 1:30:58] deprived of that. I was hoping that question would be asked. 8 9 Male: [Inaudible 1:31:03]. 10 11 James Girand: Okay. Can you hear me? 12 13 Commissioner Peterson: Yes, we can hear you. 14 15 Chair Chang: Yes, we can. 16 17 James Girand: I was hoping that question would be asked. 18 19 John Hanna: Can I speak for you 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 James Girand: I wish you would, John. 2 3 John Hanna: His position is very simple and it’s been that way from the beginning. I’ve had 4 access, appropriate access, to my house comfortably where my caregivers can come, park the 5 vehicle. I can get in and out without having to wade through bushes. And now despite our pleas 6 to the contrary, the staff has not redesigned the project in such a way as to accommodate his 7 being able to continue the same access. And we’re not asking for someone to be able to park a 8 car there in front of his street [inaudible 1:32:03] his house. We’re asking for room for a 9 caregiver to come, park the car, help him to his house, go back, and come back and pick him up. 10 It's really very simple. But we’re told now you’re not going to be able to do that anymore with 11 this plan. 12 13 Commissioner Peterson: Thank you. I do apologize for causing trouble in front a your house. 14 15 Chair Chang: Commissioner James. Okay. Then I have a question. In our premeeting, staff had 16 suggested that your needs could be met by using – first of all, they suggested that if the bulb-17 out were removed, that current state law wouldn’t allow for parking a vehicle for you to get in 18 and out at the current ramp. In order to allow a vehicle to be parked there, staff has added in 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. their design a different crosswalk and therefore, the current location for your ramp would be 1 approximately 15 feet, maybe a little bit more – does staff have the number for that? 2 3 Steve Davis: It’s about 19 or 20 feet. 4 5 Chair Chang: Okay, so it’s about 19 to 20 feet. Depending on the vehicle, depending on where 6 the door of vehicle, a vehicle might not be able to park right in front of the ramp but very close 7 to it at least. But in order to allow a vehicle to park there, staff said that they need to remove 8 the ramp and make it a curb. By changing it from a ramp to a curb and just making that a path 9 rather than a ramp, that allows a vehicle to park there because the state law refers to marked 10 and unmarked crosswalks. And as it is right now, it’s a unmarked crosswalk. Staff has suggested 11 also that if going down the curb presents a difficulty, that perhaps the driveway could be used. I 12 would love it if you could respond to that and tell me if it meets your needs. 13 14 John Hanna: I could respond to that, yes. 15 16 Chair Chang: Yes. 17 18 John Hanna: The driveway leads to the garage which is a considerable walking distance to go 19 from the garage to get into the house. It’s probably 2 or 3 times as far as it is to go up the front 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. walk to the front door. It’d be a huge difference in terms of convenience, access, and difficulty 1 in getting there. It seems to me that there ought to be a reasonable solution to this that 2 satisfies Mr. Girand as well as the traffic people. If they don’t think that stop signs and speed 3 bumps are enough that they have to put in this giant bulb, what they could do is, for example, 4 shorten the bulb a little bit more so there’s room for him to get a vehicle in there and put up a 5 handicap parking pole there. Nobody can park here except [disabled] [inaudible 1:35:35]. That’s 6 going to stop anybody from using it except him and his caregivers. Now, that may not be in line 7 with all of the detailed government requirements but it seems to me it would fulfill your own 8 mission statement I read to you about accommodating the rights of the disabled. 9 10 Chair Chang: Okay. Two more questions. Staff had said that they would need to take that ramp 11 and make it into a curb in order for a vehicle to be able to legally park there. Is that going to 12 present a barrier? That’s my first question. My second question is when I was out there doing a 13 site visit, I noticed that there is a side entrance to the house or side exit to the house that leads 14 straight to the driveway. And is that an entrance or exit that could be used or does that not 15 meet the needs? 16 17 John Hanna: It could be used with a great deal of difficulty. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Chang: Thank you. And then what about my first question regarding conversion of the 1 ramp to a curb? Which we are essentially being told has to happen in order for a car to legally 2 park in front of that path. 3 4 John Hanna: I just find that – it’s hard for me to answer that. The curb was cut purposely. It’s 5 been that way for a long time so that you can roll a wheelchair in and out. Why are we saying 6 that we have to fill that in? It doesn’t make any sense to me. Who says you have to fill it in and 7 why? 8 9 Chair Chang: It’s a good question. I’ll defer to staff on that. And before I close this, I want to 10 make sure that other Commissioners who have questions of the public could do so right now. 11 Commissioner Templeton. 12 13 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. Mr. Hanna and Mr. Girand, can you describe your – the 14 extent of your interactions with staff? Did you share these before tonight? Did you share these 15 concerns with staff? 16 17 John Hanna: Yes, I’ve been at – in addition to the public hearings, have been at at least one on-18 site meeting and staff listens politely, appear to be absorbing what we’re saying, what we’re 19 asking. We get nods and smiles and all that. But no reassurance we hear you and we’re going to 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. fix this problem. Instead it’s like they hear us, then they go back, and they come back with the 1 same design 2 years later with one small difference that makes no difference whatsoever 2 practically. It’s like they haven’t been listening to Mr. Girand, they haven’t been listening to 3 what the Commissioners told’m in the first place that this is unacceptable, it needs more work, 4 let’s change it. It hasn’t been changed. It’s the same plan essentially was there in the first place. 5 6 Commissioner Templeton: What is the fundamental requirement that Mr. Girand has shared for 7 his enjoyment of his own property that is not reflected here? What is the thing you want to see 8 that’s not here? 9 10 John Hanna: He wants to be able to continue the same thing that’s been going for years, which 11 is he has room to park there where the curb is cut so he can get outta the car, wheelchair can 12 roll right up to the front door and back. But the way the berm has come in now, if he goes and 13 parks his car there, the door – the back of the car lets him out in front of the bushes because 14 there’s not enough room. We explained that to them when they were there, said could you just 15 move that line far enough so we can get a car in here decently? We thought we were heard. 16 17 Commissioner Templeton: I’m not confident that we have seen the diagram of what you asked 18 for. If we ask staff to bring it up right now, can you identify the area that you needed changed 19 that was not changed? Staff, can you bring the diagram up, please, so that we’re all talking 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 the same thing? Okay? Okay, so where do you want him to be able to use the ramp? I’m 1 so sorry that you’re needing to move. We have as much time as you need. 2 3 John Hanna: [Inaudible 1:40:39] this diagram currently, this is [inaudible 1:40:45] the entrance 4 [inaudible 1:40:49]. 5 6 Male: They’re panning over on the screen. 7 8 John Hanna: [Inaudible 1:40:51]. 9 10 Female: [Inaudible 1:40:52]. 11 12 Male: There we go. 13 14 Commissioner Templeton: We are showing on the screen what he’s point at? 15 16 Female: [Inaudible 1:40:58]. 17 18 Commissioner Templeton: Oh, I see. Okay. And he’s saying that this is the entrance to their 19 home, the walkway. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 John Hanna: [Inaudible 1:41:04]... 2 3 Commissioner Templeton: [I got it 1:41:05]. Just to the left of that. 4 5 John Hanna: ...are, that [inaudible 1:41:10] there’s not room [inaudible 1:41:14]. 6 7 Commissioner Templeton: So the planting in front of that to the left of that walkway is getting 8 in the way of the car being able to park so he can get out at the walkway. 9 10 John Hanna: [Inaudible 1:41:23] smaller then he could then continue to do [inaudible 1:41:29]. 11 12 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you so much, Mr. Hanna and Mr. Girand, for talking us 13 through that. We’ll see what we can discuss tonight as options but it’s really important that you 14 came here and you shared your needs and we’ll do our best to convey that to staff. Thank you. 15 16 Chair Chang: Okay, with that, I’m going to close out – I don’t see my colleagues’ lights so I’m 17 going to close out... 18 19 Commissioner Templeton: Chair, there’s one more hand [inaudible 1:41:55]. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Male: [Inaudible 1:41:56]. 2 3 Chair Chang: No. Right now it’s if the Commission has a question of you. The public comments 4 that were taken already were taken. I’m going to close out public comment and now we’re 5 going to bring it back to the Commission to discuss this. Oh, sorry. Commissioner Hechtman has 6 his hand raised so he might have an additional question for the public. I’m not sure. 7 8 Commissioner Hechtman: I do not. I was waiting for us to conclude the public testimony and 9 move into the deliberation. 10 11 Chair Chang: Okay, then take it away, Commissioner Hechtman. 12 13 Commissioner Hechtman: All right. Thank you. I did have a couple of brief comments on the 5-14 legged intersection but since so much of our dialogue here has been about the intersection that 15 affects 590, I want to focus on that and I’ll talk about the other one briefly later. When I read 16 the staff report, last full paragraph on Packet Page 13 describes what appeared to me to be a 17 staff solution to this problem that the owner of 590 was concerned about. And in fact, Chair 18 Chang described it in some detail but it’s described in writing here at the bottom of Packet Page 19 13 where – again, when I read this, I thought staff has figured out a way to work around 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. state laws that are a problem for the resident of 590 to park where the resident of 590 needs to 1 park to be able to be picked up and dropped off. And they did that by converting a ramp into – 2 and the language of the paragraph here is concrete path. Chair Chang used the term curb and I 3 do think we need to get a clarification because to me, a concrete path didn’t suggest like a 4 slope that might be difficult to navigate in a wheelchair whereas a curb raises that concern for 5 me. I would like that clarification. But it seemed like when you look at this paragraph, it says 6 residents will now be able to have access for drop-offs and pick-ups and will be able to park 7 behind the concrete path away from the new crosswalk and we won’t violate a state law. 8 9 And I actually thought in the technical questions a couple of the Commissioners, including 10 Commissioner Ji, were asking questions about sort of the distance that I thought those 11 questions were like well, okay, I get the concept but will this work? Is there enough room? Can 12 you get 15 feet away and still have the car door in front of the concrete path or curb, whichever 13 it is? And so I’m wondering here if really what we have is a solution that will work but a failure 14 to communicate that solution in a way that this owner and his representatives understand and 15 get comfortable with? And so I’m hoping in the dialogue tonight that we’ll explore that. 16 Because I do think staff did listen to these concerns and I think this was their effort to find a 17 solution which they think will work. But I’m not sure that I understand it correctly. 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: [Inaudible 1:45:28] clarification on that one point that Commissioner Hechtman is 1 asking about which is what does the concrete path mean? Is there still going to be something 2 that a wheelchair can roll down or a walker can roll down? Or is somebody going to have to 3 negotiate a step down? 4 5 Shahla Yazdy: I can answer that. A concrete path would have a curb. It’s a platform similar to a 6 bus stop where the bus would pull up and you just get off the bus. Similar to that. But it would 7 have a curb. That’s correct. 8 9 Chair Chang: And in staff’s interpretation of the law, we cannot have a ramp there because 10 then it would be a unmarked crosswalk? Is that correct? 11 12 Shahla Yazdy: The existing ramp is considered non-ADA, nonstandard, but it’s considered a 13 pedestrian crossing. At the existing condition, without the bulb-out, there can be no parking 20 14 feet prior or at the intersection. By converting it like the Commissioner mentioned, converting 15 it into a curb, we feel that we will be able to – especially more during design – manipulate the 16 location of the new pedestrian crossing that’s ADA compliant and the crosswalk striping. We 17 feel that we could get the distance that we need to be able for a van to be able to park along 18 the edge of the bulb-out. And then the plants are on the left side of the ramp so the existing 19 ramp, the width won’t change. We’re just filling it in, like someone mentioned, just to make 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. simple to understand. But we know if that’s a concern, we could definitely remove planting 1 from that corner. But it’s all low-level groundcover plants, I believe, at that corner because we 2 don’t want visibility to be impacted. That’s something that during design we could refine to 3 provide the parking that they’re looking for. 4 5 Commissioner Hechtman: If I can continue? Just have a couple follow-up questions. 6 7 Chair Chang: Yes. Please go ahead. 8 9 Commissioner Hechtman: All right, so let’s focus on that word curb, which now staff has used. 10 Some curbs are 90-degree curbs, right? Require a step up. The one in front of my house and in a 11 lot of Palo Alto, it’s a smoother rounded curb. What is the nature of the curb contemplated at 12 this location? Again, we’re clearly concerned about mobility and the ability to cross that curb. 13 Do we know yet? Is the design malleable? 14 15 Shahla Yazdy: Well, right now we’re proposing a square curb. During design, we could possibly – 16 I think what you’re referring to is a rolled curb that we have in some neighborhoods in the City. 17 We could look to see if something like that will work but we’d have to look at drainage. We 18 don’t want drainage flow into the crosswalk, so that’s something that we’d have to look at. But 19 I believe it’s possible during design, of course. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. And then my other follow-up question is did I understand this 2 paragraph right that staff is describing in this paragraph their effort to solve this concern of the 3 590 owner and provide a way for them to have a place where they can park to get access for 4 their caregiver when they need to come or go? Am I understanding that right that staff changed 5 this to try to accomplish that? 6 7 Shahla Yazdy: Yes, that’s correct. 8 9 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. All right. To me, the question is will it work? And so I think I’ve 10 taken enough time. I’ll talk about the other one in a subsequent round. Thanks. 11 12 Chair Chang: Okay, I’ve got Commissioner Templeton, then Ji, then Peterson. 13 14 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you, Chair. I have some questions for staff and I want to 15 preface this that none of these questions are personal. I’m trying to interrogate the process and 16 understand what happened and why we have a resident here talking about a difficulty engaging 17 with staff. And personally, as a Commissioner, I’m wondering – I want to start here – what steps 18 did you take to make sure that this household that was primarily affected by the design was on 19 board before you brought this design to us? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Shahla Yazdy: We received their concerns through meeting with them personally at community 2 meetings and through emails. And some of the highlights of their comments were they didn’t 3 want any hardscape in front of their house, they didn’t want anything vertical like a bench or 4 anything, or no trash can, so we complied to that. We have proposed drought-tolerant 5 landscaping that fits the aesthetics of the neighborhood. Like Steve mentioned earlier, it was 6 specifically picked out by City’s landscape architect in cooperation with our also consultants. 7 8 Commissioner Templeton: Did they ask for landscaping? My understanding is that their 9 requests were much more of a physical access-related nature. 10 11 Shahla Yazdy: I was just sharing some of the comments that they shared with us and how we’ve 12 addressed them. 13 14 Commissioner Templeton: They gave you feedback about the landscaping? 15 16 Shahla Yazdy: Yes. Well, they say they wanted no hardscape. When we met with them, that was 17 one of the comments that they shared with us. Another comment was the parking. They were 18 concerned about the loss of parking, loss of the ramp, and not being able to park there like 19 they’ve shared with us earlier this evening. And by converting the existing ramp into a path, 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. feel that we have a way for them to still have their concrete path, their connection to the 1 sidewalk, in order to have drop-offs, pick-ups, and so we feel that the design does 2 accommodate that comment. 3 4 Commissioner Templeton: And when you shared the design with them, did they tell you what 5 they told us here tonight? 6 7 Shahla Yazdy: Well, tonight they’ve said that we haven’t addressed any of their comments and 8 I’m sharing what we’ve done to date and the revised design, what it reflects. The next 9 comment, they said that it’s not aesthetically pleasing. And we did try to explain that yes, the 10 current condition is temporary so the sooner that we can get into a final design, we can 11 implement the project to be more aesthetically pleasing. And also part of it, at our field 12 meeting they expressed concern when we first placed the black curbing to kind of delineate the 13 bulb-out, they did ask us to remove a section of it so that they could park. And so we made 14 measurements and we actually did angle the curbing. It was sticking out. It was more 15 transitioned to the curb but now it’s at an angle so that they could come and park and then 16 back up and leave. I feel that we really have heard them and the new design does reflect their 17 comments. 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: And yet, here they are pushing back on the design tonight as though 1 they never saw it and though their input wasn’t heard. And I hear some of the things that you 2 have addressed and I think that’s great but I’m trying to understand this is a person who’s 3 prevented from getting into his home by the design that you’re asking us to approve. And so 4 I’m confused about how it got to this stage because my inclination is to send it back and say 5 let’s reschedule this after you’ve had a chance to work it out. I thought that’s what we did last 6 time though so I’m trying to figure out where the disconnect is so that we can give you better 7 direction tonight. 8 9 Shahla Yazdy: The new refined design does not prevent them access to the walkway or their 10 sidewalk. That’s how... 11 12 Commissioner Templeton: But they say it does so who are we to – how do we address this? 13 14 Chirag Panchal: If I may add. Sorry, Shahla. I think the AB 413 law came into this picture in 2025. 15 That’s where the condition is lying. If there was no AB 413 law then they could park. But it’s just 16 the project has been going on since 2018 but AB 413 came in this year so the staff has to work 17 around this law and provide them access to their residence and they can move in and out of it. 18 Couple of things that I would like to share, that we had meeting in February specifically to the 19 resident and we heard their comment [inaudible] [apply 1:55:11] to the design. The design may 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 similar, I agree with you, Commissioners, but there have been small changes. That’s why it 1 looks similar but it’s not. I get it visually it’s similar, but the other thing was the aesthetics, 2 right? Now if I go out there – I drive by there every single time because I live in East Palo Alto. 3 It’s not aesthetically pleasing. Why? Because it’s temporary right now and we are looking at the 4 design right now. But if you go to East Meadow and East Ross, it’s completed. It’s permanent. 5 That’s similar to that it’s going to look like and that’s what we are trying to tell them, that this is 6 just a conceptual design. It’s not ready yet. Just because of this visual, we cannot predict how 7 it’s going to look like into the real world. That’s the main thing that we’ve been trying to convey 8 the message to them. 9 10 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. Thanks for going over that. I love that we have done 11 prototypes and we’ve been able to show some of our vision but I also recognize that the 12 example you chose is actually a really good example because once we implemented that, there 13 was complete outrage in the neighborhood. And that is what I think I’m hearing from these 14 members of the public is a concern that once it’s implemented, it’s going to be hard to address 15 the needs that they have been trying to express and I think you have also been trying to 16 address. But it doesn’t seem like you guys have met in the middle yet and we’re now deciding 17 on how to put that forward in front of the Council when you haven’t even come together yet. 18 And those are some critical points for this decision that’s in front of us because visualizing 19 something before it’s implemented is a skill. Some people are expert at that. I’m sure that’s 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. part of your job. As community members, we have seen this happen before where that 1 transition between conceptual and actual doesn’t go as smoothly as the designers hope. What 2 we need to figure out and what I hope we could figure is a way to get this affected, primarily 3 affected, community member on board with the plan and then we can approve the design. But 4 that hasn’t happened and that’s something we’re looking for Transportation staff to do. We can 5 do it up here but you’re not going to like the outcome, right? 6 7 Shahla Yazdy: Can I... 8 9 Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 10 11 Shahla Yazdy: ...respond? The reference of the circle at East Meadow and Ross was purely – I 12 think he was referring to the aesthetics, the landscaping, not so much the engineering. The 13 disaster I think you’re referring to was more engineering. But I feel confident the fact that 14 we’ve had the pilot program and the curbing is to prevent and to make sure that there’s no 15 engineering errors or complication. It’s just purely the landscaping that he was referring to. 16 17 Commissioner Templeton: I appreciate that perspective. When those changes happened, I was 18 going 4 times a day through those intersections. I will tell you it was not about aesthetics. There 19 was a serious problem in getting community buy-in and that is the disaster that we want 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. prevent in this neighborhood, right? If you’re talking to people who aren’t affected and they’re 1 like yes, go ahead, but if you’re also talking to people that are affected, like every day getting in 2 and out of their home, that’s a completely different story. I would hope that you’d want to – 3 and it sounds like you do want to get their support for this as well but the evidence that we 4 have right now is that it’s not there, right? And so what can we do as a Commission to help 5 bridge that gap so that we can go forward and improve the safety of this intersection, which is 6 what I think everybody in this room wants to do. I will give up the mic here for now and we can 7 talk more later but thank you for engaging in this Q&A and I appreciate your perspectives. 8 9 Chair Chang: Thank you, Commissioner Templeton. Commissioner Ji? 10 11 Commissioner Ji: Thank you, Chair. [Inaudible 2:00:02] previously said but I had a quick 12 question about the design mentioned by Commissioner Hechtman on bottom of Packet Page 13 13 about the concrete path. I’m looking through the text in AB 413 and I don’t really see anywhere 14 that requires that we actually fill in the ramp. Given that you already have the primary crossing 15 at a different location, what is forcing us to have to fill in the current ramp? 16 17 Shahla Yazdy: The existing ramp that’s out there is acting like a pedestrian crossing. Especially 18 there’s another ramp across the street. AB 413 restricts parking in front of a pedestrian 19 crossing/ramp. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: I understand that... 2 3 Shahla Yazdy: Yes. 4 5 Commissioner Ji: ...but I think that hypothetically in your new design here, you already created 6 another crossing, right? And therefore I guess what we’re calling the path isn’t the crossing 7 anymore for the intersection. 8 9 Shahla Yazdy: Yes, we are creating a new pedestrian crossing but that ramp cannot stay as is 10 because it’s nonstandard. It hasn’t been designed to standard. And also, it’s kind of an unofficial 11 crossing. It is a ramp. Without knowing liability-wise how to address it, we came up with the 12 option to raise it into a concrete curb or a path and have the residents have access and to 13 continue to have their access. 14 15 Commissioner Ji: Maybe Mr. Yang can chime in about the legality of this but based on my 16 cursory reading of AB 413, I feel like the crosswalk that we have identified here already in the 17 current design that shown on screen would already be considered the crosswalk and therefore 18 the other ramp wouldn’t be considered a crossing? 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: Can you also point out where the other ramp would be across the street? 1 2 Commissioner Ji: Yes, we can’t [inaudible 2:02:11]. 3 4 Chair Chang: We can’t see that here in the diagram. 5 6 Shahla Yazdy: In the area in the gray, can you see the pointer? That’s the existing curb across 7 the street. 8 9 Chair Chang: Okay, thank you. But then to follow up on Commissioner Ji’s question, now that 10 there’s been an actual crosswalk and the plan is going to be put striping down, this is where the 11 crosswalk is, this is where the stop sign is, then the other one’s no longer a crossing because 12 there’s no ramp across the way. 13 14 Steve Davis: I won’t be able to fully answer that but part of the challenge there is that the 15 definition of how it’s viewed in AB 413 [inaudible 2:02:53] the California Vehicle Code now. The 16 other challenge is ADA laws I somewhat referred to earlier is addressing all of the different 17 types of accessibility needs and so the challenge becomes if someone with a vision impairment 18 does not know which one of those things is the correct path and so you need something to 19 indicate to someone who’s reliant upon a cane to determine what they’re walking path is which 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. one is the right one to use. And in the absence of providing that guidance, the gray area, 1 frankly, ends up becoming that you don’t get any clarity in any law on exactly how that should 2 be treated. There’s probably some additional investigation to do there but there’s a lot of 3 different pieces that when you start to get into it. And again, this ramp has been here long 4 enough that those pieces of ADA law – which actually the public rights-of-way access guideline 5 was actually adopted. It had been in draft form for nearly a decade. It’s now an actual guidance 6 that is a design standard. None of these things were in place. That wasn’t even in place yet at 7 the beginning of the project. That’s part of what drives the challenge of how you treat the 8 different crossings. 9 10 Commissioner Ji: Sure. I understand it’s very complicated but I would hate to say that our 11 decision is to fill in this ramp and then say at a later point actually we didn’t need to do that. 12 That would be extremely disappointing from my perspective. Maybe at some point it’d be great 13 to have... 14 15 Chair Chang: Just on that topic, the ramp was grandfathered in and we have all sorts of things 16 that are not compliant, grandfathered and noncompliant, but work for people. And we’re 17 hearing that in this particular case, the irony is that there’s actually also a disability issue that 18 this ramp benefits. But usually what happens is when we do something new, we need to bring 19 it into compliance, right? And as drawn, the bulb-out goes in front of that ramp. We can’t build 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. a new ramp is what you are suggesting, but what if as the blue square that you drew earlier 1 when Mr. Hanna was pointing at the screen, if the bulb-out were to cut in a little bit then we’re 2 not touching the ramp. I don’t want to engineer this here. That’s why it would’ve been really 3 great if we had worked this out beforehand. But it just seems like there might be some other – 4 yes. If bulb-out went where the line is that you’re putting on the screen, would that solve the 5 problem and we don’t need to fix something that doesn’t need fixing theoretically? 6 7 Commissioner Ji: Thank you, Chair. Would you like to provide a response to that first? 8 9 Steve Davis: I was going to say, sir, that it starts to become a little bit circular because there’s 10 several issues at play there. There is certainly ADA law that says you are not supposed to design 11 project [scope to 2:06:06] explicitly avoid upgrading facilities. And then that’s where it’s a 12 challenge where, as you mentioned, in spirit, upgrade can be in the eye of the beholder. That’s 13 part of the challenge here. And then, yes, there are other considerations in terms of how it 14 affects the drainage because the ramp actually would hold water somewhat today that this 15 would seek to rectify. There’s a few things like that [too] [inaudible 2:06:29]. 16 17 Commissioner Ji: Okay. And then can you help me understand – maybe you could draw on the 18 screen where you were previously saying was 19 feet? That was from my question a long time 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. ago. But you had said that the length from the intersection is 19 feet. Can you help me just 1 understand where that is? 2 3 Steve Davis: [Inaudible 2:06:51] edge of the – [inaudible 2:06:57] around the curve from the... 4 5 Chair Chang: Can you please turn your mic on? 6 7 Steve Davis: So sorry. From the edge of the marked crosswalk to the edge of that concrete path 8 if you were to draw it as an arc around the curve is approximately 19 feet. And then the path 9 itself is 4 feet wide as well. One of the design modifications that we didn’t talk about in much 10 detail, typically speaking, the curb ramp would be centered in the crosswalk and you want the 11 crosswalk to have a certain offset distance from the parallel street and the intersection. We 12 actually slightly angled the crosswalk so that we could get that crosswalk marking as close to 13 the curb ramp as we could to make that 19 feet be the largest distance we could while leaving 14 the concrete path in the location of the existing ramp. 15 16 Commissioner Ji: Thank you. I guess I’m just – again, I don’t want to engineer from up here. But 17 I think that one of the comments from public mentioned that the way this is designed, they 18 couldn’t pull the van out to not impact the small concrete path. And so maybe there’s 19 alternatives in which if you pulled the crosswalk in this diagram further down, you could 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. eventually get 20 or more feet and therefore you could actually slide a van into the slot. But I 1 also am pretty interested in potentially designs that don’t impact the current ramp here. I know 2 you have previously mentioned that there are lots of regulation but I think that should be 3 something that could be explored given the amount of public feedback that we heard about 4 that. I’m going to move on to a different point which is about the data. I’m wondering does 5 staff have an explanation as to why more data wasn’t collected after October 2022? 6 7 Shahla Yazdy: The data collected and reported out at 2022 and also discussed, I believe, at the 8 June meeting did show promising results. The speeds had decreased and also we saw cut-9 through volume had also decreased as well. Moving forward, we – now we’ve placed stop signs 10 at this corner and also with the addition of the traffic circle and oval, we felt that the speeding – 11 we couldn’t catch the speeds and we need to more focus our attention on functionality and 12 how the cars would maneuver around these traffic-calming measures so we did a lot of field 13 visits and observation. We focused, I guess, the traffic-calming elements and how productive 14 they were by just observation and how drivers were maneuvering around it. Again, the data we 15 collected had shown improvement and I think moving forward we had gotten approval of the 16 concept designs to move forward with permanent install of the proposed concepts so we 17 decided to focus our attention on design refinement. 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: Can you provide what the baseline for this was? If I’m looking here, it just says 1 the traffic volume was reduced by 35 percent. When is the previous date for this data 2 collection? 3 4 Shahla Yazdy: We collected data in 2019. [Is that correct 2:10:41]? Yes. The initial data was 5 collected then. 6 7 Commissioner Ji: I think that given that the original data was collected from 2019, I’m a little bit 8 surprised to hear that more data was not collected because I can imagine that the whole city 9 saw a traffic volume reduction, cut-through traffic reduction, vehicle speed reduction 10 potentially, just due to pandemic effects. The traveling-to-work behavior has probably 11 significantly changed between 2019 and 2022. At least me personally, I have a hard time being 12 able to parse out the causal effect of some of the traffic-calming procedures that we’ve put into 13 place. I also recall during the June 2023 meeting when this last came to PTC, in the minutes it 14 did say that the PTC had asked for additional data to be collected on the subject before it 15 comes back to the PTC. I’m a little bit disappointed to not see additional data on that. Also, I 16 just quickly wanted to just have a clarifying question. Mr. Panchal. That’s you, right? Did I hear 17 correctly that you just said you yourself cut through this neighborhood to come here for work? 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. Chirag Panchal: Not specifically cut through it but I did observe when I go through that before 1 pre-COVID, before the traffic-calming pilot and after the traffic-calming pilot. 2 3 Commissioner Ji: I just thought I heard that you said you take this route to work, so apologies 4 for mishearing about that. And then, I think, yes, my main comment is I am disappointed to see 5 that there’s not more data here. And I think that there also could be additional engineered 6 solutions that maybe preserve the ramp in its current form. I know that it’s a lot more complex 7 as you previously mentioned but I think that I’d be interested in seeing some alternatives that 8 leave Mr. Girand able to access his house in the way he does today. Thank you. 9 10 Shahla Yazdy: If I can answer the data collection. In 2022 when we did collect data, we did see 11 reduction in speeds. And like you said, people were just starting to go back to work so there 12 might’ve been less volume of traffic but what you’re talking about, which we’ve seen a lot in 13 the city, is speeds were increased because of lack of volume. We actually saw a decrease in 14 speeds, which we thought that was very positive. 15 16 Commissioner Ji: Sure. I just want to comment on that quickly as well. And I think that... 17 18 Shahla Yazdy: Mm-hm. 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: ...as previously mentioned, I believe Chair Chang had said that she drove from 1 the circle that’s – we haven’t really been talking about the 5-pointed circle – to this intersection 2 here at Southwood and East Crescent. I can imagine that this is a [compounding 2:13:40] 3 variable as well for the slower speeds at Southwood and East Crescent. If you provide a stop 4 sign only about 300 feet previously that wasn’t there before, it’s unclear to me that the speed 5 reduction at Southwood and East Crescent could be due to the specific traffic calming that 6 you’re providing here and more so potentially about the circle that’s very close by that folks 7 mostly drive through. 8 9 Shahla Yazdy: That’s correct. Part of the reasons that we didn’t really collect data at the 10 intersection, it was because of the stop signs. What I was referring to, the reduction in speeds, 11 we saw it on the side streets and also, I believe, on Hamilton and Southwood as well. Those are 12 the areas. But you’re right. Not where there are stop signs. That’s why we couldn’t have really 13 correct data. 14 15 Chair Chang: Thank you. Commissioner Peterson, then James. 16 17 Commissioner Peterson: [Inaudible 2:14:36]. 18 19 Chair Chang: Turn on your mic. I think it was on already. 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 Commissioner Peterson: Thank you. A few questions for staff. One of the things I noticed 2 looking at the map is that this is one of the last streets to be upgraded in this neighborhood. 3 The street Southwood Drive is still a concrete roadway, correct? 4 5 Shahla Yazdy: That’s correct. 6 7 Commissioner Peterson: And then is there a timeline for when the streets are being rebuilt? 8 9 Shahla Yazdy: That’s Public Works but my understanding is that’s not being proposed to be 10 rebuilt at this time. 11 12 Commissioner Peterson: Okay. 13 14 Shahla Yazdy: There will be some paving where the 5-legged intersection is. As part of the 15 project it would be paved. 16 17 Commissioner Peterson: Mm-hm. 18 19 Shahla Yazdy: And also, I think part of the paving would be on Hamilton as well. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Peterson: And then I noticed the concrete is significantly fractured. A lot of times 2 that’s an indication that the underlying subgrade has failed on that roadway. Which I imagine 3 this probably was paved-over wagon-wheel tracks or something in the ’60s. 4 5 Shahla Yazdy: Again, that’s under Public Works’ purview as far as analyzing the roadway. But 6 yes, that’s probably correct [over] [inaudible 2:15:50]. 7 8 Commissioner Peterson: [Inaudible 2:15:51]. 9 10 Shahla Yazdy: Roads do degrade, yes. 11 12 Commissioner Peterson: And these concrete roads, are you typically paving these over with 13 asphalt or is the roadway being removed and completely rebuilt? 14 15 Shahla Yazdy: I don’t know if we pave over them really but I know they do a lot of base repair. 16 That’s something, again, Public Works does. They might take out small sections. That’s 17 something... 18 19 Commissioner Peterson: Right. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Shahla Yazdy: ...that they have spreadsheets and they go out in the field and they have 2 [inaudible 2:16:21]. Yes, that’s something that they kind of take care of. 3 4 Commissioner Peterson: They’ll remove and replace this roadway. Reminds me of an old pair of 5 jeans. 6 7 Shahla Yazdy: [Correct 2:16:28]. 8 9 Commissioner Peterson: It’s got more patches. 10 11 Shahla Yazdy: Yes. 12 13 Commissioner Peterson: The reason why I’m asking the questions is just so I have a better 14 understanding of what’s the future for that roadway if we do a corner here and then there’s 15 possibly in 5 years the entire road’s going to be torn out anyways. But it doesn’t sound like 16 that’s the case. The other question I have is that on this corner, what it was is when 17 Commissioner Hechtman was talking, I had thought we were talking about a pad. I misheard 18 but the idea stuck in my mind that rather than having plantings and all the rest, like a lot of 19 times where you have a roadway that’s intended only for emergency vehicles, say like the fire 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. department, you create a raised concrete platform, so to speak, that nobody would want to 1 drive over but if you wanted to, of course you could drive onto and park or anything else. Is that 2 a design option that’s available for this corner? Is to simply have one of those low, raised, 3 concrete corners? 4 5 Shahla Yazdy: I’m not sure I quite understand what you’re referring to. So raised on the road 6 where they can drive up and park? Kind of like a driveway ramp? 7 8 Male: Like an apron. 9 10 Shahla Yazdy: Like an apron. 11 12 Commissioner Peterson: There you go. Thank you. 13 14 Shahla Yazdy: I don’t think – Steve can weigh in but I don’t see how a design like that could 15 work to accommodate – because they have their driveway that they can drive up to. But I don’t 16 believe in this location... 17 18 Commissioner Peterson: And where I’m going with this is just looking at what are some of the 19 other design options that have been looked at? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Steve Davis: Yes, so we did hear – not going back to the same comment [inaudible 2:18:17] the 2 aesthetics were preferred not to have hardscape, which is usually what you consider an apron 3 to be part of hardscape as opposed to [inaudible 2:18:24] how they are. But from a operational 4 standpoint, if you were to design this to have an apron-type level, if it’s that easily mountable, 5 it usually means that you can’t indicate there’s an accessible path with a pedestrian waiting 6 area out there because it’s too exposed to travel. And so you would have the issue where you 7 would need to leave the pedestrian landing somewhere further away. But the edge of the 8 apron itself generally is not accessible either so you have to have a very mountable design for 9 that to work, in which case it doesn’t drive changes in driver behavior. And then from a legal 10 standpoint, such a design would be considered to be ostensibly a median and it would be illegal 11 to park in that as well. 12 13 Commissioner Peterson: Yes, there’s a lot of different gray areas there. Could the apron be 14 street parking with streetscape, the landscaping, out at the – almost like an island on the other 15 side of the street parking? On the apron is actually what I was imagining. Nobody would think 16 to drive over the apron. They would be directed around. But it also would leave all the parking 17 options. 18 19 Female: Hm. [Inaudible 2:19:42]. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: And it might solve the water problem too. 2 3 Steve Davis: I will admit I’m having a hard time picturing that. 4 5 Commissioner Peterson: We’ll get a [civil 3D 2:19:52] here, have a model quickly. 6 7 Steve Davis: [Inaudible 2:19:55]. 8 9 Commissioner Peterson: Thank you. 10 11 Chair Chang: Commissioner James? 12 13 Commissioner James: I just want to make sure that we understood how it is that you thought 14 the driveway would resolve this problem. Not exactly to this resident’s wishes. But it seemed to 15 me that you suggested – and I don’t know if it was driving all the way in and making the 16 entrance into the side of the house or does it cross a sidewalk? Do you drive up the driveway 17 and cross the sidewalk? Presumably. And can they pull in not entirely to the driveway and then 18 get out of the car and be able to use the sidewalk to go up the front entrance? I’m just kind of 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. wanting to make sure we understand completely why that seemed like it resolved the issue. 1 Thank you. 2 3 Shahla Yazdy: It was just another option to show that in addition to this path that they can 4 continue to use, there’s a sidewalk that runs through their driveway so if they can pull into the 5 driveway, either stop kind of midway, get out where the sidewalk is, and they can continue 6 along the existing sidewalk where the gray is and go up to the path and to their front door. I 7 know they also have a side entrance, I believe, that was referred to earlier where they could – I 8 know that’s not to the front door. I think it was the side door. Those were also options that we 9 thought they had. 10 11 Jennifer Armer: And if I could just add in another way of phrasing how the solutions were seen, 12 at least from a staff perspective, for the one pathway, the replacement of their current access, 13 having that have a curb, right? The idea that a car could pull up right next to it, a car is not flat 14 to the ground and so the hope there is that something like that works for them that they can 15 get out of the vehicle whether it’s using a ramp that would come down onto that space or 16 stepping directly out of the vehicle onto the curb that’s a step up from the street. But if they 17 really do need to have some sort of level surface that is even with the ground outside the car as 18 they’re getting out of the car, the fact that there is a driveway there that has pathways to their 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. house might be that alternative depending on what type of vehicle and how they’re getting in 1 and out of that vehicle. 2 3 Chair Chang: Okay, I’m just going to chime in now because I think we’ll be taking our first round 4 of comments regarding this particular intersection. I will say that I’m pretty disappointed that 5 our message at the PTC seems to have gotten lost in translation. Because I know that we were 6 very interested in exploring large changes to the bulb-out as well as a stop-sign-only version. 7 Can you verify for me that the original condition here was that there were no stop signs? 8 9 Shahla Yazdy: That’s correct. 10 11 Chair Chang: Right. As well as a stop-sign-only version as well as speed bumps not at the 12 intersection because that’s not where you put speed bumps but, say, between where the 13 temporary circle is right now and this intersection. Because, again, as I mentioned, I saw cars 14 picking up some speed as they whipped out of the circle and then headed towards University. 15 That said, it’s also been 7 years and there’s no doubt in my mind that the stop signs, at least, 16 are helping even though people are mostly rolling through them. I’m really glad that the stop 17 signs are there. I too wonder why the kind of explicit direction that we gave kind of got lost in 18 translation. And I know that we’ve gotten new staff coming in and yes, I know that City Council 19 had approved this but that was on consent calendar. There was not a discussion of all of these 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. requests and City Council did say to please work with the PTC beforehand, which is why you’re 1 here. But in working with the PTC, the PTC’s request didn’t seem to have been really addressed. 2 Right now what I really want to understand is it seems that staff has attempted to address 3 some of the public’s concerns. I’m very concerned about access and wondering if filling in the 4 ramp causes a problem but I can’t ask the public right now and we kind of need to know that in 5 order to feel comfortable voting for this, so I’m not quite sure what to do with that. 6 7 The other thing is in going there myself, the bulb-out was just strange. I watched all the cars 8 have trouble with it. Because I know we’re trying to make it a T but because East Crescent is so 9 narrow – I actually saw cars like dodge each other as they were trying to come from University 10 to the stop sign. And so it’s hard for me to imagine if widening 4 ½ feet will do the trick. I think 11 it will help but East Crescent is very, very narrow there and so I still wonder. And it was a 12 strange intersection watching people drive it. And even given that, they didn’t slow down 13 much. Those are my initial thoughts on this. And from there, we’ve got Commissioner 14 Hechtman? 15 16 Jennifer Armer: Uh. 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. Jennifer Armer: Yes, just through the Chair, before we do move on to others, if any member of 1 the Commission did have a discrete question, like a yes/no-type question, that you wished to 2 open the public comment just for a very specific question, you could do that. 3 4 Chair Chang: And to direct it to a specific public [commenter 2:26:41]? 5 6 Jennifer Armer: To a specific [public commenter 2:26:42]. 7 8 Chair Chang: Okay, well, let me do that right now then. 9 10 Jennifer Armer: You could do that [inaudible 2:26:43]. 11 12 Chair Chang: I would like to ask a very specific question. If the ramp were filled in – I know that 13 that’s not ideal for you, Mr. Girand, but if the ramp were filled in and a vehicle were still 14 allowed to park in front of that path, could you live with it? 15 16 John Hanna: [He says 2:27:19] it would be very difficult [inaudible 2:27:22] curb there [inaudible 17 2:27:23] wheelchair up over the curb or down off the curb. 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: What we’re hearing from the member of the public is some confusion and 1 difficulty understanding exactly what that means and what it would look like and that it would 2 be – they still envision needing to roll up over the curb to make use of the path and that that 3 would be difficult. I believe we’ve got some additional clarification that might help understand 4 that. 5 6 Chair Chang: From staff? 7 8 Jennifer Armer: Yes. 9 10 Shahla Yazdy: Yes, I’d like to reiterate. I think we quickly had mentioned we could look into the 11 rolled curb at the concrete path. That’s something that we could look into [inaudible 2:28:04] 12 design. It won’t be as abrupt as a curb but it’d be rolled. And if they choose, they can... 13 14 Chair Chang: Let me then direction a question to the member of the public again. Mr. Girand, if 15 were a rolled curb rather than a standard curb, would that help? 16 17 Male: [Inaudible 2:28:39]. 18 19 Chair Chang: Okay, well, I think we’ve got our [sense of the answer 2:28:46]. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: [Said it 2:28:47] depends. 2 3 Chair Chang: The answer was it depends. It depends on how sharp or not the rolled curb is. All 4 right, so let’s move on other Commissioners. By my count, I’ve got Commissioner Hechtman, 5 then Commissioner Peterson, then Commissioner Templeton, then James. Go ahead, 6 Commissioner Hechtman. 7 8 Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. Could we have the diagram back up with the yellow line? 9 10 Jennifer Armer: Yes, we’ll pull that up in a moment. 11 12 Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. All right. Could staff draw in a parked car in the vicinity of 13 that yellow line? And my understanding is that the nose of that parked car needs to be 15 feet 14 from the white line of the crosswalk. Can staff just draw in a rectangle of a car in that 15 approximate location? It’s got to move back 15 feet, right? 16 17 Chirag Panchal: Please can you explain it again one more time? 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: Yes. What I’ve heard is that with this design, a car can park 15 feet 1 from the crosswalk. And we’ve been told this yellow line is 19 feet. And so that suggests to me 2 that the nose of the car should be 4 feet into that yellow line so that it’s 15 feet from the 3 crosswalk. And then it’s going to extend back past the path, rolled curb, ramp, whatever it is. 4 5 Chair Chang: Maybe while staff works on that, you could continue asking your questions? 6 7 Commissioner Hechtman: And I think that’s a pretty good approximation. Again, I think part of 8 the problem here is that we don’t have – well, 2 issues. One, we’re not certain it’ll work 9 because if the car is parked there, for example, I don’t know if Mr. Girand, when he is picked 10 up, does he get into the front seat? Which looks like it might match up here. If it’s the back 11 seat, it might not. Some of these vehicles have ramps that come in the back of the van. Clearly 12 that’s not going to work. But I think this is why staff thinks it’ll work because a car can park in 13 that location and you can step from what’s now a ramp, what will be a concrete path with some 14 form of curb. So this may or may not work but visually I think this is what we’re talking about. 15 And there is nothing that Mr. Girand or either of the other people that spoke on his behalf, 16 nothing that any of them said that suggested to me that they understood that this could 17 happen, that what we’re looking at right now could happen. And again, I think that goes back to 18 a point that Commissioner Templeton was making about maybe there should’ve been a sit-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. down to explain this new concept with Mr. Girand and his folks in advance to see if there were 1 problems we may not be thinking of. 2 3 But I do think that this is the concept that staff was trying to get at, that a car can be right there 4 and parked. And then the question is whether that would work for Mr. Girand. I guess, again, 5 we’re sort of focused on this. I’ve got some comments on the other one but why don’t I hold 6 that and we’ll just keep talking about this and maybe, Chair, we’ll just have a round on the 7 other one when we’re done with this intersection. 8 9 Chair Chang: Yes, and I might suggest to make sure that our comments are clear, that we split 10 this into 2 separate motions, so one on one intersection, one on the other, so that nothing gets 11 lost in translation this time around. And we can wrap up discussion on this intersection and 12 then move onto the other. With that, Commissioner Peterson. 13 14 Commissioner Peterson: Thank you, Chair. I’m starting to remember I don’t know how many 15 years ago I made a elderly gentleman remove the rose bush that his wife had planted in front of 16 their house for a similar situation and I would never do it again. But here we are. And so one of 17 the questions – which I think is how we solved that one which is why I remembered it – is a flat 18 curb. It’s a drainage curb. If you’re familiar with flat curbs? Lot of times they’re used across 19 intersections even. But you can also use them around something like this, the dirt area, without 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. a raised curb at all. As we’re going through all the different types of curbs, rolled curbs, but we 1 also have the option of a flat curb so I wanted to ask is that a feasible design solution here? 2 3 Shahla Yazdy: I’ll be honest. I’m not quite sure what a flat curb is but I will pass it to Steve. 4 5 Commissioner Peterson: We’ll take a minute on the flat curbs. 6 7 Male: We’ll all be curb experts here [inaudible 2:34:44]. 8 9 Steve Davis: Never thought I’d be honored to be called that. The answer is I don’t know the 10 answer to that. I mean, it’s certainly an option that could also be looked at. It hasn’t been 11 evaluated at this point. 12 13 Commissioner Peterson: Right. And then quickly, could you just describe what a flat curb is? 14 Maybe if 2 of us give it a try, it’ll... 15 16 Steve Davis: I feel like I want to motion with my hands on it. If you would picture a normal 17 vertical curb, as we would call it, is usually 6 inches tall and it looks like that at the top. The one 18 that we’ve been describing is a rolled curb. I don’t think I have the dexterity with my arms but it 19 kind of does like a... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Female: There you go. 2 3 Steve Davis: ...like this. 4 5 Male: Yes. 6 7 Steve Davis: I’m probably not on the mic anymore. But it creates this shape and so it actually 8 has a low point. That would require further investigation as well. Those can actually be 9 challenging for wheelchair access because wheelchairs can bottom out on the bottom of the 10 valley. And then a flat curb is sort of a variation on that where more or less the 2 edges of it are 11 at the same elevation and you just have a straight line between each one. And depending on 12 the depth of it – it’s basically like a V is the shape that you’re doing. And just like you would 13 picture a V, if it was deep enough, you would have similar issues with not having wheels lose 14 their contact point, especially if you have footrests on a wheelchair. If it’s shallow enough, it 15 potentially can. And then obviously the balance [inaudible 2:36:06] things is always that the 16 deeper the V is, the more water it holds. The shallower it is, the less water it holds. Somewhere 17 in there is a balance point but I’m certainly not going to have an answer during this meeting 18 about 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: Thank you. That was excellent. Thank you, Chair. 1 2 Chair Chang: Commissioner Templeton. 3 4 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you, and thank everybody right now for their patience in 5 going through – if this was your home, you would all want to have people discussing it with this 6 level of detail. And so I think it’s worth it. We need to understand that the decision we’re 7 making – we usually make a lot of decisions for the public good at large but this is a decision 8 that’s going to affect somebody and that person has come here and asked for us to examine 9 your recommendation from their perspective. And this is really important because that’s part of 10 all of our jobs, right? We can sometimes lose vision for that. If we meet enough people who 11 aren’t being affected and they’re on board, it’s common nature to kind of say there’s enough 12 people here, these many voices outweigh the one. But this is the one person who’s being 13 affected. And I think there’s a lot of stories in our literature that we have read to learn this 14 lesson, right? I’m thinking American history. I’m thinking All Summer in a Day. I’m thinking – 15 that one’s not American history – but I’m thinking Hawthorne. Do we have – we have the things 16 that have asked us as people representing a public agency to understand how a decision that 17 can benefit everybody but one person affects the one person. I’m going to weigh in a little bit 18 about how I’m interpreting this discussion and I’m going to suggest a way for us to move 19 forward. I am not the only voice here and we may find other ways. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 What I’m hearing is that everybody with good will has tried to figure out how to have this 2 conversation and it has not run smoothly and there is not yet an agreement between the 3 affected parties and the City before coming to us. And one interpretation of that that could be 4 pretty negative is you want us to kind of weigh in and break the tie in the favor of the 5 recommendation from the City even though the City has not come to an agreement of how this 6 will affect the party whose property abuts this improvement to the street. That’s a really tough 7 position to put us in because our responsibility is to listen to the public. Our belief is that you’ve 8 been trying to engage with the public and maybe the timelines didn’t match. I don’t know. But 9 what we have at this point where we’re making a decision is a person saying this is injurious to 10 me, will affect my ability to enjoy and access my property. That is not something I can get on 11 board with. I’m not okay with that. And I don’t believe that any of the staff that is proposing 12 this, feels like that’s what they would want to do either. It’s not in any way an accusation, but I 13 would like to see us give you more time to come to terms and be on the same page. Because 14 every time we’ve had this discussion, this is what happens. 15 16 This is, what, the third time at least that this has come before us? And this gentleman has come 17 here and said you are harming me and my property, my ability to access and enjoy my property. 18 And I don’t think that’s what we’re about in this City. It’s really important to me to give this 19 public speaker the chance to meet with staff and my hope that you will take seriously his need 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. to access his home. And having been injured and had difficulty with my mobility recently, I can 1 tell you the thing you want the most is to be able to get in and out of your home safely and not 2 be scared that you’re going to have some other injury, right? You need to be able to get in and 3 out of your house. And if we as a city and us as a Commission are going to be making a 4 recommendation that prevents that, that’s not okay with me. I am going to say I’m not inclined 5 to make the staff recommendation for this particular item. I have a couple of suggestions on 6 paths forward. We could just say no, keep the stop signs, and we’re done. We could give more 7 time and say please meet with – be very specific – meet with this homeowner, come to terms, 8 understand what their requirements are, negotiate it, and get it done before it comes back. 9 That’s another option. I feel pretty comfortable with that one. I think that’s probably the most 10 fair. But it also has an indefinite timeline so we need to figure that out. 11 12 With that, I’m going to throw it back to the Chair and say that I appreciate everybody taking the 13 time to explain how much work they’ve put into this and I’m hopeful that we can come to a 14 resolution before we see it again. 15 16 Chair Chang: Let’s hear from Commissioner Ji first and then I really hope that we can get a 17 motion that’s some combination of all the thoughts that we’ve had up here. 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: Just a quick comment. I just think it might be helpful from a communication 1 perspective to just also show in the future the different iterations [inaudible 2:42:23] going 2 through. Because we only see what’s there now so it’d be helpful to also peek into staff’s brain 3 about what things have been discussed. But that’s my only comment for now. And then I think 4 we are probably ready to make a motion. I wonder if maybe Commissioner Templeton wants to 5 kick it off? I feel like you have some great ideas. 6 7 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you very much. I am struck by the emotional weight of this, of 8 not being able to access your own home but also wanting to make a street safer for the 9 community. And I think those are very important aspects of this item. And I think it’s really 10 important for us to recognize both of these issues have weight. If I were to create a motion, it 11 would be to ask staff to come back at a time certain after having met with and come to an 12 agreement with the homeowner at this corner. Does that sound amenable to everybody? Okay. 13 Is that the right phrasing? 14 15 Chair Chang: Well, if we wanted a day certain, I think we need to ask staff what that date 16 certain would be so that we can make the motion. Does that sound right? 17 18 Commissioner Templeton: Yes, I like that idea. So staff, that’s the direction I’m going. Is there a 19 way that you think would be very practical, straightforward, [inaudible 2:4347]. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: And quick so that we don’t hold this up more. 2 3 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you, Chair. 4 5 Shahla Yazdy: Well, we could meet with them to kind of describe what this latest design – and 6 try to show them what it would look like. At least through words. We’d be happy to meet with 7 them and to go over these changes that we’ve made. 8 9 Commissioner Templeton: I think I would want to make sure that we specify it needs to be a 10 substantial meeting where you have a little discussion with back and forth. Because what we’ve 11 heard from the public is that you have technically met but they haven’t felt heard. 12 13 Chirag Panchal: I would like to add to that. Again, I really apologize that the Commissioners, you 14 feel that way that we have met but they were not heard. But I feel personally that we met in 15 February in the field meeting, we heard their comments, we typed up their comments. I have a 16 log of the comments. In the beginning, they want to kill the project. And there were so many 17 different comments that we heard. And I have the list of the comments and what we did to 18 address that comment. I have list that too. And in October again we meet with them. And we 19 also heard their comments again. And we also tried to explain them same thing over and over 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 over again that this is what we are trying to do and we are here to help you. Again I want to 1 emphasize the AD 413 law came in. That’s why there has been little bit of shift here and there. 2 If the law was not there, then we would have been very straightforward. I have the whole log of 3 the comments that we received and [we are here for them] [inaudible 2:45:40] other locations 4 as well, right? But if there is another chance that we were given to solve this problem or the 5 concern with the residents, we would be happy to do that. But like you said, we want to make 6 sure here that they are sure of what the designs are we are proposing with the codes and with 7 the laws so that they can not get a ticket. 8 9 The thing here that I’ve been trying to explain, that you can park. And based on the design, the 10 AB 413 law, this is the best we can come up. And now the way we are talking is like we are 11 going into detail and detail on a granular basis of whether we have a 6 inches curb, a rolled 12 curb, or the flat curb. That’s where we are at right now. But it completely depends on how the 13 resident were comfortable doing that. Because like Jennifer mentioned, if I have a Tesla, I could 14 come – if I’m on a wheelchair, I don’t want to step down on the street and have a 6 inches one 15 step. I’ll just go on a sidewalk and just go through that. That’s another option. And then there, 16 we don’t need to worry about the 6 inches or the rolled curb or the flat curb. We’ll definitely 17 work with the resident on that but I do want to assure that we have put extensive amount of 18 work on this one with the community. I have sent letters after letters after letters to them to 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. make sure that we heard the comments. And we have received their email and in a responsible 1 manner we have responded [to them back too 2:47:18]. 2 3 Commissioner Templeton: Are you surprised that they’re here tonight not on board with the 4 proposal based on that level of interaction you’re describing? 5 6 Chirag Panchal: I do not have answer for that but this is just the comments that I wanted to 7 make. 8 9 Commissioner Templeton: What I’m getting at – oh, go ahead. 10 11 Jennifer Armer: If I may suggest, I think staff is happy to schedule some time to meet with them 12 to fully understand what their needs are in terms of how they get in and out of their vehicle, 13 what kind of vehicle it is, and to try again to help them understand what this proposal is and 14 what it would look like and how it would function. I would be cautious about committing to 15 coming to an agreement. 16 17 Commissioner Templeton: Well, I’m not going to approve or vote for supporting anything that 18 prevents an elderly disabled resident from accessing their home. 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: Understood. 1 2 Commissioner Templeton: That’s the bottom line. If you guys can’t come to an agreement, then 3 we don’t go forward with the project. 4 5 Jennifer Armer: I understand that concern. 6 7 Commissioner Templeton: Okay. 8 9 Jennifer Armer: I fully understand that concern. That’s been heard. What I’d like to suggest just 10 based on what we’ve heard so far, because there does seem to be an interest in moving this 11 forward and an interest in having a date certain, what we could propose is that we continue it 12 to the April 30 meeting. That is 3 weeks from today. And so that gives an opportunity, 13 hopefully, for staff to be able to meet with them. If that meeting is not able to be accomplished, 14 we can at least provide an update at that time. Or if that meeting occurred but there isn’t an 15 agreement, we could at least provide a brief update of what occurred and then a 16 recommendation in the staff report for continuance to a future date. 17 18 Chair Chang: Okay. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Jennifer Armer: [Inaudible 2:49:10]. 1 2 Chair Chang: I just want to hear what Vice-Chair Akin has to say because it might help move us 3 forward too. 4 5 Vice-Chair Akin: Nothing major. The confusion that I think I see is that we’re not clear on what 6 the use cases are. We need to actually be physically at the site with the vehicle or vehicles that 7 we’re trying to accommodate with Mr. Girand so we can see exactly what it is he’s trying to do. 8 Given that essential information, I have complete trust that you can engineer a solution that is 9 both workable and legal. But from what I’ve seen, I don’t know that that’s been done, that you 10 have actually put vehicles physically in the spot and watched people get in and out. 11 12 Commissioner Templeton: Right. 13 14 Vice-Chair Akin: I think that’s what’s missing. 15 16 Chair Chang: [Inaudible 2:50:11]. 17 18 Commissioner Templeton: I like that. I appreciate the suggestions here. We can make a motion 19 that will incorporate this. How about we could come to agreement on what the use case is? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 staff and the homeowner can agree on what accessing their house safely means to 1 them. And then when it comes back to us, you can describe how much of those requirements 2 have been met. Would that seem acceptable to staff? 3 4 Jennifer Armer: Sorry, can you restate that one more time? [Thank you 2:50:52]. 5 6 Commissioner Templeton: Sure. Just echoing on Vice-Chair’s description here, there – the 7 fundamental issue is there are 2 different use cases. Probably we’re using terminology that is 8 not part of this world. The needs of the Transportation Department and the needs of the 9 homeowner currently are not aligned. The Transportation Department says here’s all the 10 wonderful things we’re going to provide with this improvement to the street. And then the 11 homeowner’s saying here’s all the wonderful things I need to do to access and enjoy my 12 property. And these are partially overlapping but not fully overlapping, so there’s a perception 13 that the current proposal by staff doesn’t meet certain use case requirements. And we heard 14 from staff that we did receive a list and we have met as many as we can, right? That’s what I 15 think I heard. If we can get those things in writing and agreed to, we can avoid this frustration 16 at the next meeting. We do want to hear it. It doesn’t seem like we’re going to be comfortable 17 approving the staff recommendation tonight because we’re hearing very strongly from the 18 resident that this will hinder their access to their home. And you can imagine if someone, some 19 agency was hindering your access to your home, you’d be frustrated too. It’s really good 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. we were able to hear from him. We need to get it written down and very clear so that we’re 1 not having 2 different tales being told. Next time you come, we’d want to hear one agreed-2 upon list, how much of it has been met, what accommodations for the ones that haven’t been 3 met that you’re proposing. Does that make sense? 4 5 Shahla Yazdy: Yes, thank you. And I have a response. 6 7 Commissioner Templeton: Sure. 8 9 Shahla Yazdy: As discussed, we’d be very happy to meet with them. I feel that there might be a 10 disconnect in understanding exactly what the problems are at this location. This ramp, it’s 11 become a legal issue with AB 413. The ramp as existing, cars cannot park there. That’s existing 12 condition. 13 14 Commissioner Templeton: If we did not have our prototype installed, would there still be a 15 problem? 16 17 Shahla Yazdy: Yes. 18 19 Commissioner Templeton: How 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. 1 Shahla Yazdy: The ramp is nonstandard. It’s considered a pedestrian crossing. AB 413 prohibits 2 any parking or stopping within 20 feet of a pedestrian crossing. 3 4 Commissioner Templeton: Are you proposing that we remove the pedestrian crossing? Would 5 that problem [inaudible 2:53:42] – okay. 6 7 Shahla Yazdy: We wouldn’t remove the crossing. Parking would be prohibited. 8 9 Commissioner Templeton: What I’m trying to say is there is some world in which an agreement 10 can happen there that we don’t have to negotiate that you can work with the homeowner to 11 figure out and come back to us so that we can approve it and it can go forward. And I don’t 12 want to go through everything now because the Chair has indicated we need to move on to the 13 next topic. But the point is that we want to, as a Commission I’m proposing, empower you to 14 have that meeting and resolve this so that we can approve staff recommendation and move 15 forward. But it’s very difficult for us, and I’m unwilling to, and it sounds like we have other 16 people feeling that way, to approve something that prevents someone to get safely in and out 17 of their home. 18 19 Shahla Yazdy: We’d be happy to meet with them 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 Templeton: Great. 2 3 Shahla Yazdy: ...go over the – but I will say that pulling up – we can’t simulate future conditions 4 at the concrete path. The bulb-out out there right now is not what we’ve shown in the design, 5 so it is changing. That might be challenging but we will do our best to explain how things will 6 change and yes, we’d be happy to do that. 7 8 Commissioner Templeton: And listen. There’s a listening component that there’s... 9 10 Shahla Yazdy: Yes, of course. We have been listening. 11 12 Commissioner Templeton: I recognize that but we’ve heard from public comment that people 13 are not feeling heard and it’s not being reflected in the design. We can improve that and we’re 14 hoping to give you more time to do that. The motion I’m going to make is – help me out, Chair – 15 to continue this to a date certain, April 30, so that staff will have time to – I’m seeing some 16 shaking heads. Is that not... 17 18 Jennifer Armer: We’re going to need to propose an alternate date but go ahead and continue 19 with your motion. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Templeton: All right. You can revise that after I stumble through making this 2 motion. To continue this to a date certain, that we will discuss with staff, so that staff has a 3 opportunity to negotiate the needs of the adjacent property owner to access their house safely 4 and come back to us for approval. We had discussed a couple of tiny things here. You probably 5 heard them. If those are addressed, I’m sure this will be a different kind of discussion at that 6 time. But that’s the motion. 7 8 Commissioner Ji: I’m just wondering if maybe we want to throw in some wording that says that 9 we may consider design changes? Because what I’m hearing from the last time this came 10 through PTC is that because we did not explicitly say that we should consider all the 11 alternatives in the motion that other alternatives were not considered, so maybe tacking that 12 on to this motion? 13 14 Commissioner Templeton: I would assume that if design changes were needed, that staff would 15 understand from the motion we already made that that would be what we’re expecting to see. 16 But would it be helpful for us to incorporate that commentary into the motion for staff’s 17 perspective? 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: What I’ve heard is that you are asking staff to meet with the neighbor, with the 1 resident, to help work to explain the current design further so they can understand what’s 2 being proposed and to listen to them about what their concerns and their needs are for access 3 to their house and that if the current design is not fully meeting those needs, identify what 4 needs are not being met and consider whether there are modifications to the design that could 5 be considered to meet those needs partially or as much as possible. 6 7 Commissioner Templeton: That is a very gentle version of what I’m proposing. I am expecting 8 design changes to incorporate issues that are still outstanding, if any. 9 10 Jennifer Armer: Okay, then I’m going to look to the other staff here to see whether they want 11 to suggest, then, a later date to give time [for that 2:58:15]. 12 13 Chair Chang: Commissioner Hechtman has had his hand up and down a couple times, so I didn’t 14 know if you wanted to say something, Commissioner Hechtman? 15 16 Commissioner Hechtman: I can wait until there’s a seconded motion. I think that would be most 17 appropriate. 18 19 Chair Chang: Okay. Do we have a second? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: Second. 2 3 Chair Chang: Let the record show that Commissioner Peterson second. All right, let’s discuss. 4 Commissioner Peterson? 5 6 Commissioner Peterson: Very quickly. I’d like to suggest a friendly amendment that – I at least 7 am fairly certain and I get the sense that other people are – that the one design that we’re not 8 going to have is probably the one that’s currently marked out in the street there with the 9 bollards or curbs or whatever you want to call them and that we should ask staff to have those 10 removed. Now if staff wants to put a no-parking sign there to address that concern, I think 11 that’s fine. If they want to paint lines on the ground. But I think for the Palo Altan, our neighbor 12 here, [inaudible 2:59:19] enough with all that out in front of their street and nobody simply is 13 happy with the current situation. And then when the new design comes in, then they can go 14 ahead and [inaudible 2:59:29]. 15 16 Commissioner Templeton: You’re talking about removing the prototype? 17 18 Commissioner Peterson: Yes. I think the prototype has proven effectively that that’s probably 19 not what we want. It did its job. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 you accept that friendly amendment? 2 3 Commissioner Templeton: I’m not sure if it needs to be in the motion because we don’t direct 4 stuff like that. But I think the point is made and staff can hear what we said. Yes, I don’t think it 5 should go in this motion but I agree with you. 6 7 Chair Chang: Okay, additional discussion? Commissioner Hechtman, did you want to say 8 something at this point? 9 10 Commissioner Hechtman: Yes, thank you. I’m going to support this motion because I think that 11 there needs to be a meeting on-site with staff and the property owner. There are parts of the 12 motion that I don’t particularly like. I don’t think any member of our public should have veto 13 power over whether or not something comes back to us. My impression is that staff has 14 designed a solution that they think works but that the neighbor doesn’t understand it. And I’m 15 hoping that when they meet, they’ll be able to help the neighbor understand it and the 16 neighbor will be able to confirm that oh, yes, that will work for me. And then they can come 17 back hand in hand. But if that doesn’t work, I don’t think – I’m not looking for staff to negotiate 18 but rather to come back and report. And if there’s not agreement, I’m expecting to hear from 19 staff why they think even though the neighbor, who may not just like any change, why they 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. won’t agree but this will solve their problem, which as I understand they actually have an 1 existing problem that isn’t really known. Because of this change in law, they’re not supposed to 2 be parking where they’re parking currently. And so the solution, I think, gets them a parking 3 space in front of the ramp, the curb, whatever, but maybe not in the right place. That, I think, 4 needs to be explored. I’m going to vote yes on this and I appreciate, really, Commissioner 5 Templeton sort of pushing this back to an on-site meeting because I think that is the 6 appropriate next step. 7 8 Chair Chang: Commissioner Templeton? 9 10 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. I appreciate your comments, Commissioner Hechtman, 11 and your support. I will caution us. I did hear staff mention a phrase kind of like that as well. 12 Disagreement is not necessarily misunderstanding. We want to go open-minded and not in any 13 way that assumes a lack of understanding. We have some solid professionals here that are 14 working on this on the side of the public as well. It’s possible that there could be 15 misunderstanding on both sides and that’s really what we want to resolve. Because we know 16 you’re working hard on this, we do want to make that area safer, and we want to make sure 17 that we are also taking care about the homeowner’s rights. Yes. We all [inaudible 3:03:01]? 18 19 Chair Chang: Yes. I’m not seeing any other lights, so let’s vote on the motion. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Jennifer Armer: Before we vote, do we have a date for when to bring this back? Because we can 2 bring it back on the 30th. I’m not sure that we have any Transportation staff available at that 3 date so it may be just a written report with an update and a recommendation that it be 4 continued to another date if there are questions? But I just wanted to check in with 5 Transportation staff before we finalize the motion. 6 7 Shahla Yazdy: That could work. We can provide a written update with another date of 8 continuance. But we have some staffing vacations in the next month or so, so I need to make 9 sure that we have enough staff available for another meeting. But a written update, I believe, 10 can be provided [inaudible 3:03:57]. 11 12 Chair Chang: Do you already right now that the 30th is not going to work? 13 14 Shahla Yazdy: Yes. It won’t work. 15 16 Chair Chang: Okay, so then... 17 18 Jennifer Armer: Then we’re uncertain as to whether one of the meetings in May would or 19 wouldn’t work? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: This is where I stand on this. 2 3 Jennifer Armer: Yes. 4 5 Chair Chang: This problem of traffic calming was brought to our attention in 2018. It is now 7 6 years later. This was last here at this Commission almost 2 years ago and still the same issues 7 almost? There have been improvements, so thank you, staff, for listening. But I don’t think 8 we’re seeing the information that we needed or the buy-in that we needed. It needs to not be 9 another 2 years and so it needs to be in the next – ideally if we could get agreement and then 10 we could vote on it even without Transportation staff present, that would be lovely. 11 12 Jennifer Armer: So then my recommendation is let’s schedule it for the 30th with the caveat that 13 if we don’t have an update on additional information, though we’re going to work to do that, or 14 if we’re not able to have staff here and there’s a need for discussion, then it could be continued 15 to another date. 16 17 Chair Chang: Okay, but then we’d want to see it like the next soon as possible [one 3:05:35]. 18 19 Jennifer Armer: 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 Chair Chang: Great. 2 3 Jennifer Armer: Correct. 4 5 Commissioner Templeton: Does that delay imply that we need to address the prototype like 6 Commissioner Peterson said? That’s the other thing. I can see that staff is frustrated. We’re 7 frustrated too. We want to be able to move forward but we’re hearing that we’re not there yet 8 and it has to be there before it comes back to us. 9 10 Jennifer Armer: And my understanding is that the prototype is something that that would be up 11 to Council to decide, removal. I don’t think that’s something that we can take direction on from 12 PTC at this meeting. 13 14 Chair Chang: Okay, so that said, we’re going to leave the date certain as is in the motion, 15 correct? 16 17 Jennifer Armer: For April 30. 18 19 Chair Chang: For April 30. Okay, so let’s take a vote. Thank you, Ms. Dao. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Templeton? 2 3 Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 4 5 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Peterson? 6 7 Commissioner Peterson: Yes. 8 9 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 10 11 Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 12 13 Veronica Dao: Vice-Chair Akin? 14 15 Vice-Chair Akin: Yes. 16 17 Veronica Dao: Chair Chang? 18 19 Chair Chang: 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: Commissioner Ji? 2 3 Commissioner Ji: Yes. 4 5 Veronica Dao: Commissioner James? 6 7 Commissioner James: Yes. 8 9 Veronica Dao: Motion carries 7-0. 10 11 Chair Chang: Okay. Thank you. We’re going to take a very quick break. Thank you so much to all 12 the members of the public who have been so patient with this. We’re going to come back and 13 address the other component of this project. Welcome back, everyone. Okay, so we are 14 resuming the discussion of the first action item on our agenda tonight. We’re dealing with the 15 second intersection in the Crescent Park Traffic Calming Project. And this is the 5-way 16 intersection. Commissioners, it’s 9:00 right now so let’s try and make our comments quick and 17 then move to a motion regarding this intersection so that we can go on to Items 3 and 4 on our 18 agenda tonight. Go ahead, 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: Thank you. If staff could pull up the diagram of this intersection? And 1 maybe zoom in on the traffic oval? Great. There was a public comment about the relationship 2 between the planted area in the middle and the gray area surrounding it. Yes. And so I was 3 hoping that staff could just help us understand. I think the member of the public, their point 4 was they’d like more of the gray area to have plants in it. Yes. And maybe the inner circle, which 5 is more circular than the outer oval, maybe it can be stretched or maybe it can’t. I would just 6 like the staff to explain the dimensions and the drive-over necessity so that we can understand. 7 8 Shahla Yazdy: The dark gray part is actually part of the apron. And I know that the size of that is 9 really dependent on the truck-turning templates that were used to design this. And again, for 10 the fire or larger vehicles to comfortably drive over them. But I will have Steve go in more detail 11 about if there’s any changes that could be made? 12 13 Steve Davis: Essentially, the answer is that anywhere that you’re seeing apron, it’s because we 14 need to have an exaggeratedly large apron for parts of it to be able to accommodate some of 15 the truck turns. If you picture, for example, a vehicle that would be going northbound on Center 16 Drive, so coming out of the left side of your screen, and trying to make a left to go onto 17 Hamilton Avenue, the larger you make the planted area, the closer their movement becomes to 18 instead of being a left, it’s more like making a left-hand U-turn followed by a right. Which if you 19 picture a really big roundabout, is truly the movement you actually end up making. And 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. there were parts [inaudible 3:20:36] needing a lot of apron. There could probably be a little bit 1 of enlargement but then it would also probably start to get a very unusual shape and the apron 2 would be different sizes on each side. There was some concern that if the actual physical 3 barrier in the middle is confusing, it doesn’t very well communicate what you’re intending the 4 use to be, that it’ll actually be worse off. That’s more or less how we landed on the size you’re 5 seeing right now. 6 7 Chair Chang: Thank you. 8 9 Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. All right. And that’s what I was hoping to hear, that this wasn’t 10 happenstance, staff really thought this through. It seems like they’ve maximized the planted 11 area consistent with making this safe for our emergency vehicles. I’m satisfied with that and I’m 12 supportive of the staff recommendation on this intersection. 13 14 Chair Chang: Commissioner Ji. 15 16 Commissioner Ji: Thank you, Chair. I had a quick question. Can staff help me understand the 17 difference between what we’re seeing in this diagram and what’s the reality on the ground? 18 Because I think you mentioned during staff presentation that this has moved northward than 19 what is currently seen? Can we just see the side-by-side there? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Steve Davis: I will have to look and see if we have that drawing. I don’t have it at my fingertips. 2 3 Commissioner Ji: Is it noticeable? 4 5 Steve Davis: It is a handful of feet probably. It’s not a huge difference. 6 7 Commissioner Ji: Okay. I think my only comment is – and this goes back to a previous public 8 commenter – that I still think that coming, I guess, southbound from Center onto – yes, this is 9 the diagram we’ll use. If you’re coming up from the right side on Center and turning left onto 10 Southwood, I still am wondering if – I know that the little divider there is supposed to help 11 prevent that from occurring but I’m wondering if maybe just enlarging the oval to block that off 12 a little bit more could – has staff consider that? 13 14 Steve Davis: We did consider and we evaluated a couple of different sizes. The balance we were 15 trying to strike is particularly – the area that needs to be mountable for larger vehicles currently 16 there would obviously stay and so all of the enlargement in the northward direction would be 17 apron that can be driven on. And so the challenge we get is that the further out of the path of 18 travel you are pushing people for particularly, say, a westbound movement on Hamilton or a 19 northbound left from Center to Hamilton the other direction, “solving” the problem better for 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. southbound lefts would make the problem much worse for northbound lefts and you’d 1 probably start introducing those people making wrong-way maneuvers instead of going around. 2 There’s also the concern that for westbound people on Hamilton as well as northbound lefts 3 from Center, it actually would start to become pretty attractive to some people to just mount 4 the apron and go almost straight across versus the much larger diversion. It is an inherent 5 challenge of the size and shape of the intersection. Even being 5 legs, it’s not like it’s 5 where 6 there’s a center point that all 5 would meet so you’re trying to develop it on an offset and 7 balance the wins and losses you get on that. 8 9 Commissioner Ji: Seems like staff has thought this thoroughly. No further questions. Thank you. 10 11 Chair Chang: I don’t see any lights. Oh, okay. Vice-Chair Akin? 12 13 Vice-Chair Akin: Just following up on that. As I watched the traffic there the other day, it 14 occurred to me that when you have the final lane markings in place, you may have a good bit 15 less confusion. I just wanted to ask what you have in mind for the lane markings? Particularly in 16 the case of southbound on Center so that they don’t make that left onto Southwood. 17 18 Steve Davis: Yes. The current circle/oval has dashed yellow markings that are supposed to be 19 what we would call lane extension markings to guide people to where they are supposed 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. enter. Those aren’t shown in the drawing yet but those would be added as well. And then we’re 1 planning to use additional signage. The plan was to shift to the, I think, more familiar signage 2 that shows the circular orientation as opposed to what I think some people view as a normal 3 chevron just saying like go to the right. I don’t want to go that way. I think the circle will more 4 clearly convey what the intended use is. We have been looking at the potential for putting 5 more of those signs. You are allowed to put them in multiple places. We want to strike a 6 balance of not making sign clutter and not confusing people by having 6 signs that they see but 7 providing enough guidance for them to be able to react to it. We’re doing the same thing in 8 terms of potentially no-left-turn signs because you want to clearly convey the message that 9 you’re not supposed to turn left but make sure the people don’t misinterpret that as you’re not 10 allowed to go around the thing and turn left also. As we were going through final design, it may 11 even result in some custom signs. You’re allowed to do that too. Because the layout is [messed 12 up 3:26:04] basically. 13 14 Vice-Chair Akin: Great. Thank you. That resolves my concern. 15 16 Chair Chang: All right, seeing no lights, do we have a motion? Go ahead, Commissioner Ji. 17 18 Commissioner Ji: I’d like to make a motion to move the staff recommendation on this 5-legged 19 intersection as depicted 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 Vice-Chair Akin: Second. 2 3 Chair Chang: Great. Is there any discussion? I don’t see any lights so why don’t we take a vote? 4 5 Veronica Dao: Commissioner James? 6 7 Commissioner James: Yes. 8 9 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Ji? 10 11 Commissioner Ji: Yes. 12 13 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 14 15 Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 16 17 Veronica Dao: Chair Chang? 18 19 Chair Chang: 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: Vice-Chair Akin? 2 3 Vice-Chair Akin: Yes. 4 5 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Peterson? 6 7 Commissioner Peterson: Yes. 8 9 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 10 11 Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 12 13 Veronica Dao: Motion carries 7-0. 14 15 Chair Chang: I’m not sure that Commissioner Peterson’s light went on when he said yes and he 16 said yes. 17 18 3. Recommendation on an Ordinance Amending Various Palo Alto Municipal Code 19 Chapters in Title 16 and 18 due to Direction from the California Department of 20 Housing and Community Development (HCD) Regarding State Accessory and Junior 21 Accessory Dwelling Unit Law. CEQA Status - Exempt From the Provisions of the 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. California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Pursuant to Public Resources Code 1 Section 21080.17 and CEQA Guidelines Section 15061(b)(3). 2 3 Chair Chang: All right. Thank you, everyone, for your patience tonight. We move on to the next 4 action item, which is a recommendation on an ordinance amending various Palo Alto Municipal 5 Code chapters in Title 16 and 18 due to direction from the California Department of Housing 6 and Community Development regarding state accessory and junior accessory dwelling law. 7 Could we have the staff presentation, please? 8 9 Jennifer Armer: Yes, we have Principal Planner Garrett Sauls online and ready to provide a 10 presentation for you. 11 12 Garrett Sauls: Good evening, Commissioners. My name is Garrett Sauls and as you all just 13 mentioned, we’re going to be talking about the ADU ordinance updates that are presented to 14 you in the packet. To go over some of the background and the purpose of this meeting, the 15 purpose of this conversation is driven by a letter that the City received from HCD back in 16 October of last year where they had noted a number of items the City’s ordinance did not 17 comply with as it related to state law. As a part of the attachments to the staff report, you also 18 see staff’s initial responses and in the staff report you see the discussion of those specific items 19 that staff believed were more impactful to the existing regulations that the City currently has to 20 implement the ADU and junior ADU ordinance. And so as I noted just a minute ago, the specific 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. items that we pulled out for discussion in the staff report were related to HCD’s comments 1 Number 3, 10, 12, 17, and 20 where 17 and 20 are similar provisions that are mirrored on 2 different parts of our code about ADUs and junior ADUs. Item #3 was specifically related to the 3 unit allowance that the state currently provides for – the interpretation the state has, currently 4 provides for. Previously the City’s and what our code currently identifies is that for single-family 5 homes, a primary home could build one either attached or detached ADU and one junior ADU. 6 7 For multifamily ADUs, it would be that they could have 2 detached ADUs and potentially up to 8 25 percent of attached units through a conversion, at least providing 1. What the new state law 9 provides for is that for a single-family home, there could be one attached ADU and one 10 detached ADU as well as one junior ADU for one property. As a result, that would mean that 11 there could be 4 potential units on each single-family zoned parcel. For multifamily, the number 12 of detached ADUs changed substantially where if there is a proposed multifamily structure on 13 the site, a property would be limited to potentially including 2 detached ADUs as a part of that 14 application. However, if there was an existing multifamily site and they wanted to build 15 detached ADUs, they have 2 choices: to build either up to 8 detached ADUs if the number of 16 existing units on the site are more than 8 or they could build up to the number of existing units 17 on the site for detached ADUs, up to 8 or less than that. They still retain the ability to provide 18 for a 25 percent conversion in addition to that. One of the other larger changes to the City’s 19 provisions was related to junior ADUs. As noted in HCD’s response in Item #10, HCD’s comment 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 feedback was structurally to say that the City could not incorporate regulations related to 1 junior ADUs through what we identify as our Chapter 18.09.040. That section incorporates all of 2 the City’s local regulations around ADUs and junior ADUs. 3 4 And as I just mentioned, the State said that that section could not incorporate any provisions 5 for junior ADUs as all of those regulations were strictly carried underneath what the State calls 6 as the Section 66323 ADUs where we reference that as 18.09.030 in our code. And in order to 7 try to maintain some of those provisions which the staff has found to be very successful in 8 creating units or junior ADUs on the site, we tried to provide for an alternative provision where 9 what is incorporated into the draft ordinance now is actually a bonus provided for the primary 10 home when a junior ADU is built, where we feel more confident that HCD’s concerns are more 11 related to the nuance of structuring or regulating junior ADUs by themselves versus providing 12 bonuses for the homes to provide a junior ADU. One of the other items that was talked about 13 was about the historic inventory. Something that’s really important to understand in terms of 14 process for what the City has where there are Category 1 and 2, our current process is where 15 there are currently Category 1 and 2 historic resources or historic resources that are within the 16 City’s recognized historic districts, Professorville and Ramona Street, whenever there are any 17 proposed exterior changes to those sites, those typically – depending on the level of change or 18 the modification proposed – will go either through a staff-level review process or potentially 19 would go to the Historic Resource Board for review for those changes. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Again, as noted in the staff report and noted in HCD’s comments, state law has been changed 2 to specifically refer to the California Register of Historic Resources, which as you see on the 3 screen has an acronym of CRHR. And where the City currently has a number of properties 4 within that designation or that have that designation, which vary between our Category 1 5 which are our more significant properties and our Category 4 which is our least or lesser-6 significant historic properties, the State effectively was saying that again, the City even with 7 objective standards couldn’t regulate ADUs or JADUs unless they were on the California 8 Register of Historic Resources. And primarily where this would be creating a potential impact 9 on any of these historic resources or the potential for impacts to the integrity of the historic 10 resources are more so related to attached ADUs as those would need to manipulate the 11 physical structure of the building in comparison to a detached ADU which would not. One of 12 the last major items that were discussed in the staff report was related to the City’s kitchen 13 requirements for junior ADUs and ADUs where we had spent some time back in 2020 analyzing 14 a number of factors to determine how we could create some objective criteria and standards to 15 help staff and the public and applicants propose applications that would conform to our 16 requirements and objectively establish the standards that would help us, again, like I said, in 17 our review process that wouldn’t have to go through this cumbersome discussion of asking the 18 question of what is considered a reasonable size for a kitchen for these units. 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. Again, the State unfortunately identified that under the current state law, the language that 1 exists within it is broad and not prescriptive such that where a city’s regulations might provide 2 certain prescriptive regulations or indications of the number of burners, the size of any specific 3 kinds of appliances or countertop spaces, the state law does not incorporate those specific 4 provisions and, therefore, the City cannot adopt something that from HCD’s perspective will 5 provide some specific detail. In their mind, that would be more restrictive than what the state 6 law provides. The image that you see on the right-hand screen is a snip image from the City’s 7 updated ADU handbook which captured a lot of those regulations that we had incorporated 8 previously and were practicing up until earlier this year. And staff intends to – as a part of 9 future discussions with applicants and members of the public – refer them to these suggestions 10 as guidelines and provide that guidance to them to continue to try and give some clear 11 feedback on what facilities would be acceptable to be able to approve these applications. One 12 item that was missed in the staff report – and I apologize for not providing more detail on it – 13 was additional information about tree-protection measures. The State in their responses based 14 on Item #9 in HCD’s comment letter had identified that the City could adopt objective 15 landscape requirements within the code but they could not refer to other sections of the code 16 in order to enforce them. 17 18 And so in order for us to provide for these regulations and in order for us to enforce them, we 19 would need to adopt those regulations into our own code. That’s where you see in the draft 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. ordinance this new subsection in 18.09.040M which provides and incorporates the definitions 1 of protected trees, thresholds for impacts to trees, and replacement requirements, which on 2 the right-hand side of the screen you can see the City’s tree technical manual table that 3 provides objective criteria for replacement requirements based on the canopy of the tree. And 4 with that, staff will conclude their presentation. Staff’s recommendation is to approve the draft 5 ordinance and there’s a tentative date for Council set for May 12 to consider any potential 6 ordinance if this item gets recommendation tonight. Thank you. 7 8 Chair Chang: Okay, Commissioners, if you have any quick clarifying questions for staff before we 9 check in on public comment, please light it up. 10 11 PUBLIC COMMENTS 12 13 Chair Chang: All right, seeing no lights, Ms. Dao, are there any speaker cards? I don’t see any 14 hands online, I don’t think. 15 16 Veronica Dao: Yes, just one speaker card from Sven Thesen? 17 18 Chair Chang: Okay, great. 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. Sven Thesen: I have a deck that I submitted earlier. Hoping to show that because that will make 1 things a little bit easier for everybody. Thank you, guys, for listening to this one gentleman for 2 so long. Put your hands in the air. You guys are doing your duty. And stretch and breathe a little 3 bit while she pulls up the presentation. What I’m here to talk about, it’s so exciting and sexy. 4 It’s called impact fees. When you build an ADU over 800 square feet – Garrett, God bless you, 5 Garrett, by the way. Correct me if I’m wrong on any of this, okay? If you build an ADU, adjacent 6 dwelling unit, above 800 square feet then you have to pay a bunch – a huge – it’s nonlinear in 7 terms of the impact fees. In my case, it’s around $26,000. This is Grandma Judy. This is my 8 mother-in-law. She needs to live in an ADU. We need to build [them 3:39:13] at 314 Stanford. 9 I’m the house with the EV chargers out front. For 14 years it was free EV charging and then one 10 year a bunch of Tesla drivers and other people burned through 5,000 – oh, [cutting the 3:39:27] 11 clock. Next slide, please. Impact fees. Deferring impact – my ask is that we keep the way that 12 the process is right now but that you direct staff to look at a streamlined process to make this 13 happen. Because to defer impact fees until you’re ready for residency, which is allowed under 14 SB 937 directed, you have to get the city manager to approve it. 15 16 First that means city lawyers have to look it, then the city manager, then you have to get a 17 notary. And sometimes the notary doesn’t notarize it properly so you take it to San Jose and it 18 gets kicked back because the City’s notary did not do it properly. Then you have to go back to 19 City Hall, get them to renotarize the thing, go back to San Jose, get it properly done. Next slide, 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. please. This is just wasting everybody’s time because it’s only 26, maybe $50,000, right? We can 1 buy cars. My daughter’s operation on her leg was over $23,000. They didn’t ask for a lien on my 2 house for $23,000. This is silly, people. Okay, next slide. Keep going. One more because I 3 haven’t much time. Okay. This is what happened in my process. It’s taken me over a month to 4 get this into place. If you look at the actual code, there’s some [maze and shals 3:40:46] and 5 that’s why I’m asking you to approve now to keep moving but to direct staff to figure out a way 6 to streamline this, for the love of God, so that Ed and myself don’t need to waste time getting – 7 because this is all taxpayer money, all of our money being used. Because the person in San Jose 8 at the title and lien department, they have to process it and we’re paying for that money 9 whereas it could just simply be put as part of the permit that says do not issue occupancy or 10 final permit unless these fees have been paid. It’s not rocket science. 11 12 You can see it’s taken a month. Okay. You can look there. Took Ed over 10 days to get a notary 13 to sign it. I’m here to answer any questions. I’ve been through the Reach Code wars before. I 14 won this from Peninsula Clean Energy for my work with Reach Codes and I’m the person who 15 put in place our groundbreaking, award-winning EV – that’s electric vehicle – Reach Codes in 16 2012 and 2013 with Peter Pirnejad. I would love for you guys to say we recommend staff – hi, 17 Garrett. I’d like to get to know you – to recommended to staff to work with existing residents 18 who are likely to go through this rather than making somebody else go through these hoops 19 and be here. Thank you. [Inaudible 3:42:16]. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Chair Chang: Thank you so much. All right. I just want to do some quick context setting for this 2 and respond to some other public comments that we got. We got some public comments about 3 can you please change the ADU requirements and privacy, etc. Unfortunately there’s not much 4 we can do about this because the ADU regulations have been dictated by the State. And so for 5 tonight what we’re really trying to do is address the letter from HCD. Any comments from the 6 Commission? Commissioner Peterson, then Templeton. 7 8 Commissioner Peterson: All right, so I’d like to address the comments by Palo Altan Sven. Well, I 9 guess for staff, is there something that can be done to address the concern that Sven’s raised? 10 And then can I ask Sven a question? 11 12 Chair Chang: Yes, but keep it really directed, please. 13 14 Chair Chang: Thank you. Sven, can you describe your experience with the planning and 15 construction of your home? I think you even expanded the building permit to be able to allow 16 to have that EV? 17 18 Jennifer Armer: I’m sorry, that’s not a direct, specific... 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: Yes, [inaudible 3:43:41] agendized actually. 1 2 Commissioner Peterson: I know, but... 3 4 Chair Chang: Okay. 5 6 Commissioner Peterson: ...it’s related to the current... 7 8 Sven Thesen: The ADU or my home [inaudible 3:43:49]. 9 10 Commissioner Peterson: The current home where you’ve been through this process before. 11 12 Commissioner Templeton: Got to use the mic. 13 14 Commissioner Peterson: Yes. 15 16 Sven Thesen: It was not bad. 17 18 Commissioner Peterson: 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. Sven Thesen: We got special permits for 3 different new technologies. 1 2 Commissioner Peterson: Mm-hm. 3 4 Sven Thesen: And so that wasn’t impossible and I can – no, that’s wasn’t bad. That’s why it was 5 surprising how complicated this was. Just time and money. Our money because we’re paying Ed 6 and the staff to get this together for this deferral. And that’s why I would love just me and 7 Garrett sit down. Just like that gentleman said in a way. Just sit down with staff and let’s come 8 up with a better solution. 9 10 Commissioner Peterson: Thank you. I just wanted to establish that Sven’s been through the 11 process of building permits, built a home in Palo Alto which is somewhat of a challenging 12 process already, so if a citizen comes up and says this has been a little bit of a challenge, it’s not 13 an idle comment to come before us. Thank you. 14 15 Chair Chang: Commissioner Templeton? 16 17 Commissioner Templeton: Yes. Did I understand staff to say we’re not going to be talking about 18 the fees for impact fees during tonight’s meeting even though it’s in the packet? 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: The request to have a different process for deferment of impact fees. The 1 deferment of impact fees is something they’re allowed to do. In many cases that gets requested 2 when they first submit the building permit and so it doesn’t cause any delay. But in a case 3 where the request comes near the end, as you’ve seen in the public comment, it can cause 4 delay. 5 6 Male: [Inaudible 3:45:49]. 7 8 Jennifer Armer: The reason that we included a brief summary of it in the staff report was that if 9 the Planning Commission did want to recommend that for, say, impact fees under a certain 10 amount for ADUs that we not have the agreement and therefore not need to do the 11 recordation, that that’s something staff could look into. 12 13 Commissioner Templeton: Okay. 14 15 Jennifer Armer: It’s just it increases... 16 17 Commissioner Templeton: So what’s in scope is feedback to staff on talking about this further in 18 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: Right. 1 2 Commissioner Templeton: Okay. Thanks. 3 4 Chair Chang: Sorry, we’re going to continue on. I’m sorry. All right. Are there other comments? 5 Vice-Chair Akin. 6 7 Vice-Chair Akin: In general, we don’t have a lot of room to maneuver here but that’s okay. I 8 think I support nearly everything anyway. The only point on which I’m not completely 9 comfortable is the idea that the JADU bonus might be applied to the primary residence. And 10 one option that we discussed in premeeting is that perhaps the bonus could be limited to the 11 JADU itself. And I will admit that I haven’t thought through all the implications but my gut 12 reaction to that was that seems like a good idea because I think it would encourage JADUs that 13 are large enough to be used at dwelling units rather than having the JADU space limited to 14 something like a home office and the remaining bonus going to the primary residence. That’s 15 the only thing that I think I have on my list that merits discussion. 16 17 Garrett Sauls: After that conversation, we did take a minute to try to think about some 18 language to consider in that context and so what you see on the screen here is sort of a 19 highlight of the options, I think, listed or identified for Item 10 specifically. Item 10, again, being 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. the JADU provisions. At the bottom you can see the draft language in the ordinance and the 1 underlined language that you see on the screen here would be a potential modification to that 2 specific point, Vice-Chair Akin. 3 4 Chair Chang: Is this a change to what staff would recommend? Because in the packet on page 5 26, staff recommends the following 3 bullets. To remove the existing provisions for JADUs from 6 18.9.040, adopt a bonus provision, and then adopt a finding. Does this change what the staff 7 recommendation would be if we wanted to go down this path? 8 9 Garrett Sauls: The 3 options does not change but the potential language you see on the draft on 10 the bottom of the screen would be a change to the suggested language in the draft ordinance 11 as Attachment B, I believe. 12 13 Jennifer Armer: And so if this was something that PTC was supportive of, it could be part of 14 your motion to recommend adoption of the ordinance with this additional modification to the 15 language. 16 17 Chair Chang: Great. Thank you. Commissioner Hechtman? 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. Vice-Chair Akin had one of my concerns. Because I was 1 looking at that alternative described on Packet Page 26 and I like the alternative language that 2 we just saw onscreen and I think it appears to solve the issue of getting the square footage but 3 not using it for livable JADU space. And so I would be supportive of that modification to the 4 staff recommendation. On the issue of deferred payment of impact fees versus what we do 5 currently, which is requirement to record a lien, I think staff is looking for feedback on that. And 6 I support continuing to require the recording of the lien. My feeling is that we need to lock in 7 the obligation and we need to make a public record of it and I think that’s the way to do it. On 8 the concept of sharing, as Chair Chang had us do in the last item, I did get a call earlier today 9 from John Kelly, a resident who is the author of Attachment E. Although it doesn’t bear his 10 name, apparently he’s the person who submitted it. And he gave me some information that I 11 will just briefly share with the Commission. He said he’s supportive of staff’s responses to most 12 of the HCD issues except he doesn’t agree with their approach on the kitchens or liens. He 13 questions the legality of the impact fees and the other 30 or so things on that spreadsheet that 14 he turned in. 15 16 Mr. Kelly viewed that as an agenda for a potential meeting with staff, that staff would come 17 back to us toward the end of the year and report on those items. I share that with the 18 Commission for what it’s worth. And then the last thing, I had a couple of maybe questions or 19 clarifications on the draft ordinance that I’d like to just point out for staff to consider as this 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. moves forward. The first is on Packet Page 62 and 63 and it’s this Subpart M, landscaping. 1 There’s a relationship between sub-Subparts 2 and 3. They’re related to each other. I think that 2 Subpart 2 has to start with except as provided in Section 18.09.040M3. And then I think in Part 3 3, if an action is – it says described. I think you might mean prohibited there. I’d like staff to 4 look at that as these move forward. And then in Subpart 4 just below it, you use the term will 5 not delay. Typically staff in this ordinance is using shall instead of will, so it should be shall not 6 delay. I’d ask you to look at that. And then the only other thing I noticed was Packet Page 65, 7 Section 4, refers to the Palo Alto local historic inventory and National Register of Historic 8 Resources. And I couldn’t figure out immediately how that was consistent with the changed 9 language on Packet Page 58 where we’ve replaced Palo Alto and National with the California 10 Register. And again, I know this is one of the HCD comments. 11 12 And so I understood the change on 58 as being consistent with the HCD. I didn’t understand the 13 new reference to it on 65 so I’d ask staff to look at that and if any cleanup is warranted, do it. If 14 not, if it’s right the way it is, then leave it alone. Those are my comments. I’m otherwise 15 supportive of the staff recommendation. 16 17 Chair Chang: Okay. Commissioner Peterson. 18 19 Commissioner Peterson: Thank you. Question. Sven, what was it you wanted to ask? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Sven Thesen: My understanding is we could not get [a building permit to start construction 2 3:54:28]... 3 4 Commissioner Templeton: Mic. 5 6 Sven Thesen: ...without [inaudible 3:54:32]... 7 8 Chair Chang: Please speak into the mic. 9 10 Jennifer Armer: Yes, we do have a Planning Commissioner whose online via Zoom so they can’t 11 hear. 12 13 Sven Thesen: Okay, sorry. The question was why did I object? And maybe I misheard but I can’t 14 build until I have the document filed with the City. And it took Ed – God bless him – 12 days to 15 get that and then it was the wrong notary and so I had to – I couldn’t – I was on travel. I got his 16 paperwork. The next day at 8 a.m. I was at the county office to file it. Then they kicked it back 17 and I had to go travel and so that delayed on my side 5 days. I could not get my building permit 18 to start then. And fees got determined at the time of when you go apply for all of your permits 19 so I’m locked out [until today 3:55:27]. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: [Inaudible 3:55:27] to be able to start construction before that one 2 final document? 3 4 Sven Thesen: Correct. They said I could not start. I was not issued any permits [before 3:55:35]. 5 Maybe I misheard what you said. I apologize if I did. But yes, that cost us, Grandma Judy at 83, a 6 month. 7 8 Commissioner Peterson: Right. To staff real quick. Is there a way on this document to start 9 without it? Or is it really it’s the notice to proceed? 10 11 Jennifer Armer: Generally, the process of getting it recorded is something that gets started as 12 we’re starting to look at their building permit. 13 14 Commissioner Peterson: Yes. 15 16 Jennifer Armer: And so those timelines run in parallel. And so it isn’t causing delay to the 17 issuance. But the requirement that actually comes directly from state law is that the 18 recordation occurs before issuance of building permit. That is what the current requirement is. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Peterson: And then is a building permit here issued by the City or the County? 1 Just out of... 2 3 Jennifer Armer: By the City. 4 5 Chair Chang: Mr. Yang has popped on and I thought we might want to hear from our... 6 7 Commissioner Peterson: Yes. 8 9 Chair Chang: ...legal counsel? 10 11 Commissioner Peterson: Thank you. 12 13 Albert Yang: Yes. I was just going to say right now this is a relatively new development that you 14 can defer your impact fees until occupancy. And right now it’s in our code, our municipal code, 15 to say that you need to sign this agreement and have it recorded if you want to take that 16 deferral. What’s pointed out in the staff report is the PTC could provide direction that we 17 amend our code to not require it for some projects. But right now it’s required. 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: If staff could speak to how often do we have folks asking for – are we running into 1 a process issue because this is one of the first times it’s happened? 2 3 Jennifer Armer: Yes. 4 5 Garrett Sauls: Yes. 6 7 Jennifer Armer: That is exactly it. It is the first time we’ve had this request on an ADU because 8 this went into effect at the beginning of this year, this option for deferral. Part of this is the 9 growing pains of instituting a new process. 10 11 Chair Chang: And my follow-on question to that is I noticed that there are many signatures 12 required. Is that process of all those signatures required in our code as well? Or is it just our 13 internal process that [inaudible 3:58:08]? 14 15 Jennifer Armer: I will ask Mr. Yang, if he has knowledge, to speak to that. 16 17 Albert Yang: I don’t recall what signatures we have on there but I would expect it to be the 18 homeowner and the city manager and perhaps the planning director. But really it’s the city 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. manager and the homeowner that need to have notarized signatures. The other ones don’t 1 have that requirement. 2 3 Chair Chang: And it has to be the city manager because it sounds like maybe his time is the 4 bottleneck. Is that correct? 5 6 Albert Yang: It’s something that he probably could delegate to the planning director or some 7 other member of staff but usually it’s not really that big of a bottleneck. As Assistant Director 8 Armer mentioned, this was our first time. We put this form up on the website and we didn’t 9 realize it wasn’t fillable. Then we got it fillable and it ended up not being fillable in all the right 10 places. Yes, these are definitely growing pains of the very first time we’re going through this. 11 12 Chair Chang: Okay. Thanks. Commissioner Peterson, did you have more comments? 13 14 Commissioner Peterson: Yes, I saw Sven had a comment. And I do trust that [inaudible 15 3:59:29]... 16 17 Chair Chang: Well, so... 18 19 Commissioner Peterson: ...on the edge of the... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Chair Chang: ...I just need to say that we don’t... 2 3 Commissioner Peterson: Right. 4 5 Chair Chang: ...usually have a back and forth. And it’s at the pleasure of the Chair and I’m trying 6 to... 7 8 Commissioner Peterson: I understand. 9 10 Chair Chang: ...keep this moving on. 11 12 Commissioner Peterson: Okay. 13 14 Chair Chang: I think that we are sympathetic to Mr... 15 16 Commissioner Peterson: Well, like staff said, it’s the first time, so we have a good case. 17 18 Chair Chang: Right, but I don’t think we need to problem-solve that here tonight. 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: Right. 1 2 Chair Chang: We can certainly make a motion that we would like to include in our motion to 3 direct staff to investigate streamlining. Right? We can certainly do that. But I don’t think we 4 need to come up with a solution here tonight. All right. I wanted to just – I don’t want to cut 5 you off though so if you have more... 6 7 Commissioner Peterson: Just real quick. 8 9 Chair Chang: Yes. 10 11 Commissioner Peterson: I just wanted to thank the citizen for being in here pushing the 12 boundaries. And I know Sven was the first person I knew that had an electric car, first person I 13 knew that had an electric charger at home. This was crazy stuff back in the day so I’m sure that 14 whatever we’re seeing here is also probably pretty cutting edge. Thank you, Sven, for bringing it 15 to our attention. 16 17 Chair Chang: Yes. Thanks for coming and sticking it out with us through the other item. All right, 18 so I just wanted to say that I agree hundred percent with everything that Commissioner 19 Hechtman said. I also like the new – in particular – and I think this is the one change from 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. recommendation is the new language that was suggested because that also addresses the one 1 big concern that I had about the 500 square feet for ADU being used to enlarge the home 2 rather than for JADU. Are there other comments or are we ready for a motion? Because no 3 lights. Okay. Go ahead. 4 5 Vice-Chair Akin: All right. I move the staff recommendation with the clarifications requested by 6 Commissioner Hechtman and with the alternate JADU bonus language described by Mr. Sauls. 7 8 Chair Chang: Second. Any discussion? Commissioner Templeton. 9 10 Commissioner Templeton: Yes. Can you put the – yes. I’m just trying – there’s a lot of numbers 11 and a lot of acronyms in here and it’s hard for me to parse out the difference between that and 12 what’s in the packet. Mr. Sauls, can you just say that in like one sentence or less what the 13 difference is? Because... 14 15 Jennifer Armer: It’s just the last paragraph at the bottom. 16 17 Garrett Sauls: Yes. What you’re seeing on the bottom of the screen is a modification to the title 18 text of this new Subsection F in 18.09.050. The current language reads that the existing or 19 proposed home would get a 500 square foot bonus when they build a JADU. This 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. language would say your bonus square footage that you get is equal to the size of the JADU you 1 propose. 2 3 Commissioner Templeton: Oh, I see. 4 5 Jennifer Armer: So you don’t have a case where they’re building 150 square foot JADU but 6 actually getting a 500 square foot bonus. They’re using the rest of it for their house. Which is 7 what the current draft language that we originally prepared would do. This... 8 9 Commissioner Templeton: Is that a problem we’re having? 10 11 Jennifer Armer: At the moment, the language that we currently have in the code is that the 12 bonus is only for use by the JADU and therefore it would not exceed the size of the JADU. 13 Because we had to, as directed by HCD, not give new rules to the JADU that don’t apply to the 14 main house, we’ve shifted where that bonus goes. 15 16 Commissioner Templeton: I see. 17 18 Jennifer Armer: But this is a way to limit it still to the size of the JADU rather than giving the 19 house additional space that isn’t actually aligned with the JADU size. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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. And do we need to specify in a motion that we want to come 2 back and talk about all this other stuff in a little bit more detail? Like the problems that were 3 brought up by the public in the public comments and the emails as well? Is that something we 4 can ask you to bring back or do we need to make it part of the motion? 5 6 Jennifer Armer: If there are other topics that the public brought up in public comment that you 7 would like staff to move forward with – I heard different opinions, for example, on changing the 8 current process in terms of requiring a lien for deferment of impact fees – it would be 9 important for that to be in the motion or be in a subsequent motion potentially for a request 10 for additional discussion on that. 11 12 Commissioner Templeton: Okay. 13 14 Jennifer Armer: Or recommendation to Council that it be considered in this code change. 15 16 Commissioner Templeton: Yes, I mean, the guidance I was getting from the Chair and Vice-Chair 17 earlier is probably not to expand the scope of this discussion tonight too much but I would be 18 very interested in understanding the whole impact fee discussion. Because we’ve heard it 19 tonight, we’ve seen it in the public comments, in emails. It seems like an issue. We also saw 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. something about how the utility’s engaging with ADUs versus the property itself and things like 1 that in the public comments. These are things that are not in scope for tonight but that we 2 might want to talk about so I’m just throwing that out there. I don’t know how that gets 3 scheduled as something we should discuss but if it has to be part of a motion, I would want to 4 know whether we want to include it in this motion or a separate motion or what. 5 6 Chair Chang: I think it might be a good idea to amend the motion to add that we direct staff to 7 look at efficiency improvements in the [inaudible 4:44]... 8 9 Commissioner Templeton: Yes. Removing barriers. 10 11 Chair Chang: Yes. Removing barriers in the lien process. 12 13 Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 14 15 Chair Chang: Okay. 16 17 Vice-Chair Akin: I would accept that amendment. 18 19 Chair Chang: 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 Templeton: All right. That sounds good. Thanks. 2 3 Jennifer Armer: May I ask for clarification on that? 4 5 Chair Chang: Yes. 6 7 Jennifer Armer: We’re going to make the process of getting a lien as efficient as possible. As we 8 talked about, some of this was growing pains, right? Getting the forms to work and 9 understanding this new process. And so the clarification that I’m looking for is is there support 10 from the Planning and Transportation Commission to consider not requiring a lien for some 11 deferred impact fees? That really is the potential action that would be considered. 12 13 Chair Chang: [Inaudible 4:06:28] which is why I said it earlier that my comments were aligned 14 with Commissioner Hechtman’s. 15 16 Jennifer Armer: Yes. 17 18 Chair Chang: But if there was that desire, we could certainly make a separate 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: That would be my request, that it be a separate motion. Because I think there 1 are different feelings on that. And that really is the question. In terms of the deferred impact 2 fees, the question is whether you wish to recommend that the lien not be required for certain 3 deferment of impact fees. Impact fees are required. That’s not what we’re talking about. We’re 4 talking about how do you handle the process of deferment when someone requests it since 5 that is an option now by state law. 6 7 Vice-Chair Akin: As the motion maker, I would not accept that as an amendment to the current 8 motion but certainly it’d be worth entertaining as a separate one. 9 10 Chair Chang: We do have – just asking staff to examine efficiency – increasing efficiencies in the 11 lien process. We’re not adjusting the lien... 12 13 Jennifer Armer: Yes. 14 15 Chair Chang: ...itself yet. 16 17 Jennifer Armer: Yes. 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: All right, so with that, is there further discussion on the motion? And then we can 1 certainly do a separate motion afterwards. Okay. Ms. Dao, could you please take the vote? 2 3 Veronica Dao: Vice-Chair Akin? 4 5 Vice-Chair Akin: Yes. 6 7 Veronica Dao: Chair Chang? 8 9 Chair Chang: Yes. 10 11 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 12 13 Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 14 15 Veronica Dao: Commissioner James? 16 17 Commissioner James: Yes. 18 19 Veronica Dao: 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: 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 7-0. 12 13 Chair Chang: And so on that issue of the lien, is there appetite from anybody to make a motion 14 about not requiring a lien in some subset or all deferments of impact fees for ADUs? If 15 somebody would like to discuss, make a motion, please light it up. Commissioner Peterson. 16 17 Commissioner Peterson: I’ll make a motion to remove the lien per staff’s recommendation and 18 as described by our city attorney. 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: For all ADUs? For ADUs with an impact fee under a certain amount? What 1 would be your... 2 3 Chair Chang: I’m also confused because Commissioner Peterson said it was per staff’s 4 recommendation but I don’t think that there was a recommendation from staff on removing 5 the lien. 6 7 Commissioner Peterson: [Inaudible 4:09:06] description. [Sorry 4:09:07]. 8 9 Chair Chang: Okay. Per staff’s description. And so did you want to specify liens on – [not 10 4:09:19] for all impact fees? For impacts fees under a certain amount for certain types of 11 developments? 12 13 Commissioner Peterson: Let’s leave that open for discussion. 14 15 Chair Chang: Okay. Do we have a second? We don’t have a second. And when that happens? 16 17 Jennifer Armer: The motion fails for lack of a second. 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: Okay, the motion fails for lack of a second. Would anybody like to discuss further? 1 Commissioner Templeton. 2 3 Commissioner Templeton: Yes, I would like to ask staff to bring some of these topics back to us 4 in a broader context when we’re not restricted by the very specific need for the whatever it was 5 called. My brain is a blank. HCD recommendations, right? If we can talk about streamlining the 6 ADU process. There have been several public comments that have addressed problems that are 7 outside the scope of tonight but that are problems we really want to address and streamline so 8 we can maximize the output of these things. Is that something you’d be willing to do? 9 10 Jennifer Armer: I will add it to the list of things that we’d like to bring back. I cannot commit to 11 when we would be able to bring it back to you given the workload... 12 13 Commissioner Templeton: Don’t worry. I’m not asking for a commitment. 14 15 Jennifer Armer: ...and other commitments that are time-sensitive. 16 17 Commissioner Templeton: One thing I would encourage you to consider – and I don’t think it’s a 18 motion, Chair – just one thing is that this is a important component of housing production in 19 the 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. 1 Jennifer Armer: Understood. 2 3 Commissioner Templeton: ...so I hope that it’s in the wish list somewhere relatively in the next 4 year or so because we’re hearing a lot of problems that we do need to streamline. Thank you 5 for that. 6 7 Jennifer Armer: Thank you for that clarification. 8 9 Chair Chang: Commissioner Hechtman? 10 11 Commissioner Hechtman: I just wanted to comment briefly that I didn’t second Commissioner 12 Peterson’s motion because it seemed like he was moving to get rid of the lien, which again, I 13 think the lien is a good idea but I’m not opposed to a dialogue about it. I just didn’t want to just 14 jump in and say no lien. If that’s something we’re interested in talking about, then at some 15 future meeting, to have staff bring it back to us with the pros and cons, I’d be all for that. But 16 that’s why I had that reaction to the motion. 17 18 Chair Chang: Okay. Commissioner Templeton. 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: He doesn’t want to say no lien but I think we should consider singing 1 “Jolene.” Thank you. 2 3 Chair Chang: Okay. And with that, I think that staff has gotten the message about the various 4 topics that we would potentially like to discuss in the future understanding that there’s a long 5 list of things that staff has to bring before us. 6 7 Jennifer Armer: Okay. And so it sounds like general interest but maybe not a formal motion or 8 anything. Just general interest in bringing this back. Thank you. 9 10 Chair Chang: Thanks. Thank you, members of the public. 11 12 4. Election of Chair and Vice Chair 13 14 Chair Chang: Okay, onto the next agenda item, which is the election of Chair and Vice-Chair. We 15 don’t have a formal process that we have laid out in our bylaws or anything like that but there 16 is a standard process that we typically go through which is we address Chair first, then Vice-17 Chair. And so first we take nominations for Chair and Commissioners may nominate anyone, 18 including themselves, and then a second is required for nomination. The nominee states 19 whether they will accept the nomination and then Commissioners who moved and seconded 20 can make a brief statement on their nomination. And the nominee may also make a brief 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. statement. Other Commissioners may give comments. And then we can take a vote after all 1 nominations have been made, seconded, and the nominees have stated their acceptance. 2 3 Female: Is a second required [inaudible 4:13:46]? 4 5 Chair Chang: Yes, a second is required for nominations. Or at least this is the process that we 6 have used in the past that I am going to continue to use. 7 8 Female: [Inaudible 4:13:55]. 9 10 Chair Chang: Oh, okay. Well... 11 12 Jennifer Armer: And I’d like to invite the Commission to ask whether there’s any public 13 comment as well. 14 15 Chair Chang: After the nominations? Or when does that happen? 16 17 Jennifer Armer: I would suggest – and I’m going to leave it open to Mr. Yang in case he wishes 18 to say otherwise – that you would invite it at this point at the beginning of the item. You’ve 19 basically presented 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. 1 Chair Chang: Okay. 2 3 Jennifer Armer: ...staff report for us, so thank you for that. [Inaudible 4:14:28] 4 5 Chair Chang: Okay. There is one more thing, which is a majority vote is required for 6 confirmation. That is important because we just saw in another commission that they had a 2-7 2-2 or something like that. Okay. Mr. Yang, did you have something to add? 8 9 Albert Yang: No. I was just going to suggest that now would be an appropriate time for public 10 comment. 11 12 Chair Chang: All right. Do we have any public comments? 13 14 Veronica Dao: No, I have no requests to speak. 15 16 Chair Chang: Well, that was easy. All right, so then it is all us and would somebody like to make 17 a nomination for Chair? 18 19 Female: We need lights. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 are no lights. Commissioner Peterson. 2 3 Commissioner Peterson: I’d like to nominate Commissioner Akin for Chair. 4 5 Chair Chang: Okay. Do we have a second? Commissioner Hechtman’s the second? 6 7 Commissioner Hechtman: Second. 8 9 Chair Chang: Okay. Commissioner Akin, do you accept that nomination? 10 11 Vice-Chair Akin: Yes, I accept. 12 13 Chair Chang: Okay. And then would the nominator and the seconder like to speak to their 14 nomination? 15 16 Commissioner Peterson: Yes, I would like to speak to my nomination. Commissioner Akin is a 17 pillar of the economy – of the community – probably the economy as well, but the community 18 and isn’t just a member of the community in a sense but a member of the community that has 19 roots in the community with kids in the school and has that vested interest in making sure 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. our community is there for the next generation, that it’s there for not just one segment of the 1 community either. I’ve noticed that Commissioner Akin is very thoughtful about the different – 2 maybe that’s where the economy was coming into my mind – the different aspects of the social 3 economics of our community. And I think that is one of those standout topics that I see in 4 Commissioner Akin. Thank you. 5 6 Chair Chang: Great. Commissioner Hechtman, did you want to speak to your second? 7 8 Commissioner Hechtman: Sure. I sang Vice-Chair Akin’s praises when he was appointed Vice-9 Chair and I’m excited by the prospect of him leading the PTC through the next year. I think he’ll 10 be a terrific Chair for this body. 11 12 Chair Chang: Vice-Chair Akin, would you like to speak to your nomination? 13 14 Vice-Chair Akin: Certainly. Yes, it’s humbling and reassuring to get support both from one of our 15 most experienced commissioners and one of our new commissioners. I do appreciate that. And 16 if elected, I hope I will enjoy the mentorship of those of you who have been in this position 17 before. And I hope those of you who have not will learn as I learn. Thank you. 18 19 Chair Chang: Are there any other comments? Commissioner Templeton? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: He’s doing great. Let’s go. 2 3 Chair Chang: All right. Ditto. Anybody else? 4 5 Commissioner Ji: I’ll just say excited to have hopefully Chair Akin soon. 6 7 Chair Chang: Okay. That’s it, I think. All right, so do we have any other nominations? I have to 8 ask the question. Ms. Dao, could you please take a vote? 9 10 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 11 12 Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 13 14 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Peterson? 15 16 Commissioner Peterson: Yes. 17 18 Veronica Dao: 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: Yes. 1 2 Veronica Dao: Commissioner James? 3 4 Commissioner James: Yes. 5 6 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 7 8 Commissioner Hechtman: Definitely. 9 10 Veronica Dao: Chair Chang? 11 12 Chair Chang: Absolutely. 13 14 Veronica Dao: Vice-Chair Akin? 15 16 Vice-Chair Akin: I’ll make it unanimous. Yes. 17 18 Veronica Dao: The motion carries 7-0. 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 Chang: All right. Do you want to take over now? Congratulations. You can take 1 over for Vice-Chair. 2 3 Chair Akin: Yes, that’s right. 4 5 Commissioner Chang: Passing the mantle. 6 7 Chair Akin: And I’ll start by just making a comment thanking you for your service as Chair. It’s 8 been a privilege to serve with you. All right, so we have very little left to do tonight. We have 9 the approval of... 10 11 Commissioner Chang: [Inaudible 4:19:22] do Vice-Chair [inaudible 4:19:24]. 12 13 Jennifer Armer: Vice-Chair. 14 15 Chair Akin: Oh, yes. Sorry. 16 17 Jennifer Armer: Requesting nominations. 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 Akin: May I have nominations for the office of Vice-Chair? Disadvantages of sitting in the 1 Vice-Chair’s seat. 2 3 Commissioner Chang: We can switch. 4 5 Chair Akin: Commissioner Ji. 6 7 Commissioner Ji: Thank you, Chair Akin. Excited I get to be the first person to say that. I’d like to 8 nominate Commissioner Chang for Vice-Chair of the PTC. 9 10 Chair Akin: Do we have a second? 11 12 Commissioner James: I’ll second that. 13 14 Chair Akin: Second from Commissioner James. 15 16 Commissioner James: Yes. 17 18 Chair Akin: Commissioner Ji, would you like to speak to your nomination? 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: She needs to accept. 1 2 Commissioner Chang: Well, I’m willing to do it again but – yes, I’m willing to do it again. 3 4 Chair Akin: Commissioner Templeton. 5 6 Commissioner Templeton: I would like to nominate myself. The year I served as Chair was 7 COVID and I didn’t get to do it in this room, so I’d be happy to serve if Commissioner Chang 8 would like a break. Thanks. 9 10 Chair Akin: Do I have a second? Commissioner Hechtman? 11 12 Commissioner Hechtman: I second the self-nomination of Commissioner Templeton. 13 14 Chair Akin: All right. Do we have any additional nominations before we ask to speak? I see no 15 lights. Let’s start with Commissioner Ji. Do you want to speak to your nomination of... 16 17 Commissioner Ji: Yes. 18 19 Chair Akin: ...former 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 Commissioner Ji: Yes, I would. Commissioner Chang’s energy is contagious and as Chair, she’s 2 demonstrated an amazing ability to keep us focused and on track. She asks the right questions, 3 helps the Commission arrive at thoughtful positions, and always centers the public interest in 4 our work. She is thoughtful, articulate, and brings people together to move forward in the best 5 direction. Over the past 2 years or so, first as a member of the public observing meetings and 6 now with the privilege of serving on the body, I’ve seen firsthand how devoted and effective 7 she is. I’ve also been impressed with how she’s worked seamlessly with now Chair Akin, which 8 speaks to the strength of their leadership team. For the sake of context and continuity, I believe 9 Commissioner Chang is the right choice, that Chair Akin hasn’t had the benefit of a full year of a 10 traditional Vice-Chair role, and with 3 new members that recently joined this body, 11 Commissioner Chang’s experience and steady hand will be invaluable. I strongly support her 12 nomination and encourage you to do the same. 13 14 Chair Akin: Thank you. Commissioner James, would you like to speak to your second? 15 16 Commissioner James: Well, I am very new to this but I have had some help along the way. And I 17 think Commissioner Chang has gone out of her way to make this both understandable and 18 attractive to me to serve on this Commission. And, yes, she’s been a steady guiding hand for me 19 to get here so I support her. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Akin: Thank you. Commissioner Templeton, would you like to speak to your self-2 nomination? 3 4 Commissioner Peterson: Can I speak for you? 5 6 Commissioner Templeton: Oh, well, you’re welcome to speak. 7 8 Commissioner Peterson: If you want. 9 10 Commissioner Templeton: But I’ll happily speak. I have served as Chair and Vice-Chair before 11 and I respect that there is a tremendous amount of work that goes into that. And I just wanted 12 to say that all the things you have said about Commissioner Chang are true and also that she 13 deserves a break. Now that’s always up to her and she can decide if she wants to do it. But as I 14 mentioned, I think many of those things that you have witnessed with Commissioner Chang are 15 also things I bring to the table. In case she does want a break, then I’m happy to provide any 16 kind of guidance, support, and helping hands because that’s what we do for each other here. I 17 think it’s totally up to you guys but I’m willing to do it if she would like – it’s 2 years straight 18 already and then if she’s Vice-Chair, she’ll have to do it probably for 4 so just keep that in mind. 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, yes, I’ll be rolling off of the Commission probably in the next couple years anyway so this’ll 1 be an opportunity for me to serve again before I head out. Thank you. 2 3 Chair Akin: Commissioner Hechtman, would you like to speak to your second? 4 5 Commissioner Hechtman: I would. First of all, I echo the comments about what a terrific job 6 outgoing Chair Chang has done. It’s been a great year of leadership. And my second is really 7 more about sharing the wealth and sort of the nature of what we do on this Planning 8 Commission. My first year on the Commission, Commissioner Templeton was the Chair and she 9 did such a good job of leading by example that I was able to become the Chair the second year 10 without having trained in premeetings with her because I was able to watch her for a year. And 11 so I know she is terrific at this kind of work. I also think that one of the things about this work 12 on the PTC that keeps it refreshing is its dynamic of change. Right now we have 3 new 13 Commissioners in the last 2 months. And that’s exciting. Getting to work with different people 14 in different combinations on different issues is part of what makes this work worthwhile. And I 15 think there’s an opportunity here for our new Chair Akin to work with a different Commissioner 16 in organizing and running these meetings. And I think that would be a benefit to both the Chair 17 and Commissioner Templeton. I hope that she will have that opportunity. 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 Akin: All right. Other Commissioners are welcome to speak to any of the nominations, so 1 do I have any other requests? Commissioner Peterson. 2 3 Commissioner Peterson: Yes. I’d like to speak in support for Commissioner Templeton, that I’ve 4 seen Commissioner Templeton not just be someone that’s interested in the community but also 5 somebody who is mentoring of people in the community. I think one other person that was 6 previously on the Commission that was very good at that was Commissioner Summa who was 7 known for really mentoring a lot of people and I think that’s an important role in the Vice-Chair 8 is that the big perspective on the role, on supporting the community. And then also I want to 9 mention that Commissioner Templeton’s work with the bike safety is incredibly important and I 10 do appreciate the questions she’s asked about the reporting from the police department on 11 where the accidents are, how are the accidents classified, how specifically can classifications – 12 they get downgraded. And I think that’s an important focus that I’d like to see on the 13 Commission to finish that work, which sounds like it was started – sounds like everyone with 14 kids have had close calls with vehicles and so I think Commissioner Templeton does have that 15 laser focus on that topic. Thank you. 16 17 Chair Akin: Any other comments? Commissioner Chang? 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 Chang: Yes, so I have no light. I would be happy to serve again if that’s the will of 1 the Commission, so we’ll just leave it up to the group. It is more work but it’s also – I mean, 2 that’s why I’m here, to do the work. Again, leave it up to the group. 3 4 Jennifer Armer: And, Chair Akin, if I may, staff’s recommendation would be to conduct this vote 5 by written ballot. Given that we have 2 nominees separately, we would do a single vote and 6 each member would write down who their choice is. We do need to have a record and we 7 would read it out afterwards who voted for which. But some language that Mr. Yang has 8 provided me is that staff would distribute a ballot to the Council members or we could just 9 receive papers with notes on it. After submission of all the ballots, we would read aloud the 10 name of each Council member and who they voted for and then the nominee receiving the 11 majority of the votes would be elected to be Vice-Chair. 12 13 Commissioner Templeton: Commissioners, for now, guys, we all appreciate the promotion 14 but... 15 16 Jennifer Armer: Sorry. I’m reading and translating language that I’ve got here in front of me 17 from counsel. 18 19 Commissioner Templeton: Chair, may I make a comment before we vote? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Akin: Pardon me, Commissioner Templeton? 2 3 Commissioner Chang: Say that again? 4 5 Commissioner Templeton: Oh, I just asked the Chair if I could make a comment before we vote. 6 Since Commissioner Chang has indicated her interest in continuing to pursue this, the comment 7 I will add is that in all the time that I have been on this Commission, we have rotated this role 8 and so I think I would encourage people to think about that and hopefully she’ll be rotating 9 back in sometime in the future. But it would be nice to continue and you will appreciate that 10 when it’s next year and we’re voting for hopefully some of you. Thank you. 11 12 Commissioner Chang: Did you want us to just use paper then or...? 13 14 Chair Akin: Yes, this is... 15 16 Jennifer Armer: I’ll check in. Yes, we can provide you some pieces of paper and just have each 17 of you write it. 18 19 Female: [Inaudible 4:30:54]. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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. Right behind you [inaudible 4:30:56] cards. 2 3 Commissioner Hechtman: Through the Chair? How is this going to work for me? 4 5 Jennifer Armer: Oh, that is a very good point. Thank you. All right, let’s think about how we can 6 do it digitally. You could send an email in to us. Commissioner Hechtman, is that something that 7 you are able to do? 8 9 Commissioner Chang: Mr. Yang? 10 11 Albert Yang: Yes, I was just going to suggest [inaudible 4:31:24] email. 12 13 Jennifer Armer: Thank you. 14 15 Albert Yang: I was going to suggest an email if that’s something you’re able to do. 16 17 Commissioner Hechtman: Can I send it to Assistant Director Armer? 18 19 Jennifer Armer: Yes, that would fine. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. All right. 2 3 Chair Akin: This is an interesting process. How does it differ from an ordinary roll call? 4 5 Jennifer Armer: It allows – given that we’ve got 2 members who have been nominated, usually 6 it’s voting on a single thing where you’re saying yes or no. 7 8 Commissioner Templeton: Is this a public vote? 9 10 Jennifer Armer: The results will be public but it allows you to make your choice and share it 11 with us. 12 13 Chair Akin: It eliminates the influence of the earlier votes on... 14 15 Jennifer Armer: Correct. 16 17 Chair Akin: Yes, 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. Jennifer Armer: And it is in line with the process that the Council has used in the past. As my slip 1 of the tongue indicated earlier. Thank you for your patience as we get the names together. I am 2 still waiting to receive the email from Commissioner Hechtman. 3 4 Commissioner Ji: His service might be bad. Looks like he’s right in front of a waterfall. 5 6 Commissioner Hechtman: Almost there. Technical difficulties. Okay. Should be coming your way 7 now. Did it arrive? 8 9 Jennifer Armer: The speed of electronics. Not yet. 10 11 Female: [Inaudible 4:35:53]. 12 13 Male: Yes. 14 15 Commissioner Hechtman: Write it by text. Oops. 16 17 Jennifer Armer: All right. I’ve got it. 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. Veronica Dao: Okay. Commissioner James voted for Commissioner Chang. Commissioner Ji 1 voted for Commissioner Chang. Commissioner Chang voted for herself. Chair Akin voted for 2 Commissioner Chang. Commissioner Peterson voted for Commissioner Templeton. 3 Commissioner Templeton voted for herself. And Commissioner Hechtman voted for 4 Commissioner Templeton. Commissioner Chang has 4 votes and Commissioner Templeton has 5 3, so Vice-Chair Chang with 4 votes. 6 7 Chair Akin: Congratulations. We have an embarrassment of riches. I would’ve been happy to 8 serve with the many good options that we have here. 9 10 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. Congratulations, Vice-Chair Chang. You have held on for 11 now 3 years and you are doing this to yourself I’ll remind you in the future. However, 12 congratulations. 13 14 Vice-Chair Chang: Thank you. Glutton for punishment. 15 16 Jennifer Armer: And so now we can move on to Minutes. Congratulations. 17 18 APPROVAL OF MINUTES 19 Public Comment is Permitted. Three (3) minutes per speaker. 20 21 5. Approval of Planning & Transportation Commission Draft Summary & Verbatim 22 Minutes of March 12, 2025 23 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Chair Akin: At long last. I was so eager to get to these. All right, the next item is the approval of 2 minutes. The summary and verbatim minutes of March 12, 2025. Do I have a motion? 3 4 Commissioner Hechtman: Move approval as revised. 5 6 Vice-Chair Chang: Second. 7 8 Chair Akin: Ms. Dao, do we vote by voice? 9 10 Veronica Dao: Unfortunately, no, because Commissioner Hechtman is remote. Chair Akin? 11 12 Chair Akin: Yes. 13 14 Veronica Dao: Vice-Chair Chang? 15 16 Vice-Chair Chang: Yes. 17 18 Veronica Dao: 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: Yes. 1 2 Veronica Dao: Commissioner James? 3 4 Commissioner James: Abstain. 5 6 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Ji? 7 8 Commissioner Ji: Yes. 9 10 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Peterson? 11 12 Commissioner Peterson: Yes. 13 14 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 15 16 Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 17 18 Veronica Dao: Motion carries 6-0-1. 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 Questions, Comments or Announcements 1 2 Chair Akin: And the last item is Commissioner comments, questions, and announcements. Does 3 anyone have anything they’d like to share? Commissioner Ji. 4 5 Commissioner Ji: Since it was just spring break, I was just curious. I saw on the schedule on 6 Packet Page 8 that we don’t take a summer recess but I know Council does. Does anyone know 7 if that’s – is there a particular reason for that? 8 9 Jennifer Armer: That is correct. Because of our schedule, we do tend to cancel the second 10 meetings of the month in November and December because of the conflict with holidays. And 11 so instead of reducing the number of meetings that we have, say by canceling the 2 in July, the 12 standard practice is to cancel those 2 in end of November and end of December. 13 14 Commissioner Templeton: To add, you just say if you’re not going to be here and then if enough 15 people aren’t here, there’s not a Commission meeting. 16 17 Commissioner Ji: Thank you. 18 19 Jennifer Armer: 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 Commissioner Templeton: If you have a planned vacation. 2 3 Vice-Chair Chang: And I think that in the past there was a little bit of conversation about it 4 where we sort of said oh, we could cancel this meeting. And ultimately we did cancel a meeting 5 in end of July or beginning of August. Even though we don’t have an official recess... 6 7 Jennifer Armer: Correct. 8 9 Vice-Chair Chang: ...we can as a Commission decide to do that. So if there’s a desire, this is 10 actually not a bad time to talk about it. 11 12 Jennifer Armer: And as stated previously, staff always requests that you let us know if you do 13 know that you are planning to or going to need to miss a meeting. Let us know as soon as you 14 know. That’s why we provide the year’s worth of dates ahead of time. 15 16 Commissioner Ji: Thank you. 17 18 Chair Akin: 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: Yes. The last many years it seems like we have decided – at least a 1 majority of those years – to not meet the last meeting of July or the first of August. There were 2 some school schedules, I think, that led us for a number of years to just agree that we weren’t 3 going to meet that first meeting in August. And I’m open to that. I don’t have conflicting 4 vacations right now but I’m open to that if people want to have basically a month in-between 5 meetings. But what I really raised my hand for was I apologize I’m not there in person and that I 6 wasn’t right on time. But I did want to welcome our newest Commissioner, Mr. James. I’m 7 looking forward to working with you and I’m sorry I’m not there to greet you in person tonight. 8 9 Commissioner James: Thank you very much. I appreciate that. 10 11 Chair Akin: Vice-Chair Chang? 12 13 Vice-Chair Chang: I had a question for staff because staff took a poll or a vote or something 14 about a potential retreat? And so this would be the time – I didn’t know what... 15 16 Jennifer Armer: Right. 17 18 Vice-Chair Chang: ...if anything came back from that and whether this is future business and 19 whether there 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. 1 Jennifer Armer: Yes. 2 3 Vice-Chair Chang: ...a chance to quickly discuss. 4 5 Jennifer Armer: Thank you. Yes, we did get preliminary responses in terms of which days of the 6 week would work best for us and I’m looking over to Ms. Dao to see if she has a summary of 7 that. We haven’t yet had the ability to put together some suggested dates for that. There 8 seemed to be a fair amount of flexibility from the Commissioners as to when that could occur. If 9 some discussion were desired in terms of direction now, but my plan was to provide some 10 tentative dates and send that out as a follow-up survey. 11 12 Chair Akin: Any further Commissioner comments? 13 14 Commissioner Ji: I was just going to say I haven’t planned anything out at all yet but just looking 15 at the summer months, the gap in July between the 9th and the 31st is actually 3 weeks, so you 16 could even get up to 5 weeks of no PTC meetings. We’ll just say that. 17 18 Chair Akin: Very good. If there is nothing else, then we are adjourned. 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. Adjournment 1 10:28 pm 2 3 /ad 4